Coming up on Word Matters, when dictionaries drop words.
I'm Emily Brewster and Word Matters is produced by Merriam-Webster in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Amon Shea,
Peter Sokolowski and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
We've discussed how words come to be entered in our dictionaries before.
But today, we're going to talk about removing words from dictionaries.
Which words get dropped and why?
Peter will start us off.
One of the most frequently asked questions of dictionary editors is, do you ever drop a word?
Is a word removed from the dictionary?
Because we almost always answer the opposite question.
How does a word get into the dictionary?
And in my experience,
I usually add that information to any remarks I'm giving because I know that question is coming.
But there's almost always someone who wants to know how does a word get taken out of a dictionary?
And that's kind of an interesting and slightly complicated question.
It's a good question.
It is.
And Peter,
I feel like the way you're couching it suggests that we're sort of bashful and shy about it.