An invitation

[David Colburn]

>
> Is anyone on this list interested in, and capable of, writing a
well-reasoned
> refutation of "The Decline of the Dictionary":
>
Why bother writing a refutation when one can just point to footnote 3
instead?

3. Lexicographers often try to justify the inclusion of solecisms like
disinterested (in the sense of uninterested) in their dictionaries by citing
examples from authors who have used these words solecistically. The obvious
response to this is that authors -- well known or not -- are not immune from
misusing and misspelling words and have forever done so. In the seventeenth
century, according to the OED (a dictionary we can still respect),
disinterested did have the meaning "without interest or concern," but for
the last three hundred years, the word has meant "impartial or without
bias."