The Anti-Dictionary: A Selected List of Words Being Forced from the Modern Lexicon

By Michael Cromwell

Words are dying. Not all words. Only a select few-words that have specific bearing on our moral health as a nation and our moral past. In this book, a selected list of words is given. These words are not dying because of misuse, but because their essential meanings have been forgotten, compromised or eclipsed altogether.

As America enters a moral vacuum, it seems the opposite of what we were and what we are is now the rule. What was once "bad" it seems is now "good" and vice versa. The use of words and language reflects this change. Such obscuring of language is subtle, but there nonetheless. Beware!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 8, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469750842

Michael Cromwell

Michael Cromwell is a writer and teacher. Originally from Washington, D.C., he has lived in various places, including the San Francisco Bay Area. He currently lives in the Baltimore, Maryland area with his wife Sandy. This is his first novel.

Book preview

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Michael Cromwell

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without

the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

ISBN: 0-595-22417-2

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5084-2 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Editorial Method

Introduction

Dying and Dead words

Amoral

Anonymous

Art

Attractive

Bad

Barbaric

Bashful

Beauty

Better; best

Camp; campy

Chance

Cliché

Compassion

Controversial

Corrupt

Criticism

Crude

Cynical

Decency; decent

Dignity

Doubt

Dull

Embarrassment

Equity

Evil

Fame

Fear

Film

Foolish

Funny

Guilt

Hero

Honesty

Honor

Hypocrisy

Immoral

Innocence

Integrity

Intelligence

Irony

Language

Modesty

Moral

Narcissism

Neutral

Normal

Notorious

Outrageous

Patience

Personal

Perverted

Privacy

Protest

Reflection

Respect

Restraint

Satire

Savage

Scandal

Sense

Shame

Shy

Silly

Sin

Smug

Smut

Stereotype

Tradition

Ugly

Unique

Vanity

Virgin

Virtue

Vulgar

Wholesome

Conclusions

Editorial Method 

Definitions of all words taken from MSN Encarta online dictionary and the Merriam Webster’s Tenth Edition Collegiate Dictionary.

Introduction 

The following is a list of words which now, or will in the near future, have little meaning to our daily lives in America. Some of the words, which have had powerful influences on American life and have their foundations in the formation of the country itself, are already dead. Others are on the way out.

The power of language and therefore words cannot be understated. Language creates reality. Those in control of the daily American dialogue can control perception and those in control of perception can control reality.

Ten years ago there were no words like internet, broadband and download. Now these words are with us everyday and define our daily realities.

But at the expense of these newer words, and words like them, others are being left behind. Much of the discrepancy is cultural. There is always room for new words to mix with the old; however, it is my opinion, that today, we are seeing some words completely slipping away.

The words listed below are subjective, assembled by myself as I see their use become less frequent and their meanings and concepts devalued.

The Anti-Dictionary

This then is an Anti-Dictionary, an alphabetical list of words noted for their diminishment. Some words are falling away because they are being or have been eclipsed by their antithetical meanings. Others, previously negative in meaning like the word crude for example, are slipping away because it seems now that the behavior the word crude once described has become mainstream. Hence, there is no longer need for the word. The word crude is now only a vapor.

A new concept which I would like to coin here as personal subjective relativism or (PSR) has fueled much of this. PSR has evolved out of the lack of objective absolute standards in our country. Americans are forgetting what it means to be crude anymore because to call someone crude would be a judgment call and the fear is to judge one another or hold one another responsible for our behavior. Political Correctness, arguably the most powerful linguistic force and influence on post-Cold War America, is responsible for PSR because PC has fueled the moral and social relativism in which we all now wallow.

It is still crude behavior for a man to urinate in public; therefore the word still has meaning and still applies. But for how long? In my opinion, crude would be one example of a word dying in the American lexicon.

And for how long will we continue to include the word virgin in our language when we dispense condoms in schools and cynically acknowledge sexual activity among children. Will we one day even need the word anymore when the assumption will be that all kids of a certain age will be engaged in sex and that chastity is no longer something to be strived for?

But crude and virgin are only two of the words I have included here. Some are broader in scope and influence while some are pocket words that border on slang. But all of them, or the death of them, you can believe indicates the loss of something in America or perhaps an ominous transition in American life to a new reality that will resemble original America like an eBook resembles an original manuscript written laboriously by hand.

Dying and Dead words 

Amoral 

Conventional definitions: lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply; or being outside or beyond the moral order or a particular code of morals.

Direction: terminated. Amoral is defined by its cousins, moral and immoral and cannot exist independent of them. When they are damaged or threatened, the word amoral loses its teeth. It seems in today’s world that immorality, or to be immoral (conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles) is gaining the upper hand, moral being defined as of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior. The quick response to this definition in today’s world would be of course, what is right and what is wrong and by whose standards? Again the standards of objectivity escape us, leaving us in a nebula of relativism. All I can say is that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were founded on Godly principles, meaning the Bible; therefore any moral code we should be responsible for would then have its origin in the Bible. If this is so, then American society is indeed on an immoral slide in history where it laterally eclipses its cousin, amoral.

Immorality will always eclipse amorality while morality will not, but I will define immorality and morality