Well, I included the definition of persecute to cut Bricker some slack. The word in discussion was persecution, which implies something more systemic.
Since this was a discussion about definitions (which is a pretty inane thing to go on about for 6 pages), the proper thing to do would be to grab examples of usage from various media. NYT and google books comes to mind.
That said…
I thought the responses to my ridicule might be different. One of the odd aspects about this message board is the unwillingness of the great bulk of posters to play along with Bricker’s lawyerly game. I mean we’re here to fight ignorance. I now see from the ATMB thread that Bricker cited the OED (I wasn’t aware of that).
Anyway, in the ATMB thread Bricker complains about the following (substantive point snipped out):
That’s the sort of thing that I’d be inclined to respond with. Now I might leaven that with, “Your particular definition is bizarre in this context…” etc. etc. But there’s no reason why board members shouldn’t enter into Bricker’s structure of rhetoric. It isn’t that deep, and over the past few years Bricker has shown sufficient flexibility so as to not entirely ignore competing definitions. Heck he did that explicitly in that thread.
Maybe. But the canyon-wide difference between Bricker and say adaher is that Bricker will stop and acknowledge contrary points made and not simply bulldoze across them. He will also go to outside sources. He gives those who disagree with him something to work with. I can’t discern the extent to which some of his points are noteworthy, because they haven’t been engaged with properly IMHO.