English is a descriptive and not a prescriptive language. The OED is considered more authoritative than most at getting history right. It also contains more words than just about any other. On the other hand the greater depth the full OED gives to words makes it in many cases less useful rather than more for establishing the normal meanings of terms.
You're already going off track here. Noting that the OED has good cause to be cited as the most authoritative dictionary is a matter of fact, but you veer wildly away from that with your last sentence, which is filled with personal opinions on the "usefulness" of defining "normal" meanings of words. This is the basis for the mistakes you make later on.
On the other hand neither insincere nor disingenuous are obscure words and the M-W is (a) older than the OED, (b) highly respected and authoritative and (c) searchable so we can independently verify each others results.
Their lack of obscurity is a tangential point that has no bearing on the wider discussion, making that a notation that adds nothing. Likewise for the searchability of one dictionary versus another, since it goes without saying that we're checking sources. Other than that, the relative age of a dictionary is meaningless, since that has nothing to do with its authority (hence why you listed that separately from "(b)"), and while the Merriam-Webster dictionary is certainly highly-respected, I suspect that if we were to rank the authority of the various English-language dictionaries, it would not surpass the OED.
Indeed. You can act disingenuously. A disingenuous action is one at which the motivation for the action is at odds with the overt form of the action.
Or, as I've amply demonstrated, it's an action wherein the act itself does not possess truth as an element, rather than being concerned with the motivation of the actor.
A lot of flirting is disingenuous - it involves affecting a coyness or an arrogance that is at odds with the underlying person, and is intended to be seen as such. Another form of a disingenuous act is when a politician inserts a rider into a bill not for the purpose of getting the rider passed, but for the purpose of sabotaging the bill. Disingenuous acts are dishonest acts. Highlighting those two words proves nothing other than that you've highlighted two words.
Leaving aside the examples you've posted, highlighting those two words does indeed prove something - that there's a legitimate alternative method of understanding what I've been saying.
I'm aware of that meaning. The only time I've seen it used was for translations of the bible in which there was no attempt to read the reader's own meaning into the case.
In that case, I would recommend that you read more widely, as there's a reason why the OED includes that meaning with such prominence.
I believe the full OED text to have been copied here - and shorter versions have been copied here and here.
In other words the OED definition you are citing and as has been cited by Google books is:
1: Not falsified or perverted in any way:
1a: of doctrine etc.: Genuine, pure
1b: true, veracious, correct, exact
1c: morally uncorrupted, uncontaminated.
In order to claim definition 1b you need to claim the definition 1 heading. It's true, veracious, correct, and exact in that it hasn't been falsified or perverted in any way. And insincere using this definition of sincere means that it is untrue or false because it has been falsified or perverted.
I'm not sure what you're attempting to prove here, save for repeating the definition a few times - something that is not falsified or perverted means that it has no element of untruth to it. If something is untrue unto itself, rather than being untrue due to the motivations of the person saying/doing it, then it's still untrue.
If I am right about the OED's actual text based on your selective quotation then either you are misusing the OED by ignoring the category heading or you are intentionally selectively quoting only the part of the OED that backs up your point.
It's not correct to call that a selective quotation - I'm quoting the operative part of the definition for the purposes of this discussion. The category heading is not ignored because it's pertinence here is self-evident. Something that is falsified or perverted is not correct; ergo, something that is disingenuous lacks correctness, with no statement towards the speaker's motives or state of mind.
also notice you look at sincere rather than insincere - does the OED under the entry of "insincere" say that it means the same as not sincere? Or does it say more than that? Because you've jumped straight from disingenuous to sincere without going through insincere (which the M-W defines as "Not sincere; hypocritical" - and the way it is not sincere is the sort of way that implies hypocricy).
It says quite a bit more than that, but again, I fail to see how that's relevant - words can have multiple definitions, so unless you're claiming that every instance of a word's use means that it's employing every definition simultaneously, that's irrelevant. Given that, as you noted, the M-W defines "insincere" as being "not sincere" that pretty well closes the book on that argument. That is includes a secondary definition does not change the first definition.
Given that you haven't quoted the OED on the subject of Insincere at all, you haven't shown a thing. You have only quoted sincere. And insincere may be derived from sincere and by a literal meaning be not sincere - but words in English don't mean their literal meanings. And given that you appear to have selectively quoted the OED without including the context (and a text without context is a pretext) I don't think my disagreement is with the OED.
From what I can tell here, you're attempting to introduce some sort of dissonance between "insincere" and "not sincere," and so say that citing something as lacking the defining qualities of "sincere" does not mean that it's the same thing as "insincere." Needless to say, I look askance on that argument - when you find yourself saying that "words in English don't mean their literal meanings," you may want to reassess your thinking.
Insofar as it goes the OED definition of "insincere" (Second Edition, volume seven, page 1,028) notes that it is "not sincere or genuine" as the first part of the very first definition given. It does also give mentions of dissembling, but the semicolon there shows that these are separated meanings (incidentally, it also cites "disingenuous," and explicitly states that this can be said or persons or their actions).
The entire OED entry matters - as does the actual entry for the OED on the word insincere - an entry that was conspicuously absent in your reply.
Incorrect. This is another attempt on your part to try and state that any use of a word invokes all meanings of the word, no matter how disparate they might be in context.
Insincere in the M-W also points to hypocritical. Both are needed if you are to use the M-W effectively. But instead of bringing up the OED's description of Insincere you are instead using a secondary meaning of Sincere. Which is a different word. And the full OED passage you have taken out of context appears (if I am right) to demonstrate that it's truth in the sense of not being falsified or perverted.
Not so, as demonstrated above.
At best it means that you are tragically mistaken out of the way your use of the English language will be taken by people of good faith. And as you are giving offence to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] whether you mean to or not, and he has called you on this, that on its own should be enough to make you select language that will not give offence. However your response has been to resort to subsidiary meanings in the dictionary to say that what you were saying was not offensive. And when I pointed out what the dictionary said, your response involved some selective quoting, only quoting a little of the root word "disingenuous", entirely missing one of the important words (insincere) out, only partially quoting disingenuous, and seemingly only selectively quoting from one of the meanings of sincere in a way that ignores the overall meaning.
The only way to arrive at the above goal is through willful misinterpretation of the facts presented previously, which is a shame since it means that you're admitting that you're trying to twist my words. I had hoped that this was simply a case of you being tragically misguided, but it seems that you're deliberately going out of your way to find the most offensive meaning possible, even when expressly told that's not what I stated.
Simply put, at this point I have pointed out that there are multiple, nuanced meanings for the word "disingenuous" and have shown how it can be applied to a person's statement (to say that it lacks an element of truth unto itself) without speaking in any regard to the person saying it.
Your response has been to state that any use of a word must include all of its disparate meanings simultaneously, and that even though I've explained in great detail why my words not only didn't mean what you thought they did - and that my usage of them was in no way arcane - you continue to insist that they contained another meaning altogether, and that any instance of suggesting a particular definition of a word (rather than all of them at once) is "selecting quoting" from its definitions.
There is, quite simply, no truth to your claims (notice that I'm referring to your claims in particular, rather than you in general), which makes them, in a notable irony, disingenuous.
Anyway, thank you for giving me a distraction from worrying about my little sister's latest heart operation.
Certainly. I hope that it goes very well for her.