21 September 2018
Controversy gripped American commercial media last July when Kylie Jenner was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as “America’s newest self-made billionaire.” Almost immediately, many Americans took to social media platforms to express their dissatisfaction with the fact that Jenner, whose parents were both extraordinarily successful both professionally and financially, is considered a “self-made” billionaire.
It was at this point that Dictionary.com, the supposedly ubiquitous online compendium of definitions and etymological explanations, entered the debate, tweeting the following (see above).
Unbeknownst to many, in a 2016 major restructuring of corporate strategy, Dictionary.com explicitly committed itself to a new strategy of “becoming the vanguard of progressive revolution for American speakers of the English language… THE OED CAN EAT A BAG OF DICKS.” Forevermore shedding their simple lexicographical chrysalis, it would appear that the Jenner barb is one of a series of attacks on the American intellectual establishment.
Consequently, as the Jenner controversy continues to unfold, online users across several fora began reporting “irregular” (although technically accurate) definitions to select words.
For example, the definition of “absurdity”, while formerly “the quality or state of being ridiculous or wildly unreasonable”, has been changed to “a statement or belief simply inconsistent with one’s own opinion”, with the given example usage being “It is an absolute absurdity that Scott Pruitt was ever allowed to darken the doors of the EPA.”
Similarly, critical, time-honored words in the American political lexicon, such as “duty”, find themselves under revision. Formerly defined as “a moral or legal obligation; a responsibility”, duty is now quite logically defined as “that which stirs us on a given line of profit, according to our selfish desires.” Oddly enough, however, no changes occurred in the word’s example usage, which remained “The American government has a duty toward national defense.”
While many traditional scholars continue to express dissatisfaction with the rapid changes occurring at Dictionary.com, scholars of philosophy and causal logic have actually praised the organization’s reforms, claiming they give actual credibility to words, definitions, and phrases that is rapidly being eliminated by the fundamentally irrationality of American political culture.
“We used to have classic foundations of logic; If A, then B. We observe A, therefore we can logically predict B,” stated JH Bumbleshook, a tenured professor of philosophy at Stanford University.
“Now, we have to prepare our students for a world in which we still observe A, but B is unequivocally ‘Fake News’. If we do not observe A, then the person not observing A clearly is a racist. Similarly, who the fuck even knows if the Russians didn’t hack into our Facebook servers and plant B there in the first place? … In terms of epistemology, it’s pretty much a free for all.”
In a similar development, Trump administration officials jumped in to the debate to add the following clarification;
“Regardless of the recent actions taken by Dictionary.com, the Trump administration and Republican Party official maintain that, according to demographic use and frequency, UrbanDictionary.com represents the greatest threat to contemporary culture, American values, and our political institutions.”
WikiLeeks News Services 