Webster's Redefines "Marriage"

This article, published this morning, and the accompanying Youtube video are getting snickers from the usual suspects. And it really is too good to pass up, even though I suspect the actual change occurred some time ago:

One of the nation's most prominent dictionary companies has resolved the argument over whether the term "marriage" should apply to same-sex duos or be reserved for the institution that has held families together for millennia: by simply writing a new definition.

"I was shocked to see that Merriam-Webster changed their definition of the word 'marriage,' a word which has referred exclusively to a contract between a man and a woman for centuries. It has now added same sex," YouTube user Eric B. noted to WND.

"The 1992 Webster's Dictionary does not mention same sex at all," he wrote.

Here is Eric B.'s slightly overwrought video.

A Webster's associate editor defends the change:

"In recent years, this new sense of 'marriage' has appeared frequently and consistently throughout a broad spectrum of carefully edited publications, and is often used in phrases such as 'same-sex marriage' and 'gay marriage' by proponents and opponents alike. Its inclusion was a simple matter of providing our readers with accurate information about all of the word's current uses."

Prescriptivists Unite!

posted by Gabriel Malor at 10:17 PM

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