If it's not in the dictionary, it must not be a word

[Wilson Gray]

It's this kind of unthinking stupidity that used to drive me up the
wall when I was a llibrarian, causing me to characterize librarianship
as "the hardest job that there is that doesn't require heavy lifting."
OTOH, a fellow librarian once suggested to me that the root of the
problem is what she termed my "lack of the proper service attitude."

As one of those who argued against the airing of pet peeves, I must
again apologize.

-Wilson

On 6/8/06, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      If it's not in the dictionary, it must not be a word
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/06/experts_agree_s.html
>
> Keith Cowling writes a blog called "Nasa Watch", where he criticizes the
> government space agency.  Here, he's complaining about the use of
> "synergizing", which he can't find in dictionaries.
>
> To the extent that his point is that NASA folks may speak in a way that
> is obfuscatory, fine, but his example is pretty bad (and wrong, to
> boot).  "Synergize" is listed as a verb in his dictionaries, and the OED
> as well.
>
> Apparently he doesn't know that the various tenses sometimes are, but
> often are not, broken out separately from the root verb in dictionaries.
>
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>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org