Dear All,
For your blog this week, you will compare the authoritative practices of two online dictionaries: the OED (http://dictionary.oed.com/) and Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/). You will probably have to access the OED from a campus computer.
First, you will need to pick a word. The choice is yours. I recommend you look for a word that is either very new (blog, Google, the verb "to friend") or a word that has interesting differences in meaning when it is used formally or as slang (drug terms like: "chronic," "ice," "snow," "juice"; or slang with a sexual charge like: "dime," "box," "cougar"). Be warned that many definitions that you find on Urban Dictionary contain obscenity and offensive material. If you are uncomfortable analyzing this sort of material, try to choose a word that is not particularly "charged" in our society.
Look up that word in both the OED and Urban Dictionary. Analyze the difference between how the two dictionaries function based upon the entries that you read. While looking up the definitions, consider these questions: How do each of these dictionaries derive their authority? Is it PRESCRIPTIVE or DESCRIPTIVE? Who are the authorities? How are the definitions composed? Do you think the definitions from one are "better" or more accurate than the other? Why?
Your blog should be between 300-600 words, and it should be written in formal Standard English. Your authority is Hacker!
Good luck, and have fun!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
To chill or not to chill??
ReplyDeleteThe word chill since the 1500’s has been used to represent “cold, cold to the touch, now always unpleasantly, depressingly, or injuriously cold; that chills, tends to benumb, or cause to shiver”, as stated in the Oxford English Dictionary. Now days when using chill a jacket probably will not be necessary. Today’s most popular slang dictionary, Urban dictionary, states that chill means, “to calm down, cool, tight, wicked, sick, sweet, to hang out, to be easy going, and it is ok. So when that kid you accidently hit on the street responds to you with, “Don’t worry, it’s Chill” he is not telling you about the weather.
While the Oxford Dictionary is the more formal, more reliable of the two dictionaries one cannot discredit the information in the Urban dictionary, each dictionary has certain advantages designated for very different uses and audiences. During the late nineties the phrase “chill” began to emerge as a description of one’s mood or activities, chill out rooms and chill out music invited people to take a break, cool off… to chill. Even the Oxford English Dictionary acknowledges the later meaning of the word chill, and how it came about. Still, Oxford Dictionary maintains itself as one of the most formal, most authoritative, and best recognized dictionaries; wonderful for writing papers, speeches, and just making yourself sound smarter. Compared to the Urban dictionary, that when quoted in front of a class or a business is probably not the best idea. The Urban dictionary is amusing, the words are modern, hip, and everyone can have a part in creating it newest words. The Urban Dictionary’s slogan “Urban Dictionary is the dictionary you wrote” is the key factor in its success, there is no authority over this dictionary, while it may not be good for writing a paper it is fun to use and gives a nonstandard description of improper, slang.