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Is this "progress" or are we glorifying moving backwards by including this sort of language just to be "in"? I really don't know how to feel about this, maybe

by h4ch1 1y ago

Is this "progress" or are we glorifying moving backwards by including this sort of language just to be "in"? I really don't know how to feel about this, maybe it's my education making me bigoted, looking down upon what's clearly ephemeral; slang words like these come and go with time, and I think the timeframe for words to be included in the dictionary has greatly reduced. Almost no one apart from a very small, terminally online subset of people will ever use these words and an even smaller subset will use these in IRL conversation; adding these is a bad idea and doesn't bode well for dictionaries wrt credibility. They should release a DLC for dictionaries that covers slang like this, not make it part of the official English specification.

s_trumpet 1y ago
Dictionaries are not specs for the English language, they are wikis. Twenty years later when “delulu” (a word popular enough that my 65 year old father regularly uses it) has fallen out of style, new readers would find it very useful to get the word defined in the dictionary.
- h4ch1 1y ago
  Fair enough, I've personally looked at dictionaries along with thesauri as a spec rather than a wiki; but your anecdote makes sense.
  - DonHopkins 1y ago
    LLMi are the new thesauri.
Piskvorrr 1y ago
- terminally online - DLC - IRL As in, "things that happened before my Xth year of life are Normal, nay, Traditional even. Everything afterwards is Ephemeral, and possibly Heresy as well." Alas! All is ephemeral.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
dialup_sounds 1y ago
Most English dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. Odds are more people use these words than use a dictionary on a regular basis, and including them doesn't diminish the credibility of dictionaries unless you think their purpose is to curb the use of language instead of documenting it. Dictionaries include words labeled obsolete or archaic, informal and slang meanings, and even offensive and disparaging words without "glorifying" their use.
JambalayaJimbo 1y ago
It’s 2025 and everyone is terminally online, this is not a small subset of people. There is also a generation divide here.

by h4ch1 1y ago

s_trumpet 1y ago

Dictionaries are not specs for the English language, they are wikis. Twenty years later when “delulu” (a word popular enough that my 65 year old father regularly uses it) has fallen out of style, new readers would find it very useful to get the word defined in the dictionary.

h4ch1 1y ago
Fair enough, I've personally looked at dictionaries along with thesauri as a spec rather than a wiki; but your anecdote makes sense.
- DonHopkins 1y ago
  LLMi are the new thesauri.

Piskvorrr 1y ago

- terminally online - DLC - IRL As in, "things that happened before my Xth year of life are Normal, nay, Traditional even. Everything afterwards is Ephemeral, and possibly Heresy as well." Alas! All is ephemeral.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

dialup_sounds 1y ago

Most English dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. Odds are more people use these words than use a dictionary on a regular basis, and including them doesn't diminish the credibility of dictionaries unless you think their purpose is to curb the use of language instead of documenting it. Dictionaries include words labeled obsolete or archaic, informal and slang meanings, and even offensive and disparaging words without "glorifying" their use.

JambalayaJimbo 1y ago

It’s 2025 and everyone is terminally online, this is not a small subset of people. There is also a generation divide here.