Challenges of the Dictionary

October 18, 2012 / Melody Smith / Comments Off on Challenges of the Dictionary

American Heritage Dictionary recently published their fifth edition of what is known as the conservative dictionary. What is considered a conservative dictionary, you ask? It isn’t because of its politics, it is due to the conservative usages it includes.

The Weekly Standard brought this fun and interesting news to our attention in their article, “Wars of Words.” This article outlines the process and challenges the dictionary has faced and continues to thwart. Linguists consider the usages very important to their work and the integrity of words in general, so it is no surprise that they are campaigning for support in this arena.

Of course, in 1965 when it broke new ground by publishing the “f” word in their dictionary, few would consider it conservative.

Melody K. Smith

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Melody Smith

Melody K. Smith has provided organizational, social media and digital communication services to a large non-profit for the past twenty years. Prior to that she championed employee engagement and communications in the healthcare field. She holds a Bachelors degree in Marketing. When not wrangling and writing TaxoDiary content for your reading pleasure, Melody writes fiction, rescues dogs and throws legendary dinner parties.