Dictionaries vs. AI

In The New York Times, Alessandro Tersigni suggests that we rely on dictionaries and not digital assitants when we think about our words. In so doing, he invokes George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” From “Don’t Throw Your Dictionary Away”:

Writers consulting a dictionary make a choice — writers guided by an app like Grammarly have their choices made for them.

Where Grammarly says, “Stay on-brand with consistent communication,” Orwell warns that “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.” Grammarly urges users to “generate text with A.I. prompts,” while Orwell cautions that “ready-made phrases” inevitably “construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you.” Grammarly brags that its users can “rewrite full sentences with a click,” while Orwell notes that “the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them.”

It’s a fight between robotic consistency and human creativity.

I’ll borrow a line from Ted Berrigan’s poem “Mi Casa, Su Casa”: “‘I want human to begin with’” — and also thereafter.

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