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MP3 player, blog in kids'
dictionary - monarch, bishop out!
London,
Dec 15 (IANS) The monarch along with the empire is on its
way out, taking the bishop, the chapel and the carol along.
A children's dictionary has replaced these words with 'in'
expressions like blog, broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, chatroom
and attachment!
Oxford
University Press (OUP), publishers of the 10,000-word "Junior
Dictionary", says the changes have been made to reflect
the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith
society, the Telegraph reported.
"When
you look back at older versions of dictionaries, there were
lots of examples of flowers for instance. That was because
many children lived in semi-rural environments and saw the
seasons. Nowadays, the environment has changed," Vineeta
Gupta, the head of children's dictionaries at OUP, was quoted
as saying.
"We
are also much more multicultural. People don't go to church
as often as before. Our understanding of religion is within
multiculturalism, which is why some words such as 'Pentecost'
or 'Whitsun' would have been in 20 years ago but not now."
Words
like carol, holly, pulpit, saint and sin have been dropped
as have porridge, poultry, prune, radish, spinach, sycamore,
tulip and, even that very English expression willow.
In
have come celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, creep, conflict,
common sense, debate and EU!
Some
teachers and academics argue that children might lose touch
with Britain's heritage due to the changes.
"We
have a certain Christian narrative which has given meaning
to us over the last 2,000 years. To say it is all relative
and replaceable is questionable," said Alan Smithers,
the director of the centre for education and employment at
Buckingham University.
"The
word selections are a very interesting reflection of the way
childhood is going, moving away from our spiritual background
and the natural world and towards the world that information
technology creates for us."
OUP,
the well-known dictonary publisher, selects words for its
junior editions with the aid of the children's corpus. It
is a list of words made up of general language, words from
children's books and terms related to the school curriculum.
Lexicographers consider word frequency when making additions
and deletions.
In:
Blog,
broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, attachment, database, export,
chatroom, bullet point, cut and paste, celebrity, tolerant,
vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship,
childhood, conflict, common sense, debate, EU, drought, brainy,
boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee,
compulsory, cope, democratic, allergic, biodegradable, emotion,
dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro, apparatus, food chain,
incisor, square number, trapezium, alliteration, colloquial,
idiom, curriculum, classify, chronological, block graph.
Out:
Carol,
cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe, dwarf, elf, goblin, abbey,
aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, christen, disciple, minister,
monastery, monk, nun, nunnery, parish, pew, psalm, pulpit,
saint, sin, devil, vicar, coronation, duchess, duke, emperor,
empire, monarch, decade, adder, ass, beaver, boar, budgerigar,
bullock, cheetah, colt, corgi, cygnet, doe, drake, ferret,
gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher,
lark, leopard, lobster, magpie, minnow, mussel, newt, otter,
ox, oyster, panther, pelican, piglet, plaice, poodle, porcupine,
porpoise, raven, spaniel, starling, stoat, stork, terrapin,
thrush, weasel, wren, acorn, allotment, almond, apricot, ash,
bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell,
bramble, bran, bray, bridle, brook, buttercup, canary, canter,
carnation, catkin, cauliflower, chestnut, clover, conker,
county, cowslip, crocus, dandelion, diesel, fern, fungus,
gooseberry, gorse, hazel, hazelnut, heather, holly, horse
chestnut, ivy, lavender, leek, liquor, ice, manger, marzipan,
melon, minnow, mint, nectar, nectarine, oats, pansy, parsnip,
pasture, poppy, porridge, poultry, primrose, prune, radish,
rhubarb, sheaf, spinach, sycamore, tulip, turnip, vine, violet,
walnut, willow.
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