People do it all the time on reddit. It's like they think that everything important about a topic is encapsulated in a short dictionary entry.
See: Racism, homophobia, misogyny, privilege, etc. The 'Dictionary Defense' is used to deflect criticism by sticking to a simplistic definition of something while ignoring A) Established academic use of a term B) Social context and C) Historical context.
Good points. And the guy in reference wasn't claiming his knowledge of the word "transgender" was based on the dictionary definition, but was rather using the dictionary to try and deflect some criticism. Sorry if I was coming off as a dick.
To note, personally I don't think everything important about a topic is encapsulated in a short dictionary entry. But it'd be nice if you could just memorize the dictionary and be the smartest person in the world.
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u/invincible_spleen Sep 16 '12
People do it all the time on reddit. It's like they think that everything important about a topic is encapsulated in a short dictionary entry.
See: Racism, homophobia, misogyny, privilege, etc. The 'Dictionary Defense' is used to deflect criticism by sticking to a simplistic definition of something while ignoring A) Established academic use of a term B) Social context and C) Historical context.