this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Because Merriam Webster creates and produces the dictionary of the English language. They're literally the one who decides if a word is official. Their retort is succinct.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Partly right, but they don't decide if a word is "official" (whatever that's supposed to mean). For a word to be a so-called "real" word it only has to be in common use among some group, dictionaries simply document words that have been in common use. Merriam-Webster is an authoritative record of words in use specifically in US English (with some records for other English variants and dialects, I think? ) but they are not a prescriptivist organisation. A word which appears in their dictionary is almost certainly a word that is or was in use in US English but a word that doesn't appear might also be a real word, particularly if it's a relatively new word or meaning.

So with that in mind, arguing that a word is real when it doesn't appear in the dictionary can be valid in some cases, but arguing that a word isn't real when it does appear in a dictionary (like Brian did) is generally not smart.

tl;dr, a dictionary, not the dictionary; not all English; "official" doesn't make sense here; in some (but not this) cases disagreeing is valid.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Nope. They document what words are in common use. English is a "form follows usage" kind of language, where popularity of a word makes it correct. That's why "literally" can mean its own antonym and influencers get to make up new meanings for Fetch and Mid.

Less architectural, more suicide note.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

This is true, they describe themselves as descriptive rather than prescriptive: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/descriptive-vs-prescriptive-defining-lexicography

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

They did say "official" though.