<div dir="ltr"><h1 id="gmail-headline" class="gmail-headline" style="visibility: visible;">Move Over, Wikipedia. Dictionaries Are Hot Again.</h1>
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<a class="gmail-byline-column-link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/column/water-cooler">Water Cooler</a> </p>
<p class="gmail-byline">By <span>
<span class="gmail-byline-author">KATHERINE ROSMAN</span>
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<time class="gmail-dateline" datetime="2017-02-11T11:02:18-05:00">FEB. 11, 2017</time>
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Ron Barrett </span>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">In the hours after Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-coretta-scott-king.html?_r=0">silenced</a>
by her Republican colleagues for “impugning” a fellow senator by
reading aloud a letter Coretta Scott King had written that was critical
of Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama (later confirmed as attorney
general), thousands of Americans did what they always do: They tapped
away at their phones.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">But
they weren’t checking text messages or liking a photo on Facebook. They
were thumbing through online dictionaries, looking for a definition of
“impugn.” On Wednesday morning, the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster
<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/elizabeth-warren-said-to-impugn-jeff-sessions-20170208">posted on its website</a> that searches on the word had surged.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">“It’s been at the top for almost 12 hours now,” said Peter Sokolowski, the company’s editor at large.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">As
he wrote on the Merriam-Webster website: “Impugn means ‘to oppose or
attack as false or lacking integrity’ or ‘to criticize (a person’s
character, intentions, etc.) by suggesting that someone is not honest
and should not be trusted.’ It comes from the Latin word pugnare meaning
‘to fight,’ which is also the root of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pugnacious">pugnacious</a> and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pugilism">pugilism</a>.”</p> <a class="gmail-visually-hidden gmail-skip-to-text-link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/fashion/merriam-webster-dictionary-social-media-politics.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=wide-thumb&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0#story-continues-1">Continue reading the main story</a>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-2">A <a href="https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/829323277894111232">tweet</a> posted to the dictionary’s feed linking to this definition quickly racked up several hundred retweets.</p><figure class="gmail-media gmail-twitter embedded gmail-layout-horizontal-inset">
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">At
a time when many are questioning the definition of common words they
thought they understood, after years of the English language being
degraded by text messages and hashtags, dictionaries have made a
surprising comeback in the United States.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">On
dictionary apps and websites, “lookups” (which, according to
Merriam-Webster, is one word) of words or phrases related to news events
have <a href="http://www.dictionary.com/browse/precipitous">precipitously</a> increased. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/barbican-2017-01-26">Bibliophiles</a> are becoming social media stars. Sales of print dictionaries remain brisk and are a profit center for some publishers.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-3">“Dictionaries are not regarded as sexy or interesting, but what dictionaries are known for is telling the truth,” said <a href="http://www.jessesword.com/">Jesse Sheidlower</a>,
a lexicographer and past president of the American Dialect Society.
“Right now there are a lot of questions about what is true. We want
clear statements about what things are, and dictionaries provide that.”</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">The
most commonly used dictionaries, whether in print or digital, reflect
what is known as “descriptive lexicography,” meaning that editors study
the way people use words and determine their meaning based on that
evidence.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Social
media has been revolutionary in changing the access lexicographers have
to the evolution of how words are used. Yet the process of evaluating
evidence and writing definitions in a clear and unbiased manner remains
the objective, said Katherine Connor Martin, head of American
dictionaries at Oxford University Press.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">The
aim is to provide the most accurate information about where a word
comes from, how it is used grammatically and what meaning it conveys.
“Our goal is really simple,” she said, “and it contributes to a sense of
authoritativeness.”</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">But
some dictionary companies are embracing the personality-driven culture
of the digital age to make lexicography more accessible and perhaps
drive advertising revenue through clicks. Merriam-Webster and
Dictionary.com use Twitter and other networks to share “word of the day”
features, real-time data about words that are suddenly being searched
by large numbers of people and cheeky observations on public figures and
their use of language.</p><div class="gmail-newsletter-signup" id="gmail-newsletter-promo">
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Each
company has been both criticized and heralded for using pointed words
in social media to promote its definitions. For instance, in early
February, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/827483841589891073">President Trump posted on Twitter</a>,
“Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the
point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Later that day, the feed for <a href="https://twitter.com/Dictionarycom/status/827546284663795712">Dictionary.com posted</a>,
“‘Professional anarchists’ falls into our new favorite category:
Alternative facts!” It then shared a link to its definition of oxymoron:
“A figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous,
seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in ‘cruel kindness’ or ‘to make
haste slowly.’”</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/fashion/merriam-webster-dictionary-social-media-politics.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=wide-thumb&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/fashion/merriam-webster-dictionary-social-media-politics.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=wide-thumb&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Eharoldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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