Dictionary Day may not be as exciting as others, but the memes are!

October 16th is National Dictionary Day, due to the birthday of Noah Webster — you can imagine which dictionary he invented. This may not be that exciting for everyone, but I find it pretty impressive that there is a place where every single English word is gathered, a dictionary. I don’t know if you know this, but when languages were created, for them to be given the importance they required, there were three ways they could consolidate it as such. It needed to be spoken by the citizens of the region, have literary prestige, and have grammar standardization. This last one is only achievable by the making of books about said grammar or by the creation of dictionaries. Meaning that, to be recognized as a language, it is important to have a dictionary that backs it up. 

That is one of many reasons why we even need a dictionary, but is not the only one. Nowadays, when we are doubting what a word means or how the spelling works, we simply Google it. We go on the internet and search for it; sometimes we misspell it how we think it is written, but it still appears. But for all that to work up, first we needed a dictionary that organized and define each word. Those people that work in the creation of the ditionary still exist, as new words are still being created. Thirty years ago we didn’t have the phrase ‘vibe hacking’ in the Cambridge dictionary, but a group of people deemed it necessary to be there and be defined, so they added it. Now you probably won’t look it up in a physical copy of the dictionary, but if you Google it, most probably the definition that comes up is the one they wrote. We need dictionaries; even if we aren’t physically reading them, they still provide us with the definitions we use. 

It is funny to compare the words that were written in the first dictionaries with the words that were added in the last few years. Before, they had words like horse, house, and plant, but nowadays everything has completely changed. The last few words that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary added were ‘looksmaxing’ and ‘cuffing season’. Dictionary.com has added definitions for words like ‘fanon’ and ‘balrog’. Oxford Dictionary added ‘tradwife’ and life hack’. You may not know what every single one of these words means. So now you have a reason to check out the dictionary and learn what new words are being used, especially by the younger generations. After all, if the dictionary has added them is because people have created a new term, and the evolution of the language is extremely important for the progress of a society. So let’s celebrate that people keep talking and creating new words, and let’s learn them to broaden our language horizons and enrich our minds with new vocabulary. After all, checking the dictionary is not something we should be embarrassed about. On the contrary, we should be proud that we check the right place to learn the definitions.