Who's Responsible For These Ridiculousnesses?

We The People are burdened with some bizarre systems.

1965 Article

Weights and Measures 

US "customary" weights and measures are nonsensical.  Worldwide, we share this system with only Liberia.

I propose converting to a sensible weights and measures system.

1 Kilometer = 1000 Meters (Kilo means 1000)
1 Meter = 100 Centimeters (Centi means 100)
1 Meter = 1000 Millimeters (Milli means 1000)

and likewise for:
 Kilogram, Grams, Milligrams
 Kiloliter, Liter, Milliliter

And,
1 Hectare = 10000 Sq. Meters
100º Celsius = boiling
0º Celsius = freezing

Could there be a more intuitive system of measure? We could call it the "Metric System".

But no ... let's have:

1 Mile = 5280 Feet
1 Yard = 3 Feet
1 Foot = 12 Inches

1 Ton = 2000 Pounds (logically abbreviated lb)
1 Pound = 16 Ounces (Avoirdupois not Troy)

and to further confuse you

1 Gallon (not Imperial gallon) = 4 Quarts 

1 Quart = 2 Pints

1 Pint = 2 Cups   (we're in liquid ounce territory now)

1 Cup = 8 ounces

1 Tablespoon = 3 Teaspoons

2 Tablespoons = 1fluid ounce

1 Acre = 1/640th of a Square Mile = 43560 Sq. Feet

Fahrenheit: boiling 212°, freezing 32°

And throw in  .. Long Tons, Troy ounce, Furlongs, Rods, Knots, Fathoms, Barrels, Hogsheads, Dog Years, Shot, Hand, Board Feet...

Actually, we are stuck with 2 systems.  The American scientific community has long ago converted to metric, a system 95% of the world uses -  but the we who use the "Customary" system - all 2 of us - argue the Metric System is it is too hard!

Go figure.

Electoral System

We claim a democracy in the USA.  We are,  however, technically, a republic, at least for awhile yet - where we elect representatives who pass laws and vote on our behalf, occasionally. 

We claim 1 person/1 vote, but ... in presidential elections, each state selects electors and they cast the votes for president, 538 of them, 1 for each member of congress plus 3 from DC.  So 270 votes wins the presidential election. 

For example, Minnesota, having 8 representatives and 2 senators, gets 10 electoral votes. North Dakota gets 3, 1 representative and 2 senators. Minnesota has roughly 6 million people which works out to 1 electoral vote per 600,000 residents.  North Dakota has 800,000 people which translates to 1 electoral vote per 267,000 residents.  And a further extreme .. California has 40 million people with 54 electoral votes which maps to 1 electoral vote per 740,000 residents.

Clearly we do not have an equal representation system. A presidential candidate could win the election  being outvoted by 7 million popular votes by eking out wins in a few states.  e.g. narrowly win the Texas and Florida popular vote and receive 70 electoral votes while losing California by 5 million votes.  Five times in history, presidential candidates have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College. 

Usurpers: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, Donald Trump. 

Shoulda Beens: Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton.

What is the rationale for such a ridiculous system? 

As in many mediocre solutions this one was a compromise. Our Founding Fathers could not countenance the rabble determining who would be president and preferred that Congress select the President, so opposed a popular vote system. The Congressional faction favoring the popular vote could not countenance the cronyism of selecting one of their own for the job. 

So the “Electoral College” was born, a slate of “electors” appointed by each state to cast the presidential votes. The number of votes each state would be determined by population which translates to congressional districts. And here another abominable compromise came into play. Southern states lobbied for slaves to be counted toward the population total and eventually they were compromised down to 3/5ths of a person. So the Electoral College was instrumental in the persistence of slavery.  Since almost all states require electors to vote for the person winning the popular vote in the state (Maine & Nebraska tally electoral votes by Congressional district), the main effect of the system is to dilute the vote of large population states and enhance the vote small population states. 

In 1889-1890 the admission of small population western states was largely driven by the number of electoral votes they could deliver to the Republicans. North & South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington, each delivering 3 electoral votes with 6 states added to the Union in a single year. In response, Democrats lobbied to include Arizona and New Mexico which didn’t happen for another 20 years.

At the time, The Boston Globe pointed out that the Idaho & Wyoming together had a population of “a fair sized congressional district in Massachusetts” but would be represented in Congress by four senators and two representatives.

