It's a pretty amazing resource, isn't it? If you ever want to get a sense of what a huge vocabulary English has, that's the thing to look at. I never would have thought that thumbing (or clicking) through a dictionary could make for such engaging reading. This time around, I learned that "mad" as "angry" appears in…

Is that a phrase from observational science?

It's hard to be impressed with something when you don't really know what it is. Especially if you're under the impression that lexicography is a science. It's about as silly as saying that you've yet to be impressed with chemists as lexicographers. I also suspect you couldn't name three lexicographers without turning…

Yeah, that's just silly. It also completely misses the point of lexicography as a field of knowledge.

True, especially since native English speakers know innately what all the words contained in the 21 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary mean anyway, so what's the point? On the other hand, I'd love it if there were a book actually called How to Learn French. It could have only one page, which reads "Take a French…

Since when has using "mad" as a synonym for "angry" been controversial? It's more widely used in the US than other English-speaking countries these days, but "mad" has been used as a synonym for "angry" for as long as it's been used to mean insane, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which covers both British…

People have been using "mad" to mean angry or enraged since the 14th century or so, ie for as long as they've been using it to mean "crazy." The OED gives various citations from primary sources. It's a non-controversy started by an online "journalist" working from the mistaken assumption that modern usage represents…

Yeah, who needs a book describing what words mean and how they're used? Burn them all, I say!

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "mad" has been used to mean angry for as long as it's been used to mean crazy. In fact, its original sense, first used to describe rabid animals, was one of being violently enraged. It just so happens that in our particular sliver of history, using "mad" to mean angry has…

Still outraged, grumble grumble…

Sorry, couldn't hear you, could you signal that virtue a little louder?

Haha! British people speak funny! Wait, am I doing the outrage-sarcasm right?

The newest SNL Christmas classic is Dick in a Box. And last year's Sump'n Claus might enter the canon some day too — "Everybody's gettin' sump'n!"