Dear Collins Dictionary, You Are Dead To Me.

Written by Peter File

Risky business, writing an article maligning someone over their flagrant abuse of the English language. Not just someone, but a bunch of people who’d probably consider themselves to be quite the gaggle of literati when it comes to words and the like. No doubt the Mobar Gazette offices will soon be flooded with smug hate mail gleefully informing us of the delightful irony our shockingly incorrect hatchet job on the Collins hath created.

So, pre-emptively: irony my pants, you losers.

Anyhow, the time of year is upon us where various articles appear in the media covering the quirky additions and omissions to various dictionaries. Lo, here be another one. So what beef does a smutty publication like ours have with a high-brow tome like the Collins? Two, actually.

Firstly, unless various brilliant yet admittedly obscure words suddenly find themselves in common usage, they are getting the chop. Specifically, I am concerned about the possible loss of abstergent. Secondly, meh is being included. This is not up for debate. It’ll be in the next edition.

I love The Simpsons. We all do. The editor in chief of this publication has C.M. Burns tattooed on his right shoulder blade, and Waylon Smithers on his left. That said, the series in which meh was coined was approximately the point at which the show started to become a bit crap. I digress.

My beef is with meh garnering an entry in what was once a respected dictionary. It is hardly a word. The definition will apparently be “an expression of boredom or indifference”. NO. Really? While you’re at it, why not include the following expressions we were having difficulty deciphering: huh, ugh, ahh, grr, and hmm. But they’re not really words, right? Well, neither is meh.

You know what is a word? Abstergent. It can be an adjective or a noun, two fairly good indicators that something is indeed, a word. It means cleansing. It can also mean a cleansing agent. Below is another word for you.

Dic – tion – ar – y (dik-shuh-ner-ee)
-noun

A book containing a selection of the words of a language, usually arranged alphabetically, giving information about their meanings, pronunciations, etymologies, inflected forms, etc., expressed in either the same or another language; lexicon; glossary.

It beggars belief that genuinely valuable and functional words are being replaced by stupid shout-outs to pop culture. What’s worse is that the perpetrators are not lazy internet forum slobs claiming “lol cbf spelling its not skool bro”, but the very people who one would expect to treasure and guard our wonderful language.

Go on then, Collins. Get rid of calignosity, free yourself of embrangle, kick agrestic to the curb. Certainly absterge yourself of abstergent. Replace them with triumphs of linguistics like meh. But for the sake of someone reading the Collins Dictionary 100 years down the track, be sure to also include the following.

Ugh (Uhh)
- interjection

An expression of quiet disgust, usually uttered by someone having just discovered the Collins has once again taken a scythe to the English language.

Origin: Early 21st Century, see meh.

Now, excuse me while I confine all the copies of the Collins in the office to the bin. In our eyes, it is nothing more than worthless recrement.