And the push continues to this day with factions lobbying for Washington DC and Puerto Rico statehood.  And some would include Canada and Greenland in the wishlist. 

Too often the electoral college results have denied the will of the majority.  It's overdue for removal.

Income Tax

The US tax code is roughly 7000 pages, 5x War & Peace. Clearly not something mere mortals can comprehend. There are over 15 major schedules and more than 100 different forms, schedules, and worksheets that can be associated with the IRS Form 1040. So those who have any complexity in their financial life i.e have any income beyond wages, have dependents, itemized deductions, business or rental income,  sold real estate etc. - will generally hire an accountant or use tax preparation software like TurboTax to do their tax filing. It is a system where errors - intended or inadvertent - are rampant. And when you make them, you are punished with penalties.  

Of course, the very rich have workarounds, masters at tax avoidance with the best lawyers and accountants money can buy.  They don't do W-2's as their income is generally not wages.  They pay tax at a lower rate because they leverage favorable rates on investment income (capital gains) and numerous loopholes e.g. real estate , oil businesses, sports teams, private jets ... surprised?  It is true - the rich are not like the rest of us.

It shouldn't be this complicated. 

In some countries, e.g. Sweden, Norway, Finland, the government calculates taxes and citizens receive a statement each spring with a summary of income, deductions, wealth and debt. Tax filing thus consists of verifying a pre-filled tax return. In some countries e.g France, all filings are made online. 

Tipping

It used to be leaving a tip was optional and indicated appreciation for service well done. The days of the jar next to the cash register are over. Tipping is now in your face with an app shaming you into an 18-30% tip. Most every point-of-sale transaction now presents you with a very public tipping app with the person behind you tsk'ing as you choose 10%.  In Europe servizio incluso is often the rule so there's no need to struggle over how much to tip.  I'm in favor. 

BTW - How much do you tip your plumber?

Tennis Scoring

15 Love, 30 Love, 40 Love - apparently stemming from the quarter hours on a clock but why 40 instead of 45? God only knows [GOK for short, a useful bookkeeping entry]. And then there’s deuce? How is it that deuce means tie score?  So the scoring is weird compounded by equating "Love" with zero - just seems wrong. The goal to win the game at love should not be a tennis thing. 

Just no.  What's wrong with 4-0?  

Spelling, Grammar, Word Usage

I have written several posts on the strange, quirky English language (Word Nerd, Strangelish, Bloody Marvelous English Language, An Ostentation of Peacocks, Apologies Mr Paulson) so I will leave it at that on the ridiculous impossibly marvelously complex English language.

And who decided we should use Arabic numerals?

Copyright © 2026  Dave Hoplin 

Deep Thoughts Vol 13

Yet another tumultuous month here in Minnesota.  

So an OpEd with .. 

some things I believe important to say, some facts, some conjecture, some commentary, some wisdom (supplied by others), some opinions, some trivia, some irreverence, some satire, some whimsy, some irony, some thinly disguised anger and some sadness.  

A long list. You are forgiven if you fail to touch bottom.

In Minnesota, Punxsutawney Phil’s '6 more weeks of winter' is good news. Early Spring!

Two people shorten a road.  Irish proverb

Americans will bet on anything. Common Super Bowl side bets include the results of the coin toss, the length of the national anthem, and the color of Gatorade that is traditionally dumped on the winning coach. How did you do?

Bill Brown, legendary Vikings fullback.  If you need 2 yards, I’ll get you 3. If you need 4 yards, I’ll get you 3.

"Congress is America’s answer to the Russian Duma, i.e., nominally important but functionally irrelevant."  Scott Galloway

I'm under a lot of pressure.  Old age is assumed to be accompanied by wisdom.

Avoid being your physician’s last patient of the day. Especially on Friday. 

With the expiration of subsidies, health care premiums are rising on average by 26 percent and in some cases by more than 100 percent

I am bullish on measles, whooping cough and influenza.  And a side bet on polio perhaps.

Prediction. TrumpRx will be yet another grift to line the Family’s pockets. 

My secret to long life - verified by Gemini. "Coffee drinking (3-5 cups per day) has significant health benefits, lower risk of premature death, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's and certain cancers. Coffee improves cognitive function, boosts metabolism, enhances physical performance."    Knew it all along.

