Talk:Conservative Dictionary Project

a couple thoughts

I love the idea, but i feel like I have a couple helpful ideas to act as guidelines. First people will need to decide if this should be a total dictionary or just key words. Right now we have the conservativemeaning of lawn, is there a liberal meaning ? Second,to use useful as a dictionary, does every word need its mainstream and conservative definition? If a liberal uses a word and someone doesnt know what it means, I doubt the conservative definition will help them understand what the person was saying. Since that is the main benefit in the age of spell checkers of dictionaries.--KenN 09:10, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

Lawn is actually the perfect example of a word that should be on the list. Some people might refer to it as 'grass', which is of course, a slang for an illicit drug. Conservatives are beyond such stupidity, so 'lawn' belongs on the list. You must remember that the process of changing our language is slow and insidious. It begins with trivial, laughable things and ends up with Christians in death camps. Putting it another way, if you spot a weed in your garden you pull it out rather than let it fester and spread. (perhaps "weed" can also be on there for the same reason- can anyone suggest an alternative word?) --<3 Sally 09:21, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

Seems like you are suggesting more of a conservative Thesaurus then a Dictionary. A dictionary is a book used to find the spellings and meanings of words. A Thesaurus is useful for finding the best words. I'm thinking a conservative thesaurus would actually be a great idea. --KenN 13:12, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

Conservative redefinition.

I agree with the premise that liberals have changed the meaning of many important words; freedom and equality being two of the most important. But if we're talking about liberal redefinition then it's important to avoid conservative redefinition. There needs to be serious and proper guidelines for this dictionary BEFORE we start adding words or it's just going to be a massive mess of peoples' opinions, and never a credible resource. Take, for example, "liberal." We're defined this as, "Somone who rejects logic and supports an overbearing government and anti-Christian policies," and coming from the 14th century. Liberal has meant many things through its time, and if we look at the Gladstonian Liberalism, it was economically very right-wing. But we must acknowledge that the word has changed. By acknowledging that the word's meaning has changed over time and simply putting an overbearingly conservative definition which doesn't even address their beliefs properly, we're not making a serious resource. And, come on, cheap comments like, "a liberal is someone who rejects logic," is just conservative redefinition, and it makes us just as bad as anyone who we accuse of liberal definition. We should always hold ourselves to the standards who hold others. And saying, "But the liberals do it," isn't an excuse. AlycaZ 10:28, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

I agree that this shouldn't become a conservative redefinition, which is kind of an oxymoron. If we are to take back words liberals have changed the meanings of, we have to use the original conservative meaning, not some new meaning. --KenN 13:12, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

Well, we're already doing it. "Liberal" is the classic example. We can all agree that liberals like big government, are anti-Christian and reject logic. But has that ever been the definition of liberal? We might all agree that Muslims reject Christianity, and as such, are going to hell. But we do not define Muslim as someone who is going to hell. The idea posted above about 'lawn' is textbook revisionism. The idea that, because people have come to use 'grass' as a term for drugs, it is no longer a conservative thing to do to consider your 'lawn' to be 'grass' is preposterous. If grass ORIGINALLY meant that, and now means something else, then claiming back the true meaning is not to call it something else. Also, when talking about using the word lawn, to say, " remember that the process of changing our language is slow and insidious. It begins with trivial, laughable things and ends up with Christians in death camps." is absurd and unnecessary. AlycaZ 13:25, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

I say "mow the grass", and I call weeds weeds and weed weed. Different parts of the country have different slang and dialects. Liberal can mean lots of things, and will probably mean something different, it as depends on where you set the medium of the political spectrum at. Infanticide means killing of infants, which a fetus isn't an infant. --KenN 13:46, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

Maybe a template could be useful here?

I don't know much, if anything, about creating templates on Mediawiki, but maybe a template that mimics the popular dictionary sites would make this a bit more organized? Something along the lines of the output from dictionary.com (minus the advertisements, of course), perhaps? KevinDavis ^Talk 13:41, 3 September 2011 (EDT)