full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Ilan Stavans: Who decides what's in the dictionary?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Today, the Merriam-Webster dcinritaoy biegns to address a contradiction in Webster’s goal: he wanted to represent an entire nation, but he based his work on just one person’s opinion: his own. Since Webster’s death, each new edition of the dictionary has been curated by a group of language experts rather than by a single authority. The cunerrt criteria for including a word in the dictionary are that it has “widespread, sustained, and meaningful use.” This clearly includes partfenoiis, which were sometimes excluded from dictionaries in the past. Racial slurs also meet the citerira for isounicln, but some argue that including them might legitimize them.
Open Cloze
Today, the Merriam-Webster __________ ______ to address a contradiction in Webster’s goal: he wanted to represent an entire nation, but he based his work on just one person’s opinion: his own. Since Webster’s death, each new edition of the dictionary has been curated by a group of language experts rather than by a single authority. The _______ criteria for including a word in the dictionary are that it has “widespread, sustained, and meaningful use.” This clearly includes ___________, which were sometimes excluded from dictionaries in the past. Racial slurs also meet the ________ for _________, but some argue that including them might legitimize them.
Solution
- profanities
- criteria
- current
- begins
- inclusion
- dictionary
Original Text
Today, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary begins to address a contradiction in Webster’s goal: he wanted to represent an entire nation, but he based his work on just one person’s opinion: his own. Since Webster’s death, each new edition of the dictionary has been curated by a group of language experts rather than by a single authority. The current criteria for including a word in the dictionary are that it has “widespread, sustained, and meaningful use.” This clearly includes profanities, which were sometimes excluded from dictionaries in the past. Racial slurs also meet the criteria for inclusion, but some argue that including them might legitimize them.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
noah webster |
2 |
united states |
2 |
english language |
2 |
slang words |
2 |
Important Words
- address
- argue
- authority
- based
- begins
- contradiction
- criteria
- curated
- current
- death
- dictionaries
- dictionary
- edition
- entire
- excluded
- experts
- group
- includes
- including
- inclusion
- language
- legitimize
- meaningful
- meet
- nation
- profanities
- racial
- represent
- single
- slurs
- sustained
- today
- wanted
- word
- work