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Merriam-Webster's Twitter Account Is Coming For You, You Fools

By Rebecca Pahle | Twitter | September 9, 2016 |

By Rebecca Pahle | Twitter | September 9, 2016 |

If there’s a person who rivals @onegroovynun (aka the best Olympic commentator) for my Twitter affections, it’s definitely the genius (or geniuses) behind the Merriam-Webster Dictionary account. Those jackholes at the OED can suck it—@MerriamWebster is where it’s at for word nerds wasting their lives one retweet at a time on Twitter.

Merriam-Webster’s social media game is on point. They have snark:



(“Are you a special snowflake, and this is your special word?”)

They have Newsies:


And Gene Kelly:


They have, uh, quodlibets:


Dogs and puns? Sign me up:


They have those #truefacts:


And, best of all, they have zero tolerance for overly rigid linguistic prescriptivism. You can check out blog posts here and here for their take on the subject. (Yes, “literally” means “literally,” but it can have “figuratively” as an informal definition, too. It obviously needs to be clear via context clues that you’re using “literally” as an exaggeration, but if it is, you’re fine. Language is complicated and ever-changing. Get over it.) Notorious MWD released the beast earlier this week when a senior editor at Slate got all high and mighty with his monocle adjusting:

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You come at the king, you best not miss.

(The Trek gif admittedly has nothing to do with anything, but it’s Star Trek’s anniversary week, and I have preferences.)