Wednesday, April 27, 2011

In case you wondered ...

... The Moral Implications of Dictionaries | Front Porch Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

To Johnson, the appearance of new words is just as likely as not to signify the effects of ignorance, and to constitute a real corruption in the quality of the language. To simply consent that every popular new coinage should be granted the status of proper English is to submit to a tyranny, the tyranny of popular opinion. The duty of the lexicographer, therefore, is to set his face against this tyranny, and to wage an unremitting battle against the encroachments of ubiquitous bigotry and nonsense.

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