• loudambiance@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    14
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Which dictionary? Merriam Webster added almost 700 “words” this year, including shit like: TTYL, finsta, bussin, cromulent, doggo, simp, goated, and more. I feel like they are slowly becoming urbandictionary.com.

    • kakes@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      48
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I mean, their job is to provide definitions for the words people use in language, not to gatekeep what words are “good enough” to be defined.

      I hear each of the words you’ve listed all the time, they’re part of our language whether we like it or not.

      • loudambiance@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        My point was more about which dictionary do you use and less about the exact words added. Webster added them, but Oxford and American Heritage didn’t.

          • kakes@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Now I want to play a game of scrabble where you play a complete nonsense word, and your points are the number of Google results for that word - lowest points wins. And maybe you have 5 letters instead of 7.

    • Sanctus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I would rather be able to spell out bussin’ for points than zzzz, aaa, or Mieropoix. At least it is a word people actually use in conversation.

      • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        Mirepoix is an ordinary word in cooking, but it’s an uncountable noun and they’re inventing a fake plural, like “featherses”.

        • Sanctus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          Didnt it specifically say horsefeatherses in one of those comments? I start drawing the line there.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Modern dictionaries are descriptive not prescriptive. They don’t tell you how things should be spelled, or what meaning they should have. Instead, they report how things are spelled and what people think they mean in the real world.

    • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I knew Meriiam Webster was going to shit when they added “literally” as “figuratively” because people use it facetiously.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s the point of it, though. People use “literally” as "figuratively, and it should be recorded as such. It doesn’t matter that it’s facetious or ironic, it’s still used that way commonly.