"When G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers asked ChatGPT to fact-check an article for him, the chatbot couldn’t get its head around modern America. It told him there were “multiple factual impossibilities” in his article, including his statements that “the current Secretary of Defense is a former talk show host for Fox News,” “the Deputy Director of the FBI used to guest-host Sean Hannity’s show,” and “Jeanine Pirro is the U.S. District Attorney for DC.” “Since none of these statements are true,” it told Morris, “they undermine credibility unless signposted as hyperbole, fiction, or satire.”

"In tumultuous times, it is important to have a very mature leader." Gordon Gee

Papers, please. Walking around while brown is now a crime.

If you are denied the right to vote, demand a provisional ballot and receipt. It’s required by law.

I binge watch Olympics curling every 4 years and then don’t think about it at all in between.

More and more Winter Olympic events are decided by revolutions.

Those skeleton riders are completely nuts.

The Italian National Anthem is beautiful. The tune for the Star-Spangled Banner comes from an old British drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," which was popular at men's social clubs in London during the 1700s.

Minneapolis is today’s Selma.

Quotas. The administration is rewarding officers for the number of arrests they make, even if those detainees are later released without charges. Wall Street Journal.  What could go wrong?

“We’ll have our home again.”, “One of us, all of them.”  are ICE slogans. Their origin should not surprise.

When did "F…ing” become everyone’s adjective of choice? It’s offensive.

Let's bring back "heavens to Betsy" and “fiddlesticks”.

More words to bring back: dilly-dally, dingbat, flapdoodle, hoosegow, mugwump, balderdash ...

Toni Morrison’s given name is Chloe Ardelia Wofford.  Have you ever considered changing your name?  I have often thought it might be wise to use a pen name for this blog. Suggestions?

Mercator projection makes Greenland appear much larger than it is. Just saying.

2023,2024,2025 were the 3 hottest years in recorded history.

“Everyone is welcome here” is now subversive.

DOGE efficiency team extracted data from the Social Security Admin and stored it on insecure servers. You probably can guess what happened. SSA may have to issue new social security numbers to everyone. I'd look into Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion if I were you.

Death by drone. There have been 39 boat strikes - and counting - killing 144 people. To be honest .. murdering.

People tell you not to make assumptions, but they can be timesavers.

Americans are angry that they are unable to get meatpacking, fruit picking, bed pan emptying jobs.

Minnesota Star Tribune sports page's most commonly reported score is “late”. Late begins at noon.

What’s legal in Texas should not be in California or Virginia? Garage logic. 

The FBI has concluded that Epstein did not run a sex trafficking ring.

Oligarchs are even more depraved than we could have imagined.

The worst-of-the-worst have received pardons.

The politicization of the DOJ bodes ill now and for the future. Tit-for-tat.

“Leave the thinking to the professionals.”  Karoline Leavitt

Two countries separated by a common language. e.g. First floor, IRA, trillion, wicked, public school all have different meanings in Britain and America. Brilliant.

Knock you up is another.

We have a finicky, gourmet cat that will only eat dehydrated chicken @ $65/lb.

Wall Street is not the economy. The 1% own half the stocks.

Explaining American migration trends.  People leave more desirable places for less desirable places where they can afford homes.

Tariffs main role is international intimidation.  Prove me wrong.

54% of US adults read below the 6th grade level. 

An American who can speak 2 different languages is a suspect.

"Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”  Winston Churchill.

History lesson. Evil was defeated but it did not go away.

Your story does not begin at birth .. but with those who came before you.

Can you name your great-grandparents? Do you know their story? Were they immigrants?

Minnesota must have some untapped oil reserves.

Hundreds of millions from sales of pirated Venezuelan oil tankers is sequestered in Qatar. But it was all about fentanyl.

“Kavanaugh Stops”. A single justice declares racial profiling legitimate!

ICE is buying warehouses ($38B worth) to serve as processing centers holding up to 1,500 detainees each before funneling them into 8 mega-centers that can hold up to 10,000+ detainees each. WAPO  This represents violations of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 10th and 14th amendments, if anyone is paying attention.

For clarity, let’s name these Camp Auschwitz, Camp Treblinka, Camp Buchenwald,  Camp Dachau, Camp Ravensbruck, Camp Bergen-Belsen, Camp East Montana ...

