Plenty of people write to dictionary editors asking for words to be added. It almost never works. But what if politicians make a special request? To urge adoption of the term upstander, as in “the opposite of bystander,” to honor those who stand up to bullies, the New Jersey State Senate passed a resolution urging two dictionary publishers to add it. Unfortunately, dictionaries don’t work that way. Even so, whether a word is or isn’t in the dictionary doesn’t determine whether a word is real. This is part of a complete episode.
Episode Archives
The Black Dog (episode #1536) 11/25/2019: Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse... [more]
Beside Myself (episode #1535) 11/04/2019: The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes... [more]
Skookum (episode #1534) 10/21/2019: So you've long dreamed of writing fiction, but don't know where to begin? There are lots of ways to get started — creative writing classes,... [more]
Life of Riley (episode #1533) 10/07/2019: Unwrap the name of a candy bar, and you just might find a story inside. For instance, one chewy treat found in many a checkout... [more]
Off the Turnip Truck (episode #1532) 09/23/2019: It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham... [more]
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