Oxford Dictionary Does Science Fiction

Embedded Geek writes: "The News Log for Locus has an item about the Oxford English Dictionary's attempt to capture unique words and phrases used in various fields. It has begun with a pilot site for science fiction. Specifically, they are looking for published uses of specific words in Science Fiction, SF Criticism, and SF Fandom. The goal is not to create a glossary of terms but rather find the earliest (antedating), latest (postdating), and intermediate (interdating) uses of these words already in the dictionary in books, magazines, etc. They are soliciting help from the public in this effort. Presumably, if this effort is a success, they will begin working on other fields: other literature, programming, open source... who knows?"

Comments

Re:What?

[Nick Number]

No "grok"?

From the OED page:
This list is not meant to be a glossary of SF terminology: it is only a list of those terms that the OED has a particular need to have researched. Certain terms have been excluded from this list because we know beyond doubt that we have the earliest possible example, the circumstances of the coinage being known. These include dalek, robot, and grok. There is no need to point out the absence of these words.

Open source dictionary

[T-Lex]

Read the professor and the madman, it's a great read and will explain to you that this is the same process they used to collect all of the original words...

It was a joint collaboration very much like open-source software!

Yeah, but....

[heyetv]

It only costs us $550/year per person to use the Oxford English Dictionary online...

I call AI for John McCarthy

[wdavies]

Copy of a message I sent the editor :) I can't believe they couldn't predate 1971 for AI (see Sci Fi Word List)

Hi Mike,

Science predates Science Fiction :) Next time I see him [JM], I'll mention it :)
Winton

AI or Artificial Intelligence

Coined by John McCarthy [in a SCIENCE setting, not SCI-FI!], 1956. Seems to be fairly unanimous.... concept goes way back.
" He [JM] invited them to Vermont for "The Dartmouth summer research project on artificial intelligence." (reference)

1956 John McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" as the topic of the Dartmouth Conference, the first conference devoted to the subject. (reference)

Junk English

[cfeagans]

I just listened to an interview on NPR last night with Ken Smith, the author of a book called Junk English, in which he compiles a list of crap that we speak. The book sounded fascinating and funny... I've ordered a copy already.

He discussed his research, which involved review countless junk mail, spam, advertisements, corporate memos, etc. The book is broken down into type of language like Distraction Modifiers, Self-Help Jargon, Second Hand English, and Invisible Diminishers. For the latter, he cited an example being "only $99.95!" as if this is a low amount.

He also has some excerpts listed on the site above that are very intersting.

The thesis of his book seems to be that we are slowly degrading the English language, especially with our culture of hype. But I look at it from the Open Source perspective! If it doesn't work for you, add something to it or change some meaning... if others accept the change, then you've made a valuable contribution. If not, then you still have your own little version, only not every one will understand what you're saying. Now that's crunk!

I look forward to seeing the "end result" of new Oxford Dictionary! I really want a definitive definition for hydrospanner (isn't it a bridge?).

Cheers!
Carl

Re:Do you really want to work on this?

[jafuser]

Ok, so who's up for creating a perl-driven database site where we can all go and type in OUR favorite words and their definitions.

Do you mean like this?