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Webster's dictionary redefines 'marriage'
WorldNetDaily ^ | March 17, 2009 | Bob Unruh

Posted on 03/17/2009 6:15:24 PM PDT by Jeb21

One of the nation's most prominent dictionary companies has resolved the argument over whether the term "marriage" should apply to same-sex duos or be reserved for the institution that has held families together for millennia: by simply writing a new definition.

"I was shocked to see that Merriam-Webster changed their definition of the word 'marriage,' a word which has referred exclusively to a contract between a man and a woman for centuries. It has now added same sex," YouTube user Eric B. noted to WND.

"The 1992 Webster's Dictionary does not mention same sex at all," he wrote.

He created a YouTube video illustrating his concerns, which has been embedded here...

(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 1984; badisgood; dictionary; freedomisslavery; homosexualagenda; marriage; moralabsolutes; orwell; perverts; topsyturvy; warispeace; websters
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To: Altura Ct.

What you said. I think the marxist egalatarian school of thought it is the main deconstructor of the family, for the reason that deconstructing the family makes us weak little tools of the state.


81 posted on 03/18/2009 5:09:22 PM PDT by Marie2 (I don't know what that bird told you, but I'M Brian Fellows)
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Comment #82 Removed by Moderator

To: onedoug

While irreverent, that meaning was primarily used as slang or jargon or analogy, for example by Mergers and Acquisitions lawyers. Nobody who off-handedly used the term “marriage” to describe, for example, Abbott and Costello, deliberately intended to change the meaning of “marriage” in a legal or social sense.

The push for gay “marriage” is an ideological attempt to sacrilegiously change the original meaning of the word. Webster’s has signed up for that agenda, and is thus siding with our enemies. One wouldn’t imagine that, at the height of the Cold War, Webster’s would give a definition of “freedom” as “the state’s commitment to unite the proletariat”.


83 posted on 03/18/2009 5:38:13 PM PDT by cmj328 (Filibuster FOCA or lose reelection)
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To: smashtheduck
Outside of those who were disobedient to God's original command, can you name an example?
84 posted on 03/18/2009 5:53:06 PM PDT by 444Flyer (Don't beLIEve Obama.............................Never give up, never give in, never give out!)
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To: cycjec
I’ve preferred older dictionaries for years, decades even.

I use The Random House Dictionary of the English Language ( the Unabridged Edition) 1967. It works for me.

85 posted on 03/18/2009 7:07:16 PM PDT by GOPJ (CEO:Chief Embezzlement Officer- CFO:Corporate Fraud Officer-CASH FLOW: money down the toilet.)
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To: Jeb21

Maybe we just need a new expression of words for a union between a man and a woman and let the homosexuals have “marriage” since they so desperately want it.

How about “holy matrimony”? We can just use that to define the union between a man and a woman.

Because it is holy the gays will not want it.

Marriage has been debased by the gay men and lesbian women and many of their “marriages” or “unions” don’t last very long.

Holy Matrimony has a more intense and permanent sound to it.


86 posted on 03/18/2009 7:52:17 PM PDT by FlyingEagle
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To: Marie2
I guess I am thinking of retired folks, widows and widowers and such, marrying. We all know there is no way they are going to have kids. I just feel like the “procreation” argument sort of shuts them out.

Marriage is based on the reproductive model. The key word is model. That doesn't mean a couple has to reproduce. It means that the activity in which a married couple engages could lead to reproduction. (I'm trying to put it politely. I don't want to use raw terms. But, let me put it this way: Certain parts are meant to go into certain places.)

87 posted on 03/18/2009 8:16:30 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes (Dad, I will always think of you.)
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To: Tired of Taxes

I understand. In that case, I guess I’d just like that pointed out.

I think there is MORE to marriage than procreation. Of course procreation, and the appropriate rearing of little fellers, is a huge and primary objective. But there is more to marriage, than that.


