Dictionary Definitions

     I know it has been a very long time since I last posted anything on this blog. It is not due to a lack of material, believe me. I have plenty to write about, but I haven’t found the time lately. I have much more I intend to write about and I hope that I can get to it sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, I do have a very short post to add.

     I have helped different people from around the world with English, from time to time, and as I have helped them to find the meanings of different words found in the dictionary I have started to notice something strange. In some of their electronic dictionaries they are given definitions that can hardly be regarded as definitions. I don’t know the rules of writing dictionary definitions but I assume that you have to use detailed descriptions as well as the use of the same word to define itself being disallowed. Am I right or wrong on this? I don’t actually know.

     So for a while now I have been keeping note of words that should have a better description in the dictionary. I won’t mention which dictionaries did this as it is from multiple sources, but tell me if it is just my imagination or is there something wrong with these definitions?

ABORTION: The act of aborting.
ABORT: To undergo an abortion.
DISREGARD: The action of disregarding.
INOCULATION: The act or process of inoculating.

     As afore mentioned, I’m not a dictionary writer, an expert in English, or a professional teacher of English and yet even I can see there is something lacking in these definitions. If you were unable to speak the English language or if you didn’t already know the meanings of these words, would you think the definitions provided for each of these words were adequate? I would like to know who it is that makes these definitions. However, the next example is even better. Let’s assume that you don’t know the English language at all and you are learning it for the first time. With this in mind, you know that you don’t know the meaning to the following words: aversion, antipathy, repugnance, or inoculation. The crazy thing is that the different dictionaries that I’ve looked in have only those definitions. That isn’t just one of many definitions listed. That is the only definition given for the afore mentioned words. Now, I know that the following words have similar meanings, but assume the definition searcher doesn’t know their meanings at all. This is what I found in a certain dictionary:

AVERSION: Repugnance or antipathy.
ANTIPATHY: Habitual repugnance; aversion.
REPUGNANCE: The state of being repugnant.

     Do these definitions do an adequate job of defining the meaning of these words? You should have a complete understanding of their meanings now, thanks to such great descriptive definitions. I haven’t seen such terrible definitions in dictionaries before. Is this a new trend with modern dictionaries? Are the dictionary writers of this day and age going to write all of the definitions like this? What is happening to our language? Are we, as English speakers, really unable to define our own words? Granted, I have a difficult time defining words, if asked, but I wouldn’t try to define a word by using that same word as part of its own definition. I wish the definition writers would stop to think how a foreign person would view or understand these definitions. Or better yet, what about an American child who is trying to learn these new words for the first time? How can someone learn the meanings of words with definitions like these? This seems so absurd!

Prone To Decay Part I

Prone To Decay Part I

LANGUAGE

     This new post of mine is going to be quite large so I plan to break it down into multiple posts. This post is still grounded in science but will now spill over into other subjects. There are many things I have observed and have thoughts about and they all relate to one single scientific law. There are many scientific laws such as the law of gravity, for example. A scientific law is an independently and sufficiently verified description of a direct link between the cause and effect of a phenomenon, deduced from experiments and/or observations. Also called laws of science, scientific laws are considered established and universally applicable to certain class of things or phenomenon under appropriate conditions. There are scientific laws of Thermodynamics and The Second Law of Thermodynamics in essence states that everything in existence tends towards chaos and disorder. It is a tested and proven fact that everything gets worse not better. The only way something can be improved is with direct intervention by an outside variable of some sort. Everywhere around us we all can look and see this scientific law being enacted in all that we see and come into contact with. We all age, everything dies at some point, things rot, metal rusts, food molds, paint fades, faces wrinkle, hair becomes gray, sight becomes blurry, things fall apart, cars break down, hearts fail, lungs collapse, etc. The list can go on and on. I believe I made my point that everything becomes disorderly, chaotic, and falls apart without some other variable to repair, replenish, or put things back in place.

     I’ve always thought about this fact in a material sense. I think about houses that need new roofs or cars that rust or about the faded wallpaper in a house. But with the way the world is I also have now realized that this law seems to be true for ethics, morals, language, business practices, knowledge, health, and so much more. I would like to write about each of these topics, not necessarily in that order.

     One of these topics that have bothered me the most lately is the realization that language is also falling apart and people’s ability to communicate is weakening. I am prey to this problem as well. I make plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes of my own. I am certainly not claiming to have it all together but I have taught English to many students and my wife teaches English at a university and the things I have seen have absolutely amazed me, much to my chagrin.

     The first year university students that my wife teaches were handpicked and given scholarships to attend a university. For all intents and purposes, I will keep it as anonymous as possible. These students were chosen because they are considered to be the smartest and brightest of all the students in their class. They have not begun their field of study yet but most of them have expressed that they plan to become scholars or lawyers after graduating from the university. My wife teaches an English course at this university. Her students are self-proclaimed geniuses and experts. They constantly brag about how smart they are and act like they are better than all the other students by showing off that they are in school on a scholarship. The students are so arrogant that they have the audacity to tell the teacher that she is wrong and argue with her over their answers. I have seen some of the homework from these students and it is absolutely horrible. If I were their teacher, I would flunk all of them.

     Their recent assignment was to write a report about genetically modified food and its effects on people. Here are just a few example sentences of what they wrote in their reports:

“For instance genetically modified food has been done by modification of food that is to put nutrient into the food.”

“It can causes.”

“By doing genetically modified food.”

“All the political people are agree with them.”

“Many of us still blur and do not concern on the harmful effects of GM food.”

“Genetic engineering concept have been used for centuries.”

     Now keep in mind, these are what the students consider to be complete sentences. They have also argued with my wife that their answers are correct and that they should be given more points on their homework and tests. Yet, that is only an example of how the best of the best write sentences. Let’s look at how they spell:

Difficultness [Difficult]
Wet her [Whether]
Faulties [Faults]
Outcompete [Outperform]
Dissolvency [Dissolve]
Dramastically [Dramatically]
Genenetic [Genetic]
Futher [Further]
Prsue [Pursue]
Encomposed [Encompassed]
Porfit [Profit]
Salvation [Starvation]
Statisfied [Satisfied]
Enchane [Enhance]
Shelter Life [Shelf Life]
Aravle [Available]
Inserts [Insect]
Inexact [Inaccurate]
Majoritically [Majority]
Hawt [Hot]

     This is just a small portion of the massive amount of mistakes my wife has had to mark. Yet, the students proclaim to be experts at English and want to be lawyers and scholars. I have one last example and this is one of the most tragic. A test was given to them and on this test was a fill-in-the-blank section. The sentence had a blank after the word “leap”. Please note, this is not the actual sentence, but I am making up an example sentence to portray what the essence of the question was. “In the world today, modern technology is rapidly advancing. From what the technology used to be, computers have taken a huge leap __________ in such a short time.” Okay now, do you want to know what the class wrote as their answers? The following are seven of the answers given by the students:

1: Leap Performances
2: Leap Dash
3: Leap Off
4: Leap Action
5: Leap To
6: Leap Frogged
7: Leap Frogging

     But enough with the university students, this problem permeates everything, even the media. I can’t count how many times I have read articles online and found spelling or grammar mistakes in the news articles. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am no wiz at English. In fact, I consider myself to be quite bad at English. English is a difficult language and there are many things about English I simply don’t know or I have forgotten over the years, especially in the realm of vocabulary. I have forgotten a lot of vocabulary. But when it comes to the television media, news articles, newspapers, movies, and books, these things should be checked by an editor. There are people that are paid to check for mistakes and if mistakes get past them they aren’t doing their job. Everybody makes mistakes when they write but a professional source employs professional editors to check for mistakes and to make sure none exist.

     For example, it was just in the news about Michael Jackson not showing up to court because he is sick, again. If you visit the site via this link you will see a couple of errors right away. Look at the third small paragraph. It says, “It would be unwise for him to travel, given what’s he’s got now…” The word “what’s” should be “what”. And the very next line is wrong too. In the next line, “for the obvious reasons” should read, “for obvious reasons”. I was a bit surprised that there were two mistakes in the first three small paragraphs. I didn’t even continue reading the article, I just stopped right there.

Commonly Misused Words and Phrases

     The link provided above is an article I read online just a few days ago. The article is well written and has a lot of insightful information. I highly suggest reading it. It has some great information in it. It is on the topic of English words and phrases that most people misuse or don’t truly understand. It is amazing how many words and phrases people use wrongly. But the irony of this article is that the writer is trying to correct these English mistakes and makes an English mistake of their own. Oh, the irony. If you look at the fourth word in the article, “peruse” and read the first sentence you will see a mistake. The sentence reads, “I think everyone falls pray to conflicting nature of peruse—and it’s no wonder.” The word “pray” should be spelled as “prey”.

     Now, I don’t even have to touch the topic of blogs, chat programs, online community sites, chat rooms, and forums. Many people have noticed how horrible the English found at these sources can be. It ranges from bad punctuation to the lack of punctuation entirely. These posts also show a range from the lack of capitalizing letters to writing in all caps. There is a mixture of bad grammar, poor spelling, and just simply writing with acronyms. Then there is the topic of “1337”. Don’t even get me started on that. It has become a language all of its own. The sad thing is when I see people that use “1337” in school reports, presentations, or even job résumé’s. Believe it or not, I have even met people who speak with “1337” in their daily conversations. These same people mock you and ridicule you for having proper English because they think that they are right and you are wrong. This happens when you use words they are unfamiliar with and they treat you as if you are stupid when in fact they are the ones that can’t speak proper English.

     This post is already very long and I could go on and on with examples. I have seen so many things that are so absolutely absurd that I can’t believe what it is that I am experiencing. The English language has taken a huge plummet over recent years and seems to be spinning rapidly out of control as it continues to get worse.

     The intriguing thing about this is that it is not limited to English. I have friends who speak many other languages and I have friends who are from many other countries; all of them have told me that even in their own languages it has begun to decay and people don’t know how to speak or write properly anymore. Another phenomena taking place is the meaning of words changing. It is mind boggling to see how many languages have new slang words that have a different literal meaning than the slang meaning. This type of occurrence is something that has just taken off in recent years. Languages have always changed and evolved over time, but it is now evident of how much languages are falling apart and now becoming meaningless and confusing.

     I have learned that older versions of the English language are much more descriptive. Today many words change their meaning based on their context. If someone says, “That’s hot!” you won’t know if they mean that it is spicy, hot to touch, popular, or sexy, unless you know the context of the phrase. Just like the word “love”. Love could mean a romantic love, erotic love, brotherly love, or affection. I have studied foreign languages and it is amazing how some languages are very descriptive and have different words for almost everything. With a language that is very descriptive it is easier to get very specific and clear, but to do this in English you need supporting words to form the context in order to know the meaning of the specific word being used.

     Depending on what era you are from, you could find yourself confused with vocabulary as well. Many words have changed their meaning over time. For example, the word “let” used to mean, “to hinder” but now it means “to allow”. The word “Queer” used to mean “strange”, “gay” used to mean “happy”, and “fag” used to mean “cigarette”. Use any of those words now and you will see they have a completely new meaning. If you want a cigarette and you say, “I want a fag.” or if you see a strange person walking around and you say, “That person is queer.” or you feel happy and you tell your friends, “I am gay.”; you will discover a completely different reaction than what you were expecting and find people believing things about you that aren’t necessarily true.

     Lastly, I would like to point out how the English language has become corrupted, dirty, and perverse in recent years. There were so many things you used to be able to say and nobody would bat an eye, but if you say it now you will be accused of being a pervert or sexually harassing somebody. Very common and innocent words have now become iffy. You have to chose your words carefully and think about how someone might take it. The name Richard is a prime example of this. Most people know that Dick is a shortened way of saying Richard; however, if you holler to somebody and say, “Hey Dick!” you may find yourself with an unexpected reaction. If you are trying to set up an appointment with somebody and you ask them, “So when can you come?” you may hear people snicker as if you said something funny. The list can go on and on with examples of how many words have a dirty, perverse, or sexual connotation to it nowadays. The words used to be seen as clean and innocent. There is clear evidence of a rapid decay of languages spoken globally. It is not just limited to English and it is such a tragic thing to behold.

     So this is just one example of how the Second Law of Thermodynamics is truly at work. Everything is moving towards disorder and chaos. Everything is falling apart, rotting, and decaying. I previously, hadn’t noticed that it stretches and penetrates every aspect of existence. Everything is falling apart and deteriorating, even language. And with this in mind, it is so ironic that people think the world and everything in it are improving. You really believe that?