Cambridge Dictionary updated its definition of ‘woman.’ Conservative media didn’t like it. - The Philadelphia Inquirer - Dictionary

Cambridge Dictionary: What have you done?

Have you decided to troll all Americans? Or just one politician?

One thing is certain: Looking up man or woman in the Cambridge Dictionary yields a different result today than it did before.

Just months after Supreme Court nomination hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, when Sen. Marsha Blackburn threw blood-red meat to conservatives by asking Jackson to define the word woman, Cambridge Dictionary’s editors recently edited the entry for woman to include the following: “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.” The entry for man includes a corresponding definition.

Like Pavlov’s dog, conservatives again started salivating.

» READ MORE: Defining ‘woman’ is complicated for everyone, including Supreme Court nominees | The Grammarian

“Cambridge Dictionary Changes Definition of ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’ in Massive Cave to Trans Activists,” howled the right-wing blog RedState.

Fox News: “Cambridge Dictionary changes definition of ‘man’ and ‘woman’: ‘1984 wasn’t supposed to be a how-to manual.’”

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The New York Post: “Cambridge Dictionary changes definition of ‘man’ and ‘woman.’”

The American Conservative: “Cambridge Dictionary Redefines ‘Woman.’”

And so on.

In a naked effort to inspire rage-clicks, each of these publications — even those that, on the surface, appear to adopt a less hysterical tone — exhibited either a shameful ignorance or a willful disregard of how dictionaries work.

Despite news coverage to the contrary, Cambridge’s edits aren’t some leftist appeal to woke ideology — whatever that is.

What Fox News, the New York Post, and others don’t acknowledge is that no dictionary has the power to “change” or “redefine” a word. For that matter, they don’t create or kill words either. Dictionaries describe how language is used. By updating its man and woman entries, Cambridge acknowledged that English speakers use man and woman in regular parlance in reference to trans men and women. So it edited those entries to make them more accurate.

No dictionary has the power to “change” or “redefine” a word.

It’s not, as some feared, dictionaries gone rogue.

Cambridge is relatively new to the dictionary game. The first edition of the Cambridge International Dictionary of English was published less than 30 years ago, and it’s never gained much traction against old standbys like Merriam-Webster or the Oxford English Dictionary. But neither of those includes the explicitly trans-inclusive definitions that Cambridge now has.

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Still, I recently received a letter from a reader complaining that the Oxford English Dictionary “became irredeemably ‘woke’ and irrelevant when it listed ‘irregardless’ as a word.”

Irregardless has been in the Oxford English Dictionary since 1976.

Conservative publications aren’t the only ones guilty of this misunderstanding, though far more conservative outlets covered the “news” of Cambridge’s edits. The Washington Post headline read, “Cambridge Dictionary updates definition of ‘woman’ to include trans women,” while Reuters said, “Fact Check—Cambridge Dictionary expanded, not replaced its definition of ‘woman.’” Each of those added more nuance and less inflammatory language.

Nuance might not play well with Marsha Blackburn, but should the question come up again the next time we have a Supreme Court nomination hearing, at least the nominee will have a more accurate resource to cite.

The Grammarian, otherwise known as Jeffrey Barg, looks at how language, grammar, and punctuation shape our world, and appears biweekly. Send comments, questions, and bare infinitives to jeff@theangrygrammarian.com.

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