The point of dictionaries is to describe how language is used, not to police it | Lynne Murphy

Protests against dictionaries are nothing new. In the 1960s, distaste for the treatment of “non-standard” vocabulary such as “ain’t” in Merriam-Webster’s Third International Dictionary was so vociferous that a hostile takeover of the company was attempted, and after that failed a competitor dictionary was founded. The price of used copies of the 1934 Second International Dictionary skyrocketed as customers rejected the dictionary’s approach to controversial usages.

These days dictionary protests come and go with less drastic effects but greater regularity. Critiquing dictionary definitions gives social and political campaigns focus and attention – as in a 2019 campaign by the animal-rights organisation Peta calling. Publishers’ PR departments can also catalyse controversy. The most innovative and zeitgeisty dictionary additions are highlighted in quarterly press releases about dictionary revisions, perhaps in hope of viral attention. It works. When the Collins Dictionary added plant-based foods, including last year, asked if readers thought such words “desecrat[e] the way we speak”.