Plagiarism, firings, o my!

It would seem that PM Harper has been up to no good, using other people’s words as his own. First, it was a speech from the then Prime Minister of Australia and now it’s a speech from former Ontario Premier Mike Harris.

In the first case, the Conservatives acknowledged their crime and a speech writer admitted he borrowed the speech. He then resigned. All things acknowledged and seemingly accounted for, I forgot about the plagiarized speech.

Now I read this morning that again Harper has been criticized for using the words of Mike Harris. While this apparently happened in 2003, it’s still very interesting.

Rather than admit to the charge this time, however, the Conservatives accuse their opposition of simply using this as an attempt to divert attention away from their apparent lack of political campaign.

Admittedly, the Conservatives aren’t the only ones doing it… It would seem the Liberals are up to their own brand of plagiarism as well… The story and some of the potential evidence.

In other news, the entire staff of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary has been laid off. Somewhat shocking (even if the staff consisted of four people) and this could be an interesting indication of what’s to come for encyclopedias.

The reasoning behind the dismissal of the dictionary staff was reduced sales, due to the incredible popularity of free online dictionaries.

Canadian English will still be accessible through the subscription based Oxford site and by the sounds of things a physical, book based dictionary will still be published. The only difference now, it would seem, is that Canadians will no longer have an active role in monitoring their lexicon.

I have to seriously wonder, then, what’s in store for book based encyclopedias. Will they too be relegated to the digital world? Will encyclopedias take on a language based tone, rather than a cultural tone? Will we end up with the neutral point of view that plagues Wikipedia and provides it with an ‘Anglo-American’ perspective?

I certainly hope not – but at the same time, dictionaries and encyclopedias are alike in many ways, and it’s unfortunately not a far stretch to expect similar things to happen to the encyclopedic world.