From the department of "old news that has nothing to do with jewelry" ...

Children's dictionary dumps "nature" words in favor of the digital age

I'm mixed on this.

See, I had one of those kiddie dictionaries when I was little and by the time I was old enough to use a dictionary instead of going "Mooooom? What's this?" I had aged out of it and needed a real dictionary.

M said it well: "Some of them probably for the age group needed to go because of simple lack of exposure to them, but others seem odd to remove. It does make it difficult to encourage reading of some classics but I expect the child that would pick up Carroll or Dickens or Alcott might be less inclined to rely upon a Junior dictionary. And we definitely needed some of the updates. I am, however, highly amused at the new inclusion of 'common sense'."

The problem here is that today's child knows what an mp3 player is. They don't need the definition. Some of the deleted words -- "monarch," "allotment," "gorse," "porridge" -- those they might need defined. Which highlights the very basic problematic assumption of trying to tailor a dictionary to an age group. What, they need a book to define words that are already suitable to their vocabulary?

Another friend of ours found the substitutions "progressive." As for me?

I think she has a point, actually. But nonetheless: The real progression in terms of dictionaries, I think, is, instead of updating the compromised "not too scary" version, to teach children the coexisting values of "rich" and "quick." The rich dictionary remains the grown-up dictionary with the little line drawings and the flowers pressed on relevant pages. The one where every country has an entry and the language of origin, including blendings and uncertainties about the meandering path a word followed to become part of English, is listed in italics before the definition. The one that smells like an old book. As Giles said in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the richness comes through knowledge that is traditional, tangible ... smelly.

For a quick and easy dictionary, don't send them to a "junior dictionary" which defines the 10,000 words that Oxford figures will already constitute the youth's working vocabulary -- send them to dictionary.com.

So I guess my point is that I don't see the point to begin with.