In 2024, Merriam-Webster added 200 new words and definitions, from "edgelord" to "jorts." That same year, school districts in at least a dozen states fielded complaints about dictionary entries—mostly over words describing gender and sexuality.
The book that once ended dinner-table disputes is now the subject of school board meetings.
Here's the strange part: almost nobody reads it anymore.
A physical dictionary sits in maybe half of American homes, mostly unopened since a kid needed it for homework in 2009.
We look words up online now, where definitions shift with the wind and every entry comes with a comment section.
Meanwhile, the words themselves are drifting. "Gaslighting" went from a 1944 film reference to a catch-all accusation. "Literally" now means figuratively, according to the people who track such things. "Woke" meant one thing in 2015 and something else entirely by 2023—so different that dictionaries now include multiple, contradictory definitions.
When a single word can mean opposite things to two neighbors, what exactly are we saying to each other?
Schools have started pulling dictionaries from shelves rather than defend individual entries.
Parents on both sides argue the books either indoctrinate kids or coddle them.
Lost in the fight: the dictionary was never a rulebook.
It records how people actually talk, including the ugly parts.
If a slur appears in a dictionary, that's not an endorsement—it's a witness statement.
But we've stopped treating reference materials as neutral.
A definition we dislike becomes proof of bias.
A word we've never heard becomes evidence of indoctrination.
The shared vocabulary that once let strangers argue productively is splintering into dialects—one for each algorithm, each news network, each church and campus and group chat.
It's the idea that two Americans can pick up the same book and agree on what it says.
When we can't even agree on the meaning of "truth" or "violence" or "woman," every conversation becomes a negotiation over first principles.
That's the point where people stop talking to each other entirely.
We lost the agreement that words are shared property, and that maintaining them takes patience.
Rebuilding that won't happen through an app.
It happens one stubborn, honest conversation at a time—with a book on the table between us, even if nobody opens it.
Our take: the dictionary was never going to save us, but abandoning shared meaning is how a society quietly stops being one.
You can't have a country if you can't have a conversation.
Final Thoughts
And you can't have a conversation if every word is up for renegotiation.