Who writes the dictionary?

[Atticus]

Several years ago, the PTB decided that our little community would be a great place to build a storage facility for "low level nuclear waste" produced elsewhere. Of course, the local Chamber of Commerce and other moneyed interests were all for this prospective cash cow being brought to our area. We were told not to worry: they'd make it really really safe and only "low level" radioactive waste would be stored in our county.

But, one determined mother and housewife didn't like the idea at all. When no one else protested, she wrote her first letter to the editor, included her home phone number and asked for volunteers to help her fight the nuke dump. LOTS of folks responded and she soon found herself not just organizing protests, but speaking at them to hundreds of people. Local politicians started asking "Who the hell IS this lady?"

When it became clear that only prepared "softball" questions were going to be addressed at a public meeting staged by dump supporters, this housewife stood up in the aisle and shouted "Answer the REAL questions, mayor!" until the meeting was hastily adjourned and the rascals fled.

That woman was Mrs. Atticus and I am still proud of her for keeping that glow-in-the-dark landfill out of our children's hometown.

She explained to me early on that the assurances from the government that only "low level" nuclear waste would be stored near us were worthless. While, at the time, that category would consist primarily of used tools from nuclear power plants and some medical waste, THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED THE DEFINITION. If in the future, they re-defined the category to include actual spent fuel rods, our community could be "legally" exposed to higher levels of radiation than anyone imagined when the facility was accepted.

IF we are to pursue a ban on "assault weapons", let's be sure we list the specific characteristics we wish to eliminate. Let's be sure WE "write the dictionary" defining just exactly what it is we don't want. For example, whatever the NRA chooses to call, them, no devices which in any way enable a shooter to fire at a faster rate than he can physically pull the trigger may be incorporated in or added to any firearm.

We will need to assume bad faith and anticipate attempts to "interpret" the new restrictions to permit the truly gun-obsessed to use "legal" accessories and add-ons to defeat the purpose of the regulations.

For what it's worth, I write this as a hunter and gun owner who thinks Wayne LaPierre gives punks a bad name.

[lob1]

1. No one writes it. Everything is plagiarized.

[Bucky]

3. Silly boy. Johnson wrote it

http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?p=1420

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. it wasn't dictionarians?

oh, wait. they teach diction.

nevermind.

[Bucky]

2. There's a neat scene in the first season of West Wing where Josh talks about gun regulation

The fictional assault weapons ban in that episode had been nickel and dimed through the legislative process so that one version of a semi-auto was permitted but another, with a slightly different handle, was banned. "It's the same gun!" Josh shouts at some implacable bureaucrat.

The specs that go into any gun legislation should deal with the effects of the weaponry being banned, not the design.

[Igel]

4. We do.

Lexicographers monitor the media for new words and new meanings, they try to sort out how words are used once there are enough examples. Then they have to decide if it's a word that's going to last and is widespread enough for inclusion in more than their database.

However, for the purposes of the law the legislators get to define the terms just like any other small speech community does. That's called a "jargon" or a "cant" and the meanings don't always show up in general-use dictionaries. Take the word "grammar." Most people stop at how words are put together. Some include how words are changed to fit into a sentence. I include word derivation and even sound changes and patterns. But that's linguistic jargon.

Legislators need to use standard definitions from case law, the dictionary, or from other legislation or simply impose their own definitions. They all work. Otherwise there's no good way to know what the law actually means. In the last 50 years, IMHO, no well-crafted law has been written that didn't include explicit definitions, with examples and limitations. Many poorly crafted laws have been written. Often intentionally.

Shifting definitions mid-argument, however, is a classic fallacy. Intentionally opening the door and expecting such a shift to happen in avoid to avoid the heavy lifting of legislating is, IMHO, a show of bad faith.

However, there's a long tradition of using courts (and in many cases regulators) to expand and shift definitions. In one case--was it MA--gay-marriage foes were incensed by precisely this. An amendment passed that used words that weren't defined but which had commonly accepted meanings--and opponents could see how eventually those words might be redefined to not only allow but require gay marriage. Those proposing the amendment countered opponents by saying they'd never push for such a redefinition. They didn't. Rather less than a decade later others did, and got the courts to redefine the terms. After all, just like the Constitution laws are also "living." (Redefinition is the heart of how the "living Constitution" actually "grows".) Another recent example is expanding "pollutant" to include carbon dioxide. Notoriously some government agency under Bush (I?) redefined ketchup as a vegetable.


Sounds like you're a devout originalist when it comes to laws that you don't want expanded and shifted.

[Brother Buzz]

5. The Professor and the Madman, A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making....

of the Oxford English Dictionary

A most interesting read on many levels

[niyad]

7. wow--just looked it up--definitely a most interesting looking read, which I will be requesting

tomorrow (library is closed today)

I see where mel gibson's production company currently has the movie rights. weird.

[Brother Buzz]

8. Weird is the connection between our Civil War's Battle of The Wilderness and the OED

and why we have so many wonderfully exquisite words in our dictionaries that originate from Ceylon.

I hope you enjoy the read.

[niyad]

9. I am looking forward to it.