Posted on 07/21/2022 5:05:12 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
The iconic Merriam-Webster Dictionary is mainstreaming transgender ideology by amending its definition of “female” to include “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male.”
The Merriam-Webster definition entry also says groups of females are “made up of usually adult members of the female sex: consisting of females” [Emphasis added].
The definition of “woman” in the dictionary appears to remain the same: “an adult female person.”
The dictionary also has a separate entry for “gender identity”: “a person’s internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female.”
The definition of “woman” has been a hot-button political issue, including in recent Congressional hearings, the Washington Times reported:
During a Senate committee hearing on abortion policy last week, University of California Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges had a sharp exchange with Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, over her use of the phrase “people with the capacity for pregnancy.”
When Mr. Hawley asked Ms. Bridges if she was referring to women, Ms. Bridges said that some women can’t get pregnant, just as there are some transgender men and nonbinary people who can get pregnant.
Today’s dictionary evolved from the iconic A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, published by Daniel Webster in 1806 — “the first truly American dictionary.”
The dictionary’s website describes Webster’s goal:
Born in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1758, Noah Webster came of age during the American Revolution and was a strong advocate of the Constitutional Convention. He believed fervently in the developing cultural independence of the United States, a chief part of which was to be a distinctive American language with its own idiom, pronunciation, and style.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I have a c. 1980 unabridged. I am going to keep it.
Dictionaries do not make up things. They describe how words are used,and alas that includes how the word is being used in the press and in books.
That is an important distinction. Merriam-Webster will take a lot of flack for this description, but its mission is to explain the meaning of words, whether one agrees with them or not. It is up to the user to make sure of the context of it.
Well they’re at it, they should redefine “Napoleon” as someone who says they are “Napoleon.
Yes,this is that stupid.
Merriam Webster just defined themselves as a non-trustworthy dictionary.
The dictionary is going to become useless. It is supposed to create clarity in language. It now will create confusion.
Yes, because now we will see a synonym for “man” will be “woman”.
So true. About 15 years ago someone called me homophobic. Having actually gone to school I know what phobias are. I know what an aquaphobe is as well as many of the other phobias. So I told them, no, I am not a homophobe. That is absurd.
Then one day I looked it up in the modern dictionary and I went back to them and I said, “my apologies, based on the online dictionary definition of the word, I am a homophobe, and where the label proudly.
However, I say that only because the definition has been made so broad that it no longer has much in common with what is meant when “phobia” is attached to a word
At least they didn’t have to use the supreme Court to force a redefinition of the word, like they did with the word,”marriage”.
Do,they define “president” as anyone who claims to be? Or “firehydrant” as anyone who claims to be one? Or “semi-truck driver” as anyone who claims to have been one?
We need to hit as many thrift shops and used book stores to stock up on pre-woke dictionaries. Twenty-five years from now children need to be able to see what decency and the real were. That’s assuming children will be able to read in 25 years.
“ Dictionaries do not make up things.”
That’s certainly how it is supposed to work.
But liberals use all things as “agents of change”, especially words. They can’t change the Torah, the Constitution, etc, so they change the meaning of the words used in the documents.
So it’s no surprise they use a dictionary in this manner. To be expected, of course.
Dumbing America down is a lot easier these days when you are working with ignorant idiots to begin with. Just because some Snowflake or Feminazi at Merriam Webster says it is so doesn’t make it true. It’s just a spinoff of excessive drug usage.
They are one of many signs that we live in an unstable, collapsing society and they no longer carry the respect they once had.
“having a gender identity that is the opposite of male.”
__________
Two issues with this definition.
First, it defines female with reference to that which is male. Fe-male as opposed to male. Wo-man as opposed to man. By woke standards this continues to promote and prop up the corrupt male patriarchy. Hadn’t we gotten past that?, you can hear them asking.
Second, is the word “male” then defined as being the opposite of “female”? And, logically, doesn’t that present a worthless system of circular definitions for the two term, because, put together, they essentially fail to define anything?
I’ve got a Webster’s Collegiate a little older than that and will hang onto it for life.
The last useful English dictionary was the 2nd International. In the Third prescriptive definition ended and new words were whatever three people anywhere in America were attested to have used were included as good English. Ghetto talk became just as good as Harvard.
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