Nature words omitted from Oxford children's dictionary

November 3, 11:26 AMMadison Nature Travel ExaminerCandice Gaukel Andrews

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My mom knew the names of every wildflower we passed. ©John T. Andrews.

Words such as “dandelion,” “acorn,” and “vine” no longer appear in the most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary, which was published by the Oxford University Press in 2007. And according to an article in the October/November 2009 issue of National Wildlife Magazine titled “When Words Become Endangered” by Anne Keisman, more than 30 such nature terms were taken out. On the other hand, the expressions “voicemail,” “MP3 player,” and “chatroom” — among other tech terms — do, now, appear.

It can be argued that the job of a children’s dictionary, created for kids ages seven and up, is to help them understand the words that they hear every day in the world around them. And if those words revolve around technology, then that dictionary is fulfilling its mission. But if the book does reflect the lack of a nature presence in children’s lives today, will they become good stewards of the environment and our animal and plant species when the torch is passed to their generation?

As a child, I was astounded by how my mother knew the name of every wildflower and plant we passed by on our walks — not their formal Latin labels, but the common and colorful ones. I, on the other hand, am still hard-pressed to identify all the varieties of trees on the little acre and a half of woods where I live in Wisconsin.

It seems that with each new generation, there’s a degrading of a connection to nature. I see it in my own children, who are even less capable of naming the plants and trees around them than I am. In the same vein, though, I’ve heard one of my sons, a biochemist, remark, “It’s surprising how little people know about the nature of human beings, about the basic molecules they’re made of.

Would children today recognize a “beaver chew” in the woods? ©John T. Andrews.

It could it be that because I write on nature topics, I notice how rare the words of landscapes are. How often do you hear “glade” or “quagmire” or “traprock” mentioned anymore? Maybe because he’s a scientist, my son is sensitive to our increasing unfamiliarity with basic biology. On the other hand, perhaps there’s an information technology expert out there saying just the opposite: “How articulate children are today!”

The concern is not that today’s kids are letting out-of-date words fall out of usage and replacing them with more pertinent terms — every generation does that. After all, “mimeograph” probably doesn’t belong in a contemporary child’s first dictionary. What is worrisome is that while the world still has beavers, canaries, and wrens — three words that were also removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary — we’re not letting our children know early on how highly we must value them.

For More Info:
View a longer version of this article.
Wisconsin Tree Identification
Sending Kids Outdoors: A Dose of Nature May Protect Against Health and Environmental Threats (Part One), (Part Two)
Eco-Ethical Issues While Traveling Through Nature
Finding Your True Place in Nature

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