Monday, October 02, 2006
Let's Compare Today's Apples to Today's Apples
...And yesterday's apples to yesterday's apples. So this news show (Clip #831 when you get to the site)featuring Egyptian journalist Nabil Sharaf Al-Din aired in August 2005. They are debating a definition found in Webster's dictionary for the word "Arab". While I know that there have been inaccurate and stereotypical definitions in popular dictionaries such as Webster (and perhaps do still exist to a lesser degree), this claim of an insulting and stereotypically-based definition of "Arab" surely does not apply to current editions. The woman states that the definition comes from 'an edition' of the American Webster's dictionary. If you search Merriam-Webster's online dictionary here, you'll see their current definition of the word "Arab". I'm sure that older editions printed inappropriate and offensive meaning, but how likely is it that the most recent editions contain such material? Will have to go home and crack open my parents' ancient copy of Webster's dictionary to verify.
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4 comments:
i looked in the american heritage dictionary that i have and it's a good definition. not sure how old mine is but it's in three pieces and the covering is coming off... it's from the early 90's, i think.
Thanks, Tooners. Gotta get my mother to look in our dictionary which is about 40 years old and 20 inches thick. There's no doubt in my mind that at some point the dictionary included a slanderous definition , but I just don't know why you would base a news show on that topic without explicitly stating that it no longer contains that definition. It's misleading and irresponsible to tell your viewers that without disclosing details.
My husband says Arabs are not comfortable in their own skin, Bandito, so I suppose you're right. If the occidental part of the world cared as much about what the Arabs said about them, as the Arabs do of the occidental world. I was reading your new chapter last night-the maid and "Debbie Does Dallas"???? This is a work of fiction, right?
We might have some friends in common, Bandito!
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