{"id":1758,"date":"2015-01-20T15:51:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T21:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:55:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T16:55:57","slug":"get-thee-to-a-dictionary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/definitions\/get-thee-to-a-dictionary\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Thee to a Dictionary"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sentence in last week\u2019s article included the phrase \u201cdisrespect or disregard you.\u201d In short order we received mail questioning whether this use of disrespect<\/em>\u00a0was appropriate on a website promoting proper grammar. \u201cAre you sure that you are okay with using \u2018disrespect\u2019 as a verb?\u201d asked one reader.<\/p>\n

Most of the angst over disrespect<\/em>\u00a0stems from the word\u2019s popularity with putative thugs. In the words of English scholar Paul Brians in\u00a0Common Errors in English Usage<\/em>, \u201cThe hip-hop subculture revived the use of \u2018disrespect\u2019 as a verb.\u201d Say no more. To many language watchdogs, hip-hop is a worst-case scenario for where English is headed.<\/p>\n

An online search seems to confirm this. \u201cMy vote? That is not a word,\u201d states one armchair linguist. \u201cNo one should use it.\u201d An iffy Internet dictionary called Wiktionary<\/em>\u00a0(compiled by anonymous contributors with undocumented credentials) has this to say: \u201c \u2018Disrespect\u2019 is not a verb. \u2018Respect\u2019 can be used as a noun or a verb, however \u2018disrespect\u2019 should only be used as a noun.\u201d<\/p>\n

But note that Brians said \u201crevived.\u201d We consulted our brand-new 2014\u00a0Webster\u2019s New World<\/em>\u00a0(Fifth Edition) and found\u00a0disrespect<\/em>\u00a0listed as a transitive verb meaning \u201cto have or show lack of respect for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hold it, you say. Webster\u2019s is notoriously permissive. Perhaps its editors\u2019 inclusion of\u00a0disrespect<\/em>\u00a0as a verb merely reflects the company\u2019s longtime policy of publishing a nonjudgmental, up-to-date record of how people communicate.<\/p>\n

So we turned to Random House\u2019s 1968\u00a0American College Dictionary<\/em>, and sure enough, there it was: \u201cto regard or treat without respect.\u201d We also found disrespect<\/em>\u00a0listed as a verb in the oldest dictionary in our office, a 1941 edition of\u00a0Webster\u2019s New International Dictionary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Our last stop was the\u00a0Oxford English Dictionary<\/em>\u00a0(which has been called \u201cthe ultimate authority on the English language\u201d). Here we discovered that disrespect<\/em>\u00a0as a verb first appeared in print around 1614\u2014four centuries ago.<\/p>\n

We believe that those who are serious about language matters should have at least two dictionaries within easy reach: a contemporary one\u2014many are available online\u2014but also one that is at least thirty years old. (You can get one if you really want it.) Although having your own Oxford English Dictionary<\/em>\u00a0would also be nice, its twenty gargantuan volumes take up a lot of space \u2026 and cost a lot of money. However, the Online Etymology Dictionary<\/em>\u00a0(etymonline.com<\/a>) is a terrific alternative.<\/p>\n

This episode proves once again that what people feel to be indisputable about proper English all too often says more about them and their biases than about the issue at hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sentence in last week\u2019s article included the phrase \u201cdisrespect or disregard you.\u201d In short order we received mail questioning whether this use of disrespect\u00a0was appropriate on a website promoting proper grammar. \u201cAre you sure that you are okay with using \u2018disrespect\u2019 as a verb?\u201d asked one reader. Most of the angst over disrespect\u00a0stems from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions","category-effective-writing","category-verbs"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}