88 posted on 03/18/2009 10:26:29 PM PDT by Marie2 (I don't know what that bird told you, but I'M Brian Fellows)
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Comment #89 Removed by Moderator

Comment #90 Removed by Moderator

To: Marie2
I think there is MORE to marriage than procreation. Of course procreation, and the appropriate rearing of little fellers, is a huge and primary objective. But there is more to marriage, than that.

Absolutely! I couldn't agree with you more.

91 posted on 03/18/2009 11:58:56 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes (Dad, I will always think of you.)
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To: mquinn

heeheeheee

Thanks Rush. :)


92 posted on 03/19/2009 1:52:26 AM PDT by deannadurbin
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To: Tired of Taxes

When all is said and done though I wouldn’t want a childless marriage. You just grow to be too self-centered without children. God gave the command, “Be fruitful and multiply” and He didn’t give us an expiration date for that command.


93 posted on 03/19/2009 1:54:51 AM PDT by deannadurbin
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To: Military family member

The short answer is that dictionaries are both descriptive and prescriptive, always with an uneasy balance between the two. You can argue that the word “marriage” *should* not be used to describe same-sex unions, but you cannot argue that it *is* not being so used.


94 posted on 03/19/2009 2:03:11 AM PDT by ReignOfError
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To: cmj328
Boycott Webster! The book is now formally heretical

Now?

The following is from the 1913 edition:

1. A being conceived of as possessing supernatural power, and to be propitiated by sacrifice, worship, etc.; a divinity; a deity; an object of worship; an idol.
He maketh a god, and worshipeth it. - Is. xliv. 15.

The race of Israel . . . bowing lowly down To bestial gods. - Milton.

2. The Supreme Being; the eternal and infinite Spirit, the Creator, and the Sovereign of the universe; Jehovah.
God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. - John iv. 24.

This is defying the first amendment -- "thou shalt have no gods before me" -- in the most literal way possible.

95 posted on 03/19/2009 2:09:52 AM PDT by ReignOfError
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To: Marie2
I support biblical (traditional) marriage. That said, I have never bought into the “for creating children” argument.

You support the Bible and Genesis first, then you reject it?

"What's he that is not born of woman?"

(Macbeth, act V, scene VII)


96 posted on 03/19/2009 2:16:41 AM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood (Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???)
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To: ReignOfError

Try reading the Bible a bit more closely. Or, alternatively, use a search engine.


97 posted on 03/19/2009 2:19:54 AM PDT by cmj328 (Filibuster FOCA or lose reelection)
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To: Marie2
That would mean that those who are sterile or past childbearing years shouldn’t marry, which I don’t think is true.

Not for 'creating' children but for raising children.

98 posted on 03/19/2009 3:29:33 AM PDT by chapin2500
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To: Jeb21
From merriam-webster.com

Main Entry: mar·riage
Pronunciation: \ˈmer-ij, ˈma-rij\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English mariage, from Anglo-French, from marier to marry
Date: 14th century

1 a (1): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage [same-sex marriage]   b: the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c: the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected ; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3: an intimate or close union

99 posted on 03/19/2009 5:53:37 AM PDT by alancarp (Ban all H1B visas and solve unemployment instantly -- for free.)
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To: ReignOfError
The short answer is that dictionaries are both descriptive and prescriptive, always with an uneasy balance between the two. You can argue that the word “marriage” *should* not be used to describe same-sex unions, but you cannot argue that it *is* not being so used.

I learned while working on my Master's degree in English that dictionary creators have always looked to examples in print to determine definitions. If you start with the OED, which used to contain a written example from each decade the word has been used, lexicographers look to how the word is being used. Thus, dictionaries often reflect their time.

My lexicography professor, incidentally, earned his Ph.D. in divinity from Harvard in the 1930s, was an ordained Episcopal minister, and was one of the hundreds of editors of Webster's Third International Dictionary. He would have agreed with the definition, despite his personal preferences and background. If you look at the literature of the past decade, the concept of same-sex marriage has been so prevalent in the media and literature of the time, is it any wonder that this particular definition appeared.

The problem is not the dictionary; it is the importance we are placing on the dictionary.

100 posted on 03/19/2009 6:38:45 AM PDT by Military family member (GO Colts!!)
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