Trying Dilemma?

Rob Sachs, NPR

So I received a plea this week to stop using the word dilemma incorrectly. Interestingly, in the two years that I've been podcasting no one has ever brought up this point to me. But it got me thinking: am I mistaken about how the word dilemma is defined? So, I did what any person in my position would do -- I looked it up. To be thorough, I referenced three different sources: Webster's, The American Heritage Dictionary, and Dictionary.com.

Reading through these definitions I discovered what might be at the heart of the claim that the word dilemma is misused. Originally the word describes being faced with a tough decision between two difficult choices. And to be sure, the origin of the word which uses the "di" Greek prefix (meaning two) would suggest that as well.

But I think we can all agree that in our society words are sometimes used in ways other than their strict original meanings -- they can evolve over time, and broadened meanings can become more commonly accepted. In fact, looking at the many definitions I found for the word dilemma I see that it doesn't necessarily have to be a choice between only two possibilities; having to make a tough decision where none of choices are all that desirable is an acceptable meaning -- and certainly this sounds like the kind of thing my podcast deals with.

Regarding the original two choice meaning for the word dilemma, let me quote the good people at Dictionary.com:

"Nevertheless, 64 percent of the Usage Panel in our 1988 survey accepted its use for choices among three or more options."

If there's one thing I've learned over the last eight years of working at NPR, it's that there are more than a few loyal listeners who are sticklers for language. And I've also learned that this is a good thing. NPR is a place people trust deeply, and so we do our best to get it right. NPR's amazing team of reference librarians are accustomed to getting frantic phone calls that sound some like this: "Um, hi, okay so we're about to go on air in 30 seconds, is it Nevada with the first "a" sounding like cat or with the "a" sounding like spa?" (the correct answer by the way is the former).

I guess my point is that when it comes to how you pronounce proper names -- there is usually a right way and a wrong way. My last name Sachs, for instance, never should be rhymed with "patches". Your name may be spelled Michelle, but you may pronounce it "me-shell" not "ma-shell" and other people need to honor that.

But with word meanings it's often more of a fluid thing. Case in point, Dictionary.com lists 83 meanings for the word "run." Each year dictionary editors survey people to see how the language is currently used and then they debate the usage of a word to decide its meaning. That's why new words and new meanings are added to the dictionary every year.

I even found this interesting blog posting about how the spelling of dilemma has apparently morphed over the years.

So to the dismay of one commenter, I'm sticking with "Life's Most Trying Dilemmas" as my tag line -- but if it makes you feel better you can think of WWRD as "Life's Most Confounding Conundrums" or "Life's Most Detestable Decisions," or whatever other alliteration works for you.

2:00 PM ET | 09- 2-2008 | permalink

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