Who Will Save the Dictionary?
Who Will Save the Dictionary?
The article discusses the existential crisis faced by dictionary publishers like Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com in the digital age, detailing their struggles with declining revenue, technological shifts, and the impact of AI and search engines. Author Stefan Fatsis chronicles attempts by these institutions to adapt, from Merriam-Webster's hybrid online-print model and social media engagement to Dictionary.com's tumultuous journey through acquisitions and staffing cuts. Ultimately, it underscores the urgent need to preserve the role of authoritative dictionaries in an era of rapid linguistic evolution and distrust in traditional authorities.
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"You will never have enough staff to keep up. People are too productive in the creation of language.”
this likely applies to a lot of important endeavors underscoring important work for humanity (generating educational content, knowledge maps, dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference materials, etc etc).
so the unanswered title of the article could be rephrased: how will we pay for it all?
this material needs constant attention, updating, curating and evolving. it's worth a high price tag even.
Wikipedia has one answer to this question (not without its own challenges). will another answer emerge?
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