They say it’s important to watch your words. I wrote Merriam-Webster when I wondered whether a word I was watching might be one they weren’t watching as closely…

Dear Merriam-Webster Word Wizards:

I’d like to have a word with you if I may. The word is “differentiator.” I looked it up in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. In place of the definition, it says that word isn’t in the free online dictionary, but it is in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. You then explain that there are over 225,000 definitions in the free online version and over 470,000 in the unabridged version. On behalf of the word “differentiator,” I am lodging a formal protest and urge you to reconsider its placement.

How do you determine which of the over 245,000 words not to include in the online dictionary? You included the word “differentiate” in there! Are you telling me the difference between an “e” at the end and an “or” makes the word “differentiator” abridged? How do your linguistic differentiators differentiate between words when determining the differentiating factors that decide how distinct words differ in delivering them to their final differentiated dictionary destination? Based on that, do you consider the last sentence to be bridged or unabridged since it uses many variations of the word?

It has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Can you please explain why?

Indifferentiatingly yours,
“Me”

A Representative from Merriam-Webster responded with:

Thank you for your letter regarding the word differentiator.

Both the free Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary are based on print publications. The former is an electronic version of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, which contains the most frequently used English words. New entries are added yearly to the Collegiate in order to reflect words that have recently come into popular use. Because the new material always exceeds the amount of older material that can be safely deleted, our editors are constantly struggling to keep the book at a reasonable size. As a result, some less common words (such as differentiator) have to be omitted.

The Unabridged, on the other hand, reflects the massive volume that’s formally titled Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. There are few, if any, space concerns here, and entries that are esoteric, obsolete, etc., are able to be included with impunity. Somewhere along the editorial line, a decision was made that differentiability and differentiable showed sufficient popular use to merit their entry as run-ons at differentiate in the Collegiate, while differentiator was relegated to the Unabridged. This decision was no doubt based on the evidence, or dearth of it, for differentiator in the printed sources contained in our citation file.

I hope this response addresses your concerns regarding our dictionaries in a satisfactory manner. Thank you once again for your letter.

Final Thoughts: For consistency, there should just be one dictionary and all words should be in it. If the word isn’t popular enough to make the cut, toss it! That’s why the word delete was created. Otherwise, if a word is in one dictionary, but not others, and you don’t own a copy of every dictionary, you can’t possibly know all the words available to use. No wonder why so many people speak the same language, but you can’t understand them. There are too many dictionaries and some are holding back their words. Why do we even need so many words? How many people actually have a vocabulary consisting of more than 125 of them?

What differentiates one dictionary publisher from another? The best ones seem to have a way with words. Merriam-Webster clearly does. In a world where so many companies end up eating their words way too often, it is refreshing to deal with one that spits them out and intelligently feeds them to you in a way you can digest. That sentence alone proves how hard it is to find the right words sometimes. Regardless, you’re still always better off using a dictionary instead of taking the words right out of someone’s mouth. It’s a disgusting habit and you don’t always know where those words came from. Plus, many words get stuck at the tip of peoples’ tongues and most of the time it’s probably best if they stayed there.

When you need to differentiate between words, check with Merriam-Webster. However, sometimes you have to take action that speaks louder than words while using words to do it. That’s when you need to Write The Company.

P.S. This isn’t the first time I’ve written Merriam-Webster. Make sure to read, “In the Words of Merriam-Webster.”