Many great ideas are initially thought to be stupid.  Same is true of stupid ideas. Tricky to tell the difference

There are 393 million civilian firearms in the US.

One year from dismantling of USAID, a Lancet Global Health study projects that global aid cuts could lead to 9.4 million deaths by 2030.  CNN  (for reference - the Holocaust killed 6 million Jews)

Crypto is not money. There is no real value behind it. Its price is driven by internet vibes and a bubble awaits. And when that happens you can be confident that the government will do a bailout. (The slide is perhaps underway - Bitcoin down roughly 50% in the past 6 mo.)

The world is repudiating US positions and actions on the world stage. "We believe that from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, more just”   Mark Carney, Canadian Prime Minister, 2026 Davos. 

United States officially withdrew from the World Health Organization, leaving behind $278 million in unpaid dues. US joined the organization in 1948.

Russia and China are gleeful at the prospect of the demise of NATO.

It will take decades, if we’re lucky, to undo the damage done in a single year to restore world trust and re-establish US leadership in the world. 

"Yours is not a village that will crowd heaven."  Unknown sage. 

“We shall nobly save, or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth”.  A. Lincoln

Americans check their phones 186 times per day on average.

If you or I had posted such racist garbage, we’d be out of a job in 5 minutes.

Pulling on compression socks with arthritic hands is the devil at work.

Listening to the president is like listening to Captain Queeg on the stand  .. "Ahh, but the strawberries! That's - that's where I had them”

“You have the right to protest in the streets, but that does not give you the right to enter the Capitol and disrupt Congress.”  Jim Jordan 2026,  5 years late

Minneapolis protesters are "terrorists".  Jan 6'ers were "peaceful protesters".  NYT,  ABC. 

We had whistles. They had guns.

The odds on the Twins winning the World Series is +10,000 for those of you who understand these things. My interpretation is slim to none. If Pablo is out it's -10,000 for the basement.

I confess I am not a huge fan of Lenten minor key music and the absence of Alleluia from my life for 40 days.

Doomsday clock now reads 85 seconds to midnight.

The scourge of aging is losing people you love. Funerals as social gatherings are not to be wished for. The thing about your grief is no one can really know it but you.

In Memoriam

Copyright © 2026  Dave Hoplin 

 

Brain Atrophy

at·ro·phy

/ˈatrəfē/

1. gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect.

"her artistic skills atrophied from lack of use"

2.

(of body tissue or an organ) waste away, especially as a result of the degeneration of cells 

"without exercise, the muscles will atrophy"

"Thinking" in this day and age seems to have gone out of favor. Use it or lose it rules apply. Much too often we simply accept what we hear in our bubbles, victims of the gaslighting. It is sadly common to rely solely on your favorite foghorn to tell you what you should be thinking. 

A scientist would say you cannot get to a factual conclusion or realize a creative idea without rigor. The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge through 1) careful observation 2) rigorous skepticism 3) hypothesis testing 4) Repeat. 

Well reasoned thinking takes time to allow your subconscious to weigh in and then, importantly, to verify, perhaps including a peer review. Outside the scientific community, such rigor is rare, very rare.

John Cleese is most noted for his role in the Monty Python franchise. If you are a member of my generation i.e. tending toward geriatric, you might be a warehouse of Python quotes:   

• "Tis only a flesh wound".
• “Brother Maynard – bring forth the holy hand grenade!”  
• “YES. WE’RE ALL INDIVIDUALS.” 
• "We’re destitute. I’ve got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments.”
• “Jeez, The Inquisition. I didn't expect that."

What's your favourite?

But beyond his comedic talent, he’s also a thoughtful guy as evidenced by his talk at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity.

Cleese's talk makes the point that thinking requires discipline, patience and a mind open to truth free from, or at least acknowledging, your biases. Perhaps the biggest barrier to rigor is that it's hard and often leads us into the temptation of procrastination. Shop for that birthday present, those plants need watering,  … I've got too much to do, I need to sharpen my pencils and I'll do some thinking tomorrow. Yes, it is easier to do trivial things that are "urgent" rather than important things that are not urgent - like thinking.  And it's easier to do things we know we can do, rather than start on things that we're not so sure about. 

To reach a conclusion, gather facts from trusted sources (i.e. not social media). Weigh the evidence. Consider options. Decide in your mind what is true. Then .. review your conclusions and possible actions with someone you trust to be fair minded.

In these trying times, it is important not to leap to conclusions, rather take the difficult road of assessing, reassessing and verifying.  Don't let your brain be manipulated by misinformation. Think about it.

Homework. A thinking assignment.  Fact check the validity of the following statements. Choose only reputable sources of information. (You could take the lazy approach and ask ChatGPT or Gemini or Snopes.com)

1. Election fraud is rampant? 
2. He brandished a gun? 
3. The worst of the worst? 
4. Vaccines cause autism?  
5. Grocery prices are going down? 
6. Paper ballots are more accurate and are counted faster than voting machines? 
7. Foreign countries pay the tariffs? 
8. Prescription prices will be reduced by 2000%?  
9. Ukraine started the war? 
10. Epstein files are a hoax?  
11. Climate change is a "con job"? 
12. Minnesota pandemic fraud is the worst in the country?
13. Trump is exploiting the presidency for personal gain?

Appendix:  My answers to the homework questions.  Feel free to fact check these too.

1.  Where's the evidence?  Voting by non-citizens is illegal and extremely rare. You must be forced to believe that voting by undocumented immigrants is rampant to justify and accept proposed voter suppression actions. The way to stay in power is to define those who vote for the other party as illegitimate voters. see Brennan Center
2.  Where's the evidence?   Demonstrably false. Believe your eyes.  (I would include a video links, but I can't bear it and I'm positive you have seen them.)
3.  Where's the evidence?  ~5% of those arrested have been charged with violent offenses. 73% have NO convictions. Those arrested include citizens, amnesty seekers and green card holders scooped up without warrants.  see Cato Institute
4.  Where's the evidence?  Ask a pediatrician. Decades of research says no. It's an urban myth.  see Johns Hopkins 
5.  Where's the evidence?  Really? Believe your pocketbook.
6. Where's the evidence?   Proven false. Apply common sense.  see Brennan Center
7.  Where's the evidence?  Not. Bone up on your economics knowledge. You are the payer.
8.  Where's the evidence?  Evidence of untruth is embedded in the statement. I taught math - not possible. Prices could increase by 2000%, but 100% is a hard cap on decrease. Check you 2026 health insurance premiums.
9.  Where's the evidence?   Yet another gaslight.  Russia annexed Crimea in 2012 and invaded Ukraine in 2022. see BBC
10.  Where's the evidence?  Not worth a response. I'll let you research that one. You should be able to find data on this pretty easily.
11.  Where's the evidence?  Ask any scientist. (see NASA)  Of course, if you distrust all science, you are beyond the pale.
12. Where's the evidence?  It's in the public domain and it's not an excuse, and yes, fraud occurred in Minnesota during the pandemic food distribution programs (~$250 million). Prosecutors have charged 98 individuals in Minnesota with 65 convictions. Feeding our Future mastermind Aimee Bock and others were convicted in 2025 for stealing $47 million.  For the record, Minnesota is small potatoes compared to other states and the fraud claims are being used as pretext for the "Minnesota surge".  Sampling from around the country ...  Source: Fox News
1. New York - Medicare/Medicaid fraud to the tune of $10.6 billion
2. Arizona - $2.5 billion Medicaid fraud surrounding addiction treatment
3. Georgia - $463 million for submittal for unneeded lab tests
4. California - $490 million on false Covid-19 related billings
5. Illinois - $300 million in fraudulent Medicare/Medicaid billings
6. Unemployment insurance fraud. GAO says 11-15% of the $1 trillion (do the math) in unemployment claims were fraudulent. Compared to other states, Minnesota is a low outlier with an estimated 1% fraudulent claims. (see GAO data)
13. Where's the evidence?  "All told, Mr. Trump has profited from his return to the presidency by an amount of money equal to 16,822 times the median U.S. household income."  $1,408,500,000  as reported by NY Times (or CNN if you run into a paywall)

And that's not the half-of-it. Grifter in Chief.

$300M+ from seized Venezuelan oil tankers stashed in personal Qatar account; $400M Ballroom contributions; 

25% of Nvidia chip sales to China; 

 “Golden” share of US Steel; $1B participation fee to Board of Peace; $230M lawsuits agains DOJ; $500M crypto deals with UAE  (see Guardian) ...

It's hard to be optimistic these days.

