Merriam-Webster takes jibe at op-ed asking Jill Biden to drop 'Dr.', netizens impressed

American company mainly known for its dictionaries, Merriam-Webster cheekily shut down an opinion piece on US President elect-Joe Biden’s wife and the next US First Lady Dr Jill Biden on December 14. After the Wall Street Journal on Friday published an op-ed in which the writer made ‘sexist’ remarks and argued that the First Lady-elect should drop ‘Dr.’ in her title that she earned after her doctorate from the University of Delaware in 2007 because according to the writer, she is not a ‘medical doctor’. 

Joining the widespread criticism of the opinion piece in which the writer referred to 69-year-old as “kiddo” and called her doctoral thesis as “unpromising”, Merriam-Webster posted a ‘hilariously sassy’ remark on its official Twitter account. While sharing the link to its page on the history of the word ‘doctor’, the social media account of the dictionary simply explained that the word comes from the Latin of ‘teacher’. Thousands of internet users who had united in defence of US First Lady-elect hailed the response by Merriam-Webster and denoted the same as “simple”, “effective”, “true”. 

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Netizens thank Merriam-Webster

From thanking the dictionary-maker for weighing in on the “meaningless” op-ed published on Friday to people calling the writer of the article “ignorant”, Merriam-Webster’s indirect but ‘sarcastic’ response won the internet. The official post has not only garnered more than 83.5k likes but thousands of retweets. Several internet users trashed the media outlet as well for publishing ‘sexist’ article on the US First Lady-elect in the first place. 

Paper defends op-ed

However, as per reports, Paul Gigot, who is responsible for the paper’s opinion section, backed the decision to run the op-ed written by Joseph Epstein. While Gigot wrote in a follow-up op-ed on Saturday that Biden supporters reacted in a “very Trumpian” manner, Epstein had suggested US First Lady-elect drop ‘Dr.’ in her title because she is not in the field of medicine. Gigot even accused the Biden media team of elevating ‘Epstein’s work’ as ‘political strategy’.

"The complaints (about the article) began as a trickle but became a torrent after the Biden media team elevated Mr Epstein's work in what was clearly a political strategy," wrote Gigot. “Why go to such lengths to highlight a single op-ed on a relatively minor issue? My guess is that the Biden team concluded it was a chance to use the big gun of identity politics to send a message to critics as it prepares to take power. There's nothing like playing the race or gender card to stifle criticism," he added.

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