![]() ![]() Most iterations render the beginning of it something like this: “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.” Embarrassingly, it still occasionally escapes into the wild. Īt least one new entry in the OED should resonate with journalists, who have been using it for years: “Lorem ipsum.” Anyone who has worked in the production of a publication has probably run across “Lorem ipsum,” placeholder or “dummy” type put on a page as it is being designed until the real type shows up. The two philosophies are complementary, not opposed, but that often means a word has to be in use longer to make the OED than it might take to get into M-W. The OED is “diachronic,” written from a historical perspective. Merriam-Webster is “synchronic,” meaning it concentrates on current, active vocabulary. The two dictionaries have different philosophies on how something gets in, as Sokolowski explained to the editors’ group. It hasn’t yet made it into M-W, but it seems to be having a resurgence: Of the 700 entries in Nexis since 1984, more than 250 of them are in the past year. “Imposter syndrome” has been around since the 1980s, but just made it into the OED. One has to wonder what takes so long for some words and expressions to get into the dictionary. The OED itself is no slacker when it comes to adding new words: In June, it added or updated 900 entries. And M-W was actually a little late on this: The Oxford English Dictionary included “tl dr” as a draft addition in 2016. That might be more plausible if “TL DR” were in the top lookups of words, but it’s not. “TL DR isn’t a word, it is an initialism ,” one person complained in a comment on the post, wondering if M-W was just trying to drive traffic to its site. Then, gradually, a word’s use spreads to the rest of us.” M-W acknowledges that, somewhat defensively, by saying: “It’s important to remember that new words are added to the dictionary only when they have already been used by many people-often initially by specialists or subcultures. Get over it.”īut whenever new words are added, there is a backlash from people who think dictionaries should be immutable, and language should just stay as it is. In this fast-paced world, “TL DR” developed its own shorthand, as a summary or takeaway, as in “The TL DR of this column is that dictionaries are going to add new words. ICYMI: Trump used a word that astonished Twitter users (“Usenet” itself was born at Duke University in 1979, where programmers called themselves “Usenix,” for “users of Unix.” The “Usenix network” became “Usenet,” or so it seems.) M-W traces the first usage to 2002, as an informal way to say “too long didn’t read.” It was used as shorthand in older computer chat rooms or bulletin boards that collectively were called “Usenet groups,” and so came in handy when texting came along. Included in that dump was “TL DR,” sometimes rendered as lowercase or without the semicolon in the middle. With the web, dictionaries can be updated frequently, and Merriam-Webster just dumped a bunch of new words : more than 840. We hope you agree, and we also hope this column won’t result in “TL DR.” ![]() Learn how to spell the most commonly misspelled words and improve your vocabulary!īe multilingual, see also translations from and to other languages: Spanish-English, Spanish-German, Spanish-French, German-English, German-Spanish, German-French, French-English, French-Spanish, French-German.That’s what Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large for Merriam-Webster, told a gathering of editors last spring. ![]() Define any word on the page just by clicking on it! Use the thesaurus to find synonyms, antonyms, related words, even images. Get in-depth dictionary definitions featuring phonetic pronunciation, part of speech, even usage sentences with examples of the word used in literature.īrowse definitions from multiple dictionaries, including Webster's Dictionary and specialty sources like a medical dictionary, legal dictionary, computing dictionary, even a dream dictionary. Search by word or use the dictionary browser at the bottom of the page to access an alphabetical index of words and acronyms. is a free online English dictionary and thesaurus with more than 240,000 words and definitions! Webster's Dictionary / Thesaurus / Medical Dictionary / Legal Dictionary / Dream Dictionary, Spell checker, Translations. Online Dictionary and Translations Online Dictionary and Translations
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |