The genuine purpose of a dictionary is to preserve distinctions despite public misuse.

A good dictionary functions as a ruler, as a constant unit of measurement for meanings to help people acquire a flexibility and subtlety of language and thought, for deeper and common communications and expressions.

A good dictionary warns against such misuse.

An evil dictionary, on the other hand, will descend to affirming popular misuses, even to the point of deleting the original, correct usages. By evil, I mean that which breaks down structures and hierarchies that lead to greater freedom of thought, expression, and awareness.

Which word is correct usage for the following sentence?

“We expect his continual/continuous presence in class this month.”

“Continual” means repeated at intervals while “continuous” means non-stop. Therefore, continuous presence would mean he never goes home, night or day. This is a distinction worth preserving, but evil dictionaries will blur the distinction, calling them synonyms.

Evil dictionaries allow misuse to flourish and blur distinctions that are freeing. We live in an age that throws out hierarchies just for being hierarchies. Thus, many liberating structures are being reduced to rubble.

Manipulators of power want to blur the language, to keep people from using language specifically, clearly, and effectively because such people are easy to control. Clear and distinct definitions clarify reality, while unclear and ambiguous usage and misuse blur reality and keep people from seeing what is really going on. (“It depends on what the meaning of is is.”)

In other words, if I can get a blurred meaning into your imagination, you will not see past that implanted meaning. I can then get away with misdirection in reality, while you are blinded by the implant.

Let me give a politically manipulative example that you can use to immediately classify your dictionary. Look up the word inflation in its economic sense. If the definition given is only that inflation is “a general rise in prices,” then you have an evil dictionary. If your dictionary defines inflation as “an increase in the supply of currency (money or credit) that causes prices to rise”, then you have a good dictionary.

If your dictionary supplies both without warning you that the first usage is a popular misuse, then you have a partially evil dictionary. You see, there is a profound difference between the two definitions. Inflation is not “rising prices.” Inflation causes prices to rise.

There are people who want you to believe that inflation is merely rising prices in order to disguise the fact that it is the government or its appointed designees who “inflate the currency supply” (i.e., inject more money or credit into the economy making the value of all money to go down and thus prices to rise).

If you never knew that governments cause rising prices by printing up more money or providing more credit (to finance wars, foreign aid, parties), then congratulations. You have been taken in by a con game that has been going on as long as there have been governments.

Study Roman history to see how the Caesars did it. Have you ever wondered why so many old coins have holes in them? Once the treasury got low with all the big parties, Caligula, say, would require that the money (gold and silver coins) have their centers punched out so that the metal could be melted down and more coins could be made. And then a law would be passed requiring citizens to use the holed coins as if they still contained the full value of silver or gold of those without holes.

Of course, such laws failed, since the holed coins would immediately be devalued by merchants who raised their prices to account for the difference. One of the reasons why Greek and Roman history and the Greek and Latin languages are being removed from high school and college curriculums is that fewer students will stumble upon such truths. A deep study of Greek and Roman history and politics reveals starkly uncomfortable truths.

Of course, a good dictionary should supply the technical definitions as well as the popular reductions or alterations, but it should also make clear when there is a possible problem or potential confusion. That’s one reason I like the Oxford English Dictionary (which gives the complete history of usage) and the Oxford American Dictionary (which for example warns one not to confuse Continual with Continuous). (Of course, as you have seen with the link above, you can’t trust AskOxford.Com, a terrible irony.)

But the main point I am making is that a dictionary’s primary purpose should be to preserve real distinctions so that everyone has access to those distinctions. As you know, any elite group wishing to alienate the majority and consolidate power construct a technical language that allows them to talk above the heads of the majority.

************

UPDATE: OCTOBER 18, 2020

On October 13, 2020, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett used the term “sexual preference” to refer to the LGBT community. At that time, MirriamiWebster online defined “Sexual preference” in this way:

It has been demonstrated that this term had been used by the LGBQ community as the same as “sexual orientation” and this entry confirms that.

But for political reasons, the term was designated by the questioning senator as offensive, revealing how definitions can be redefined, even on the spot, to cause harm to someone for political or economic reasons.

The same day this specious charge was made, Miriam Webster online updated the definition to bring it in line with the political atmosphere, relabeling it as offensive:

If this does not strike you as evil, then you have either not read or not understood George Orwell’s novel 1984.

Language used in this way as a political weapon always leads, eventually, to mass slaughter, such as that seen in Stalinist Russia, Communist Cambodia, and Socialist Venezuela.

We do not want this in anything called a liberal democracy.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/

************

Get FREE Podcasts, a 36-Day online course, and a copy of Cats Are from Mars, Dogs Are from Venus:
Join the Email List!