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- May 14, 2005
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I was horrified to read this article today.
I am a great proponent of diversty and multiculturalism but this is just grotesque. If these words (and their meanings) are dying then all the more reason to save them! To lose them would be to carve a huge vacuum into Britain's soul.
The comments trail has some interesting observations, for instance:
Acorn, bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell, bramble, buttercup, canary, catkin, clover, dandelion,
And words added:
Celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, conflict, EU, drought, compulsory, cope, dyslexic, MP3.
What do you think? Cultural vandalism, or reality?
This is hard to believe. Isn't a dictionary about looking up words you don't know? Why would a modern child want to look up "celebrity"? If they come across a word like "chapel" in a book (do they even read any more?) what are they to do?Oxford University Press has removed words like "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", "empire" and "monarch" from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like "blog", "broadband" and "celebrity". Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.
The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.
I am a great proponent of diversty and multiculturalism but this is just grotesque. If these words (and their meanings) are dying then all the more reason to save them! To lose them would be to carve a huge vacuum into Britain's soul.
The comments trail has some interesting observations, for instance:
Examples of words removed:An illuminating example of "new" International English that resembles Orwell's warnings about "Newspeak."
Some folks, especially in ivory towers, seem to confuse cultural heritage with original sin.
Acorn, bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell, bramble, buttercup, canary, catkin, clover, dandelion,
And words added:
Celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, conflict, EU, drought, compulsory, cope, dyslexic, MP3.
What do you think? Cultural vandalism, or reality?
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