Saturday, April 26, 2008

Roget's Hijacked

Anyone who doubts that "Roget's II" represents a a dumbed-down, skewed and truncated, ideologically sabotaged "update" (by an acknowledged radical femmer masquerading as a disinterested PhD) might visit Vodkapundit and associated sites. Roget's 175-year old reference is available in other forms --we've substituted an English-French version from 1911-- but really, this latest text represents censorship, not "editing".

Try "father", which returns "A male parent", period. No noun synonyms, no verb forms (bear, engender, foster, nurture etc.), no turns-of-phrase. As for "weapon": What of "rapier wit" and so on? Rumor? This eviscerated Roget's is a Dick-and-Jane monument to duckspeak PCBS, no longer a thesaurus at all-- an assault on language as communication in Orwell's fundamental sense. Depriving work-a-day writers of this classic tool (for what?) is an absolute insult.

What's next, "dictionaries" with amended definitions, encyclopedias careful to fit all history, philosophy, cross-referenced bibliographies to Mde. BS Femmer's mold? Betcha she's beavering at it, as we speak.

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