Copyright © 2026  Dave Hoplin 

Word Nerd

If you are a lexicographer or linguist or an etymologist or a philologist you should hang up now and get back to your chores of defining and citing. I am a rank amateur on this topic,  but then again that has never stopped me from weighing in before. 

Outside the group of professional word nerds, I am perhaps one of the few laymen to have read not 1, but 2 books about the creation of a dictionary, word nerd I am. The first, The Professor and the Madman is about the creation of The Oxford English Dictionary - or OED to we crossword aficionados. The second is Unabridged:The Thrill of (and the Threat to) the Modern Dictionary,  covering the evolution from Noah Webster’s first “American English” dictionary through the Merriam-Webster incarnations. Reading these books made it clear to me I could barely strive to be a third-rate hobby horse lexicographer. The true believers are unbelievably anal over words.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

I also possess a copy of Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary, "the work that defined the English language".  He spent 9 years creating it. It defined the dictionary format that remains in place to this day: word, part of speech, pronunciation, etymology, definition(s), quotation(s).

e.g. lexicographer noun [French] A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words. "Commentators and lexicographers acquainted with the Syriac language, have given these hints in their writings on scripture. Watt's Improvement of the Mind.

Some of Johnson's definitions have altered over time.

e.g. nice adj [nese Saxon, soft] Accurate in judgment to minute exactness It is often used to express a culpable delicacy. Nor be so nice in taste myself to know, if what I swallowed be thrush or no. Perseus

Some biases may have slipped in

e.g. tory noun [a cant term, derived I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage.] One who adheres to the antient constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to whig. The knight is more tory in the country than the town, because it more advances his interests. Addison.

oats noun [Saxon] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

serendipity, coined in 1754 did not make it into Johnson's dictionary.  It is termed one of the 10 most difficult English words to translate. Julius Comroe said, “Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering a farmer’s daughter.”  Other words in the top ten include plenipotentiary, gobbledegook, poppycock, whimsy, spam, and kitsch. 

Johnson's dictionary (2 volumes) sold for £4 10s, several months wages for a laborer at the time and suffered poor sales. The following year Johnson issued an abridgment, excluding the quotations. It sold 1000 copies a year for 30 years and most English households acquired one.

Johnson's dictionary was definitive until it was superceded (not a typo, English spelling) by the Oxford English Dictionary which was published in installments between 1884-1928. 

OED

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the gold standard when it comes to English dictionaries. Its publication began in 1884 with fascicles issued periodically, the first covering A-B. It was a crowd-sourced document, long before the term crowd-sourced existed. In 1928 it was issued in 10 volumes. The chief editor for most of the project, Sir James Murray, enlisted a number of scholars and dozens of amateur philologists as volunteers. Enter the book The Professor and the Madman, A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester.  Turns out, the most prolific contributor of definitions, quotes and word origins was William Chester Minor, a retired US Army surgeon, who just happened to be confined in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Berkshire, England, this fact only discovered when the editors sought to honor him. Dr. Minor had submitted more than 10,000 entries. [Incidentally, this book was made into a movie in 2019 starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn]

from Wikipedia

The 20-volume OED2 (1989) was republished in 1991 as a compact edition (ISBN 978-0-19-861258-2). The format was re-sized to one-third of original linear dimensions, a nine-up ("9-up") format requiring a stronger magnifying glass (included), but allowing publication of a single-volume dictionary. The edition released in 1991 includes definitions of 500,000 words, in 290,000 main entries, with 137,000 pronunciations, 249,300 etymologies, 577,000 cross-references, and 2,412,000 illustrative quotations. 

If you include scientific terms, slang, obsolete words the total number of words in the English language is well over a million, perhaps nearer 2 million. The average American's vocabulary consists of 20-35 thousand words with "active vocabulary" (i.e. used regularly) of around 10,000 words and a "passive" (i.e. recognized words) double that. 

Merriam Webster

Unabridged by Stefan Fatsis  tells the story of the American dictionaries from Noah Webster's original "American English" dictionary and its acquisition by the Merriam company, resulting in a 150 years of Merriam-Webster editions and the eventual obsolescence of print dictionaries killed by the internet.

Blue Back Speller

In the early 1800's, Noah Webster became a household name because of his 120 page Blue Back Speller which made its way into schoolrooms across the country. His speller introduced the concept of phonics and emphasized the use of syllables (e.g., a-bom-i-na-tion).  The speller was not just word lists. Webster was a bit of a moralist so it included moral lessons, fables and reading exercises. 

