It's a bad day for all the grammar nuts of the world.
Dictionary.com tweeted out the news yesterday that the word "supposably" was now officially added to the dictionary. You know, the word that people say by mistake when they're trying to say "supposedly."
Defining "supposably" as its own word assumes that it means something different than its predecessor "supposedly," but this, dear reader...isn't really the case. The definitions of both the real word and the fake-real word refer to an adverb that means "according to what is falsely claimed, assumed or imagined," with very little difference between the two definitions.
It's like we're rewarding bad grammar, here.
Naturally, hobby linguists are super annoyed.
Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster has already defined "supposably" as its own word, giving it an entirely different definition; according to MW, "supposably" means "as may be conceived or imagined," while "supposedly" simply means "allegedly." I'm not buying it.
This comes just a few months after the dictionary website added "irregardless" to their roster, something that also irked wordsmiths to their very core.
The audacity!!!
It seems that Dictionary.com has sided with Joey Tribbiani on this one; if you remember, the resident clueless "friend" argued with himself in a season 2 episode, "The One Where Heckles Dies," over the word's existence after Chandler referred to its usage to a dump-able offense. (In case you can't tell, we're with Chandler on this.)
I...need a nap.