Copyright smh
When did you last use a dictionary? Whichever the brand, be that Oxford or Macquarie? Maybe last year? Maybe two years ago? Truth being, you can’t remember. That ritual of sifting the alphabet, finding the page, then sliding your gaze from euphoria to Eurasia to eureka – your target word – is lost in time. Here’s a second question: when did you last check a word? Whichever the site, be that Urban Dictionary or Wikipedia? You’ll say, “The other day.” Perhaps Google Overview defined rizz in its knowledge box. Or maybe ChatGPT unpacked oligarchy. Helped you distinguish discreet from discrete. For that’s the paradox. Stefan Fatsis, author of Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025) reckons: “At a time when contentious words dominate our conversations – think insurrection and fascism and fake news and woke – the need for dictionaries to chronicle and explain language, and serve as its watchdog, has never been greater.” Yet dictionaries are battling to survive. The nub is revenue. For research, Fatsis loitered in the offices of Merriam-Webster, seeing how one noble lexicon is weathering the millennial storm. Shakily, in a word. Sagging sales and staff cuts have eroded the business model, just as streaming strangled the video store.
