Oxford University Press trashes "The Children's Dictionary"

[studiot]

I don't like to post links to pages which include adverts so if anyone can find a better one feel free to add.

The Guardian is however regarded as the teacher's newspaper.

The Guardian reports that OUP has continued the removal of hundreds of words to do with Nature and other common words from the Dictionary prepared specially for juniors.

Words such as almond, bluebell, magpie will be lost in favour of phrases such as cut and paste.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/13/oxford-junior-dictionary-replacement-natural-words

The thread title encapsulates my opinion.

So the thread question is

Quote

Guardian

Do we want an alphabet for children that begins ‘A is for Acorn, B is for Buttercup, C is for Conker’; or one that begins ‘A is for Attachment, B is for Block-Graph, C is for Chatroom’?”

 

Edited November 23, 2018 by studiot
spelling

[StringJunky]

You sound like my grandad did when I was a kid. That's increasing age, I guess, and we become more Luddite-ish. These words represent the experiences of modern youth.

[studiot]

4 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

You sound like my grandad did when I was a kid. That's increasing age, I guess, and we become more Luddite-ish. These words represent the experiences of modern youth.

If I had paid more attention to that Dictionary when I was younger, perhaps my spelling here would be better.

[Strange]

How do we decide which words to include in our children’s dictionaries?

Quote

Compiling a small dictionary for children is never easy – so many words competing for space in a book with a finite number of pages. Animals and plants, clothing, fruits and vegetables, musical instruments, body parts, animal noises … the list is endless. They can’t all go in. We know that, but it’s still painful to have to exclude some familiar favourites. At the extremes, it’s fairly easy – apple is in and durian fruit is out, piano is in and didgeridoo is out, jumper is in and jeggings is out. It’s always the grey area in between that is difficult: kiwi fruit? French horn? stocking?

Quote

To compound the difficulties, the language keeps growing, with new words coming knocking on the door and demanding entry – internet, online, blog, etc. Closing the door on new words and crying, ‘No room!’ is not an option, so the axe has to fall on some of the old ones. 

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Fortunately, the work of lexicographers is much easier now since the invention of the corpus. Whereas in the past, decisions about what to include and exclude were based purely on opinion, we can now turn to the evidence to see which words are used the most frequently. The Oxford Children’s Corpus is a wonderful resource which allows us to look at the language which children are most likely to come across. 

Read the whole thing here: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/01/15/decide-words-include-childrens-dictionaries/

It is not the end of civilisation as we know it.

 

Key message: "Dictionaries reflect the language as it is used"

[StringJunky]

37 minutes ago, Strange said:

Key message: "Dictionaries reflect the language as it is used"

It's a "dedicated follower of fashion".  

[studiot]

50 minutes ago, Strange said:

How do we decide which words to include in our children’s dictionaries?

Read the whole thing here: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/01/15/decide-words-include-childrens-dictionaries/

It is not the end of civilisation as we know it.

 

Key message: "Dictionaries reflect the language as it is used"

I'm sorry assign little or no credence to the opinions of many others (referenced if not actually on this site) on this matter and promote the view that everyhting in the gardfen is lovely.

As

52 minutes ago, Strange said:

we can now turn to the evidence to see which words are used the most frequently.

Yes, in many of our playgrounds, the most frequent words are swearwords or scatalogical words or derogatory words or similar.

Shouldn't all these be therefore included by this reasoning?

[Carrock]

There seems to be an implicit assumption that a "Children's Dictionary" is a good thing.

3 hours ago, studiot said:

....

The Guardian reports that OUP has continued the removal of hundreds of words to do with Nature and other common words from the Dictionary prepared specially for juniors.

Words such as almond, bluebell, magpie will be lost in favour of phrases such as cut and paste ...

 

Are there really children who want to have a dictionary where they can only look up things like 'cut and paste' which they already know, and are happy that 'almond cake' or 'didgeridoo' refer to things they're not old enough to understand.

I suspect any child who is capable and willing to look up a child's dictionary would much prefer one where almost any word can be found, even if it requires several seconds to find it.

2 hours ago, studiot said:

....

Yes, in many of our playgrounds, the most frequent words are swearwords or scatalogical words or derogatory words or similar.

Shouldn't all these be therefore included by this reasoning?

You could always have explicitly censored dictionaries to suit parents'/private schools' views.

 

Children's Dictionary omitting e.g.

'swearwords or scatalogical words or derogatory words or similar' so your child uses these words in ignorance rather than malice.

'evolution and anything supposedly before 4004 B.C. omitted but intelligent design and climate conspiracy included.'

'intelligent design and all criticism of global warming theories omitted'

etc.

Of course it's simpler to continue to have a Children's Dictionary designed to offend no one.....

[John Cuthber]

Among the aspects of this which amuse me is the idea that children don't look in "The Big Dictionary".

The sad truth may well be that many kids wouldn't recognise an acorn if they saw one; in which case "A is for acorn" is unhelpful.
But the way to address that is to change the kids' experience (so they do know what the word means) rather than to taylor the dictionary to meet their lack of experience.