• loudambiance@sh.itjust.works
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    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
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      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
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        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
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            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
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      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.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      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
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      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
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        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.