Collins Dictionary named “climate strike” its 2019 word of the year. Runners-up included “rewilding” (to return something to a more natural state) and “bopo” (a shortened version of “body positivity”). Dictionary.com made its winner “existential” for similarly Thunbergian reasons. And the venerable publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary completed the set with an all-environmental theme to its nominations. “Climate emergency” emerged victorious from a shortlist that includes “climate action,” “climate crisis,” “climate denial,” “flight shame,” “eco-cide,” and “extinction.”
My paper OED lists a 1494 usage of “extinction” (as “extinccion”), so I don’t really know what it’s doing alongside these neologisms. But whatever. It’s not worth trying to knock down a pretense that these dictionaries aren’t even bothering to keep up. Dictionaries used to want to expand our vocabulary, not limit it. Now, they think their highest responsibility is activism, not lexicography. An implicit assumption in our culture right now is that if you want to make change, you begin by policing others’ use of words.
This is best exemplified by an infuriating little post Dictionary.com released looking at the year ahead: “Stop using these phrases in 2020 (use these synonyms instead).” In a maximally cloying tone, it informs us we are all verbal sinners, but it’s not too late to find synonymic salvation:
“We all misspeak or misuse words sometimes. Maybe we’ve latched onto phrases … with no clue they were being used inappropriately — or even worse, offensively.
“It’s OK; most of us unknowingly use problematic words and phrases from time to time without thinking about their origins or how they could hurt some groups of people. What’s not OK is to keep doing it once you know it’s wrong.”
Newly “problematic” phrases include “guru,” “ninja,” “Nazi,” “bingeing,” “scalp,” and “hysterical.”
Sadly, there isn’t room here to cover each arrogant, ignorant one. (“Yep, cultural appropriation is the issue again with the word ninja.”) Let’s look at two to examine how this kind of word policing manufactures rather than addresses offense.
In the section on “bingeing,” Dictionary.com says that “the word binge originates from serious eating disorders, including Binge Eating Disorder and bulimia, and should be reserved for discussions about them.” This is simply untrue. Binge Eating Disorder dates officially to 2013, and the etymology of “binge” traces to at least an 1850s usage for a drinking spree, probably from an earlier meaning for wood soaking up water. The reference source is actively lying because the “offensive” explanation is just assumed to be the true one.
The “Nazi” section gets even dumber. First, it informs us that “Nazi” refers to the “Party, which controlled Germany from 1933–1945 under Adolf Hitler.” Mind-expanding stuff. Then it suggests replacements for colloquial uses, as though saying “grammar Nazi” or “soup Nazi” were not intentionally trading on the literal Nazis’ rigidity and evil for comedic effect:
“My father-in-law is a cookie boss.” Or: “I go all authoritarian when it comes to the right way to put up Christmas decorations.”
Why is sticking to these awkward replacements supposedly so important? “Using the term casually, as in grammar Nazi … makes light of the horrible atrocities they committed.” Yep, mockery of authoritarians is apparently a bad and illiberal enterprise, not a sign of an open, free culture. Somebody should’ve warned Mel Brooks and Charlie Chaplin.
Utopia, apparently, will be achieved via vocab. We just need to regulate away any reference to “offensive” things. I know because, for some reason, the dictionary told me.
