Do the people in publishing have a way with words? Meh.
Rather, the published words have a way with people.
Words affect thought, culture, law, and society. A dictionary definition may affect constitutional interpretations and protected rights. Because dictionaries signify meaning, people lose out when dictionary publishers look past their own criteria on adding words and deny a place for terms that are in widespread usage. (READ MORE: Let’s Clear the Junk Out From the Colleges)
Inconsistency or bias by dictionaries can be costly to our country, as lack of words for particular concepts may compromise Americans’ access to ideas. No better example of slant in word exclusion exists than in compound words containing “orientation.”
‘Orientation’ Exclusion
By definition, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “orientation” means a “direction of thought, inclination, or interest.” In everyday speech and published works, people precede the word with a variety of adjectives. Writings have been widely published on “moral orientation.” Broadly distributed scholarship is also done on “social orientation,” “philosophical orientation,” “entrepreneurial orientation,” “professional orientation,” and more.
Nonetheless, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge Dictionary, Collins Dictionary, and Dictionary.com tell us (or gaslight us into believing) that English has only one compound word ending in “orientation”: Despite the prevalent use such compound phrases, the only one found in these dictionaries is “sexual orientation.”
[Note: Entries exist for “optical orientation,” a technical term in the science of crystals, plus “sales orientation” and “marketing orientation,” all of which are events, not personal inclinations.]
Logically, if dictionaries include “sexual orientation” to signify one facet of being inclined or interested, then other widely used terms describing inclinations would also be worthy of inclusion. The failure of dictionaries to enter swaths of these compound words is wrong, and the public has raised concerns about constrictions in meaningful language to describe orientations besides sexual ones for at least 20 years.
Language and Culture
Is your only orientation sexual?
Of course not. Having only a direction, interest, or inclination that was sexual would be a one-dimensional, limited, and dependent existence. We have, and require, personal orientations toward social life, studying and working, an afterlife or lack thereof, nature, citizenship, and more. People with interests in sexual identity attend to inclusive “orientation” words, but others do, too.
For example, studies show interest is surging in inclinations other than sex, a significant observation about social orientation. Additionally, data suggests people are increasingly willing to, rather than be stuck in a wrong career, explore alternatives, illustrating their entrepreneurial and professional orientations. Third, humanity is rich in character leanings that distinguish one from another, the essence of one’s moral orientation. (READ MORE: You Get What You Tolerate)
Dictionaries’ irregular omission of orientations describing how we socialize, work, consider decisions, and more flies in the face of human behavior. People receive crucial support from being in movements and subcultures involving all kinds of common interests, and these groups benefit from validated words.
It’s easier to falter at developing interests into skilled careers, family ties, robust moral beliefs, or movements for the common good with no language-mediated milieu. In the nation’s cultural centers, movements around the single, dictionary-recognized compound “orientation” word do not seem to be faltering, but human interest in having families, careers, and morals does.
Take a Lesson From the Past
Who knows if the “the most reliable, trusted dictionary” is seeking approvals from President Joe Biden, but Merriam-Webster certainly gloats on its website that it has “earned the praise of such notable figures as President James K. Polk and General Zachary Taylor.”
Has the commendation of ranking officials always been what the company meant by “trusted?
Selectivity of “orientation” compounds traces through historical periods. The Progressive Era saw the entry of “sexual orientation” and “heterosexual” into dictionaries (arriving with meanings a bit different from definitions hence). The radio age then fostered rapid broadcast of ideas espoused by stations. By the early 1950s, an advocacy organization, the Mattachine Society, was founded by a communist, and as the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG) was published, a terminology was advanced.
An obstacle today, of course, is to rise above the digital din and be heard, since, in contrast to the relatively few radio stations of the past, nearly everyone is mass communicating. Still, lessons from the movement that spread the one category of orientation into dictionaries may help pave the way to lexical parity for “social orientation,” “philosophical orientation,” “professional orientation,” and others.
Despite various “orientation” compounds having been thoroughly used and spread in papers, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge University Press, Collins, and Dictionary.com so far continue to highlight their contradictions and deny them. Kudos to Oxford English Dictionary, among a minority that includes “value orientation” and “achievement orientation.” Dictionaries cannot push against the numerous “orientation” terms forever.
To maintain that there is a single, uber-important compound word ending in “orientation” is to cheat speakers of the English language, and, in fact, of any language that translates from our language, out of the breadth of aspects of human orientations. People throughout the land who care about direction and meaning can say, no, there is no sole, most important category.
Whatever it was that convinced dictionary publishers to add in the currently lone compound word that ends in “orientation,” people are ready to do it again.
Well, maybe not whatever.
People do have moral orientations.