It has been surreal in the Trump era to watch dictionaries troll the president on Twitter. Merriam-Webster used its social media accounts to go after “unpresidented” official typos and Orwellian coinages. At year’s end, this lexicographical punditry drew up a list of words of the year.
Traditionally, such lists include fun neologisms, tech terms, or, for Oxford Dictionaries in 2015, an emoji. In 2014, Oxford chose “vape.” Merriam-Webster went for “w00t” in 2007 and simply “science” in 2013. And this year? Dictionary.com picked “misinformation.” Oxford’s was “toxic” (as in masculinity). Merriam-Webster went with “justice.” In case the hoped-for profundity wasn’t obvious enough, its editor-at-large told Time magazine that “justice” also refers to the federal department that employs Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
What’s so odd about dictionaries as thought leaders is that “reading the dictionary” isn’t most people’s idea of a culturally engaging pastime. Dictionaries are viewed as informational resources: dry, witless, and politically inert.
[Read more: ‘Justice’ is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year ]
But they have a noble tradition of being political and satirical. The greatest example is Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary, a wry compendium of contradictory and silly definitions such as of the noun “egotist” as “a person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.” Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, wrote two: The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff. Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, penned a short Good Citizen’s Alphabet, in which he tried to undo the negative connotation of “pedant” by defining it as “a man who likes his statements to be true.” The genre should not surprise us, given that the first English dictionary was written by that towering genius Samuel Johnson, the 18th century wordsmith, satirist, and political intriguer.
There’s to be no zone of truce in the online culture war, not even if it’s the reference section. And to be frank, Merriam-Webster staffers in the Twittersphere lack Dr. Johnson’s wit and wisdom. So while the dictionary’s information should live online, maybe its personality should stay back at the library.
