ISSUES WITH ROGER

Wordsmith – a Web Diary veteran (click the link for archive and bio) – Antony Loewenstein has issues with dictionary and thesaurus makers:

What is worse is that Webster is not a special case. While searching for the word 'Arab' in another American dictionary, the 'Rogers New Millennium', which is available on line at the internet, and is being constantly updated, it includes a number of synonyms that show how much Webster is dragging behind in its racism.

I mean that it is in the number of synonyms and not in the negative stereotyped meanings. There is no problem in the change of meanings of the word for any researcher.

Here are some of the synonyms that Webster gives and 'Rogers' elaborates on in defining the word 'Arab':

'Loiterer, vagabond, beggar, corrupt, vagrant, parasite, pauper, outcast, wonderer, perverted, clumsy, indolent, mendicant, lazy, negligent, the bad boy, erratic, fugitive, roamer, squanderer, gambler, spendthrift, peddler, merchant, trafficker, bidder, speculator, cheater'

If you were an Arab in an American dictionary, chose what ever you want among these words in describing what you are, you will not go wrong. Don't be sad, for if you try to go out of the dictionary nowadays you will stumble with other synonyms, and in no time you will come across with new additions, but what is strange in the stereotype dealing with Arabs is that the word 'terrorist' was not added yet as a synonym for 'Arab' in racist dictionaries. What type of siege is this?

It's not clear if Loewenstein wrote the pathetic trash above – I assume he wrote it as the post switches to the first person midway – or whether it's part of a newspaper article he links to indirectly. Perhaps he should clear this up for his readers: you know, so we know whether he's simply a fool for linking to it, or a complete idiot for writing it.

Regardless, as we all know, a thesaurus is not the same thing as a dictionary:

Although including synonyms and antonyms, entries in a thesaurus should not be taken as a list of them. The entries are also designed for drawing distinctions between similar words and assisting in choosing exactly the right word. Nor does a thesaurus entry define words. That work is left to the dictionary.

The inexperienced should be wary of the thesaurus, which can lead them astray.

It is also worth noting that American dictionaries tend to follow the descriptivist tradition:

While descriptivists would charge that prescriptivism is an unnatural attempt to dictate usage or curtail change, prescriptivists would argue that to document, without judgment, usages which they consider improper or inferior sanctions those usages by default, causing the language to deteriorate in practice. Although much is made of these differing views, they usually apply to a very small number of controversial words, while not affecting the vast majority for which there is common agreement. But the softening of usage notations, from the previous edition, for two words, ain't and irregardless, out of over 450,000 in Webster's Third in 1961, was enough to provoke outrage among many with prescriptivist leanings, who branded the dictionary as, "permissive."

Loewenstein, being a leftard, naturally subscribes to the prescriptivist tradition.