He then set to work on an "American" dictionary.  So .. plow not plough; theater not theatre; jail not gaol,  His dictionary contained 70,000 words. He created his final entry - zygomatic - in 1828, I suspect with a sigh of relief. Webster's Dictionary pushed Noah into the immortal category. The name Webster became synonymous with dictionary forever more,

Noah Webster died in 1843. In 1844, George & Charles Merriam purchased the rights to the Webster and set about creating an affordable (and profitable) dictionary. Their first offering sold for $10.50, a significant expenditure in the 1840's but it launched a company that was the dominant dictionary publisher for 150 years. Their 12 editions of the American Collegiate Dictionary has had sales second only to the Bible.

Fatsis' 'Unabridged' documents the history of Merriam-Webster (and to a lesser degree OED and other dictionary publishers). The process of producing a dictionary is a meticulous one, with lexicographers researching thousands of words, their origins and citations from wide ranging sources taking upwards of 10 years to complete. Fatsis documents this process in excruciating but interesting detail.  There's a chapter devoted solely to slurs. And another on pronouns ('You' is plural. 'Thou' is singular. You are .. is proper usage.  'They' is is fine.) 

All words are not "dictionary worthy" so editors constantly debate in/out. Before computers, every candidate word, its derivation and proposed definition was captured on a 3x5 card called a slip - maybe a million of them. So, what's your verdict? In or out? Smashmouth, GOAT, sheeple, nothingburger, dog whistle, absquatulate? 

It is said that a dictionary, with each edition, presents a window into the culture of the times. One example of this is Merriam-Webster Webster’s annual Word of the Year (WOTY) contest where each year word professionals gather to nominate candidates and vote to determine the word that is most reflective of the past year. A lexicographers' academy awards.

Here are the winners from 2003-2025.  

From Wikipedia

How's your memory of the past 25 years?  I suspect these words might send you into flashback mode.

Merriam-Webster was the last print version American dictionary standing. Gone are Funk & Wagenalls, Random House, American Heritage, …  I imagine you have one gathering dust on a shelf

Google and AI 

When is the last time you looked up a word in your Merriam-Webster print dictionary? I can’t remember either. How often do you look up a word online or from the built in dictionary in Kindle? Most every day I suspect. Print dictionaries have collided with the iceberg that is Google and have disappeared beneath the internet waves. But dictionary “editions” continue to be released with online updates made rapidly and without fanfare. 

In the 1990's Alta Vista, Excite, Ask.com and Dictionary.com made their appearances and swept away print dictionaries. And then Google arrived and swept them away. 

The new age of word management is a super computer job. In the age of social media, bloggers :-) and non-traditional media, it is a challenge to identify new words that are worthy of being added to the canon and to deliver updated editions in a timely manner  Firstly, there are so many being generated by non-traditional publishers - like me. An analysis of the 5.2 million digitized Google books found 52% of the English lexicon therein was “dark matter”, that is undocumented. 

Lexicography now depends on compute power. Not just Google search to identify where and how many usages of a word but the creation of "corpora",  collections of utterances used in descriptive analysis of the language. aggregating categories of writings from various sources - press, religion, popular fiction, memoirs, general fiction, adventure and western lit, romance, humor etc into a 'corpus'.  The Corpus of ContemporaryAmerican English (COCA) contains over a billion words. So let loose supercomputers and turn lexicographers into programmers to discover new words and debate the case for inclusion in the dictionary. Here's where human editors enter the scene. The criteria for this is a bit fuzzy, based largely on whether the 'new' word is in general use. Take 'kakistocracy' for example - instances of this word increased 13,700%. Or 'thobber'.

And AI.  Ask Gemini to define a word in the style of Merriam-Webster, or OED.  The result is pretty good. Could AI generate a new dictionary edition overnight? Likely, if people are OK with "good enough", a concept abhorrent to the professional lexicographers.

Someone, certainly a linguist, said "language is like the great white shark. It must keep moving or it dies." 

Postscript

For those of you who managed to get this far, how many words did you look up in this read?  Or did you just skip over the obscure words?  A side goal in writing this was to push you to open your dictionary.

Copyright © 2026  Dave Hoplin