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Posted 3 months ago

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It started as a facebook status rant on the usage of the word media posted by my coworker and weekend anchor:

  • KMD: “MEDIA” is a plural word. Really bugs me when people don’t use it that way. Especially people who are members of “the media.” That’s all.
  • MR: whats the singular form of the word?
  • KMD: Medium.
  • TJP: Thanks Chris. (inside joke, well done TJ)
  • MR: thats strange, but I guess you are a medium for the news
  • BO: Thank you! It’s like they’ve never seen an AP Styleook…
  • IK (that’s me): When this conversation came back to me I decided to consult my old M-W Collegiate because I suspected that perhaps a new meaning for the word media had at some point in modern society officially bromanced itself into the dictionary. Language evolves and shit, right? Here’s the note under media, and Katie’s stigmatism (I should have used stigma here…) is righteous, according to a 20-year-old dictionary: “The singular media and it’s plural medias seem to have originated in the field of advertising over 50 years ago; they are apparently still so used without stigma in that specialized field. The great popularity of the word in reference to the agencies of mass communication is leading to the formation of a mass noun, construed as a singular <the media is less interested in the party’s policies — James Lewis, Guardian Weekly>. This use… Is likely to incur criticism esp. in writing.”
  • BO: Lay off the pipe Ian….

So with a 20-year-old dictionary pointing to the fact that a new word was emerging, I consulted a 10-year-old dictionary (and official dictionary of the AP) and discovered that in specific forms, it is correct to use the singular media when describing “all the means of communication… that provide the public with news, entertainment, etc.”

But in other news, I discovered that despite the big deal they make of all the new words added to the dictionary each year (including the 2011 addition, social media!), it is very difficult to find a dictionary that is completely up to date. Why should I have to settle for a 2002 dictionary when ten years of new words have been added since it was published? Why isn’t there an app for that yet? I guess people just don’t care about learnin’ no more.