Encarta Webster's Dictionary Reflects 9/11 Language

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's all about 9/11 because these days everything else is so September 10th.



9/11, al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and Patriot Act are all new entries in the second edition of the Encarta Webster's Dictionary of the English Language to be released next week.


And with new definitions assigned in the popular lexicon for Ground Zero and Gulf War (news - web sites), many of the additions are connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Bush administration's war on terror which has dominated the news ever since that day when almost 3,000 died.


The new dictionary entries evoke a national mood more somber than in 1999 when the dictionary was launched with a first edition reflecting the themes of globalization, growing wealth, optimism and the Internet age.


"The first part of the 21st century has actually been defined by terrorism and war. The dictionary's vocabulary reflects what is going on in society," said U.S. General Editor Anne Soukhanov.


"Really since World War II, we haven't seen such an insistent need to put in new words," she said.


9/11 has two meanings in the dictionary. One denotes the actual hijacked plane attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The other use is for a catastrophic attack by terrorists where very large numbers of innocent people are killed or injured.


According to Soukhanov, citations of the second meaning include references to the March 11 commuter train attacks in Madrid, the worst in modern Spanish history, as "Spain's 9/11" and the siege in Beslan earlier this month that killed more than 320 people, including many children, as "Russia's 9/11."


"Events drive people to use language in a way that they have not done so before," Soukhanov said. "After the usage is pervasive and we have evidence to see that it's got staying power, we would enter such words in the dictionary."


The dictionary mirrors other changes too, with terms influenced by Hispanic culture, the Caribbean and Canada. There's Amexica (the US-Mexican border from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf Coast and the cities near it), mamaguy (flattery or teasing) and francize (to make a person, business, or group adopt French as a working language).


And for those who complain that they can't look up a word if they don't know how to spell it, this dictionary has an innovative solution. It includes misspellings that are crossed out and reference the correct spelling.


But in the end, it's another new word that most aptly represents the second edition and the state of the English language. That word is September 10th -- an adjective defined as "so petty, shallow, or outmoded as to be irrelevant."


"There are September 10th and September 11th dictionaries," said Soukhanov. "We're a September 11th dictionary definitely."