Down With Dictionaries!
Sometimes you might read a dictionary definition and find it lacking or just wrong. The people who write dictionaries aren’t perfect. And language is slippery. What should you do in that case?
Jeremy David Hanson decided the best way to try to correct Merriam-Webster for what he considered their deliberate mistakes was to threaten them with death. Here is part of the Justice Department’s press release.
Between Oct. 2 and Oct. 8, 2021, Springfield-based Merriam-Webster, Inc. received various threatening messages and comments demonstrating bias against specific gender identities submitted through its website’s “Contact Us” page and in the comments section on its webpages that corresponded to the word entries for “Girl” and “Woman.” Authorities later identified the user as Hanson.
Specifically, on Oct. 2, 2021, Hanson used the handle “@anonYmous” to post the following comment on the dictionary’s website definition of “female:” “It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”
Hanson also sent the following threatening message via the website’s “Contact Us” page: “You [sic] headquarters should be shot up and bombed. It is sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tranny [sic] agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality. You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive.”
On Oct. 8, 2021, Hanson posted another threatening comment on the dictionary’s website and a threatening message via the “Contact Us” page that read: “I am going to shoot up and bomb your offices for lying and creating fake definitions in order to pander to the tranny mafia. Boys aren’t girls, and girls aren’t boys. The only good Marxist is a dead Marxist. I will assassinate your top editor. You sickening, vile tranny freaks.” As a result of the threats, Merriam-Webster closed its offices in Springfield, Mass. and New York City for approximately five business days.
This is how fascist terrorism in the US works now. One radicalized asshole makes a few online threats and makes a fucking dictionary publisher so afraid that they close their offices. This kind of thing will make them think twice about their definitions. Maybe not consciously, but if you know a definition might get you killed, caution is warranted.
Hanson didn’t like the definition and now he’s in jail. And now every dictionary publisher in America is changing their locks. Terrorism wins!
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