“Anti-Vaxx: a person who opposes vaccination or laws that mandate vaccination”
That’s how Merriam-Webster, which has been in the dictionary business for more than 190 years, defines who an anti-vaxxer is. The part about a person who opposes vaccination is fine, of course. But the second part is patently delusional.
To unpack this definition simply: One can be vaccinated, which doesn’t make that individual anti-vaxx. But if that person opposes laws that mandate vaccinations, that somehow makes that same person anti-vaxx… despite being vaccinated.
If your hair hurts right now trying to process how Merriam-Webster came to that conclusion, it should. Particularly when looking at the numbers:
Overall in the U.S., the Biden administration says 75 percent of adults have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, a goal that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci said back in January would help the U.S. return to a “degree of normality.”
Amazingly, however, the death toll in the U.S. was higher over Labor Day weekend 2021 than over Labor Day weekend 2020, when there was no vaccine. The more-contagious delta variant is overwhelmingly the cause, with the unvaccinated overwhelmingly adding to the death toll.
Only 45 percent of American adults support vaccination passports for going to work, according to Gallup. Just 44 percent support vaccine passports when staying at a hotel. And fewer – 40 percent – say it should be required for dining indoors at a restaurant.
So, according to Merriam-Webster, those who fall into the majority category on vaccine passports for work or hotels or restaurants are anti-vaxx, even though there’s a good chance they’re among the 75 percent who have received at least one shot.
That makes zero sense.
This isn’t the first time Merriam-Webster has taken a political side. One notable occasion occurred after the 2016 presidential election that resulted in Donald Trump becoming president:
Not hyperbolic at all. Did Merriam-Webster give woke interns the keys to the Twitter account?
When asked about the tweet, Adam Maid, Merriam-Webster’s social media and content manager, insisted the tweet wasn’t meant to be partisan.
In March 2017, Trump misspelled the word “hereby” in tweets calling for an investigation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over her alleged “close ties to Russia” after a 2010 meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Merriam-Webster was again ready to throw shade, which is odd when considering it’s a dictionary company:
And it didn’t stop with Trump, as Merriam-Webster began jumping into more and more political fights, and always taking the liberal side.
In 2020, the dictionary modified its definition of “sexual preference” by inserting the word “offensive.” Why? Because Democrats were offended by Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s use of the benign term during Senate confirmation hearings:
Racism also was given an additional definition to appease the uber-woke.
Again, this is a dictionary company, not the Lincoln Project or CNN.
Back to reality. COVID-19 is spiking again, with more than 300,000 new cases on Sept. 7 alone in the United States. On Sept. 7, 2020, there were just over 25,000 new cases. Again, that’s without the vaccines.
President Biden promised to get the virus under control on Day 1 of his presidency.
That hasn’t happened. Not even close.
Does Merriam-Webster have a new definition for “sinking” — or do the changes only apply when the Red Team is the target?
Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist for The Hill.