Saturday, July 01, 2006

The Whole World Is Insane

Look no further than the homepage of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which is helpfully titled Merriam-Webster OnLine (sic) as if to reinforce how behind the times they really are. OnLine?
Oh, dagnabbit! Am I online again? I might not have known if the angels at M-W hadn't clued me in. Especially since they spelled it wrong (if capitalization counts as a spelling error).
This is also where they beg us to Party Like It's 1806! Apparently there are celebrations planned to celebrate the 200th anniversary of publishing the first dictionary in America. Are they nucking futs?

Q: How myopic and self-self serving can they possibly be?

A: They created a 6-page minisite. More compelling is this evidence: They have "special commemorative events", and this will all be communicated via a year-long nation-wide press tour. Please note: another mispelling! They incorrectly hyphenated nationwide. Maybe they should create some sort of tool to check spelling or something.

And if you had any doubt that the lexicographers at Merriam-Webster were deadly serious about this anniversary, it would evaporate as soon as you saw the name and phone number of a Senior Publicist right on the bottom of the first page of the minisite.

What sane world would allow these things to happen?

R.I.P. sanity.

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