Published October 7, 2025
Miriam, you siren, you got me. I’ve ordered the 12th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Preordered, I suppose. I’ll look it up when the book arrives after its release next month.
We have some words for you.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
The NEW Twelfth Edition.
Made of paper.
11.18.2025
www.merriam-webster.com/collegiate-d…
— Merriam-Webster (@merriam-webster.com) September 25, 2025 at 9:13 AM
I’m too tired to explain the “Miriam” thing, so use your imagination.
I’m a big fan
Merriam-Webster is on the descriptive end of the dictionary spectrum (many experts will tell you every dictionary is descriptive and prescriptive, but I’m painting in broad brushstrokes).
I’ll have much more to say in the coming weeks about related topics, but suffice it to say that Merriam-Webster is a bit of a troublemaker in newsrooms and everywhere words are ferociously debated.
The smaller the bone, the fiercer the dogs.
Yeah, even to that extent.
A fight between two bald men over a comb.
And also to that extent sometimes.
The latter quote was how Jorge Luis Borges characterized the Falklands War, but sometimes you’d think the stakes were as high in newsroom arguments over words.
The battles are so fierce because the stakes are so low.
Okay, I’ll move on before I get myself into trouble. But you haven’t heard the last from me about Merriam-Webster.
Those battles, though
My experience of how it works has been this: The deciders of newsroom style and usage, many of them inflexible, dig in on sacred “rules,” the world moves on, top editors take note, popular usage overwhelmingly moves on, a dictionary or two will add a definition or dimension to a word’s listing, AP Stylebook refuses to budge, then eventually relents, and even after the modern usage becomes acceptable in AP’s guidance, long after the world has embraced it, newsroom deciders cling to their comforting old ways, and it’s years before newsrooms catch up with the world they serve.
That’s a problem.
Now that Merriam-Webster is the go-to dictionary for AP Stylebook, it’s been fascinating to see which newsrooms are rebelling and which newsrooms are letting their hair down, so to speak.
I insist that the stubborn are writing their premature expiration dates as publications and websites, drifting more and more into irrelevancy in a changing world. It’s not a popular thing to say in an industry already in crisis, but it bears examination.
“Everyone talks like this now!”
Yeah, well, we don’t.
“Nobody writes like that anymore!”
Yeah, well, we do.
Oxford comma? Gauntlet or gantlet? More than vs. over? I’m over it. All of it.
As are others.
Sometimes I think it’s all some editors enjoy about the job: fighting imagined dragons. Use what’s right for the context, for the reader, for that sentence.
These are not rules you must follow or die, even if you’ve been persuaded to think it’s cool to say “I will die on this hill.” It’s guidance. Use your mind while they still let humans make these decisions case by case.
My Merriam-Webster 12th edition is coming. You can pry it from my cold, still-healing-from-my-July-10-fall hands.
(Please don’t. You’d probably overpower me with minimal effort and take it from me. Save your energy for more important fights.)
I’ll have more to say about this when it arrives.
Sending love. Protect your peace.
♥
Thank you
If you appreciate what you find here and feel generous, you can check out the Tip Jar. Thank you for reading. Here’s a butterfly for you.
/”””””\ \ / /”””””\
\ 0 \( )/ 0 /
> l l <
/ o l l o \
\,,,,,,,,,/v\,,,,,,,,,/