Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
(For clarity, what the OED says, precisely, is: "A publisher's brief, usu. eulogistic, description of a book, printed on its jacket or in advertisements; descriptive or commendatory matter.")
What the OED, et al, all say is more or less along the lines of "a eulogistic description of a book." [...]
My feeling is that a blurb is praise; a description is not, other than making the description sound as good as one can.
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When there's a semicolon in a dictionary definition, it means that there are two related but somewhat different meanings. In other words, one meaning of "blurb" is the one you are choosing, and the other meaning is simply "descriptive or commendatory matter". So using "blurb" to mean "descriptive matter" is perfectly fine.
I don't see why this is difficult to deal with. Huge swathes of English words have multiple meanings.