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Merriam-Webster Launches Open Dictionary
sweganeer writes "Merriam-Webster just released Open Dictionary to better take and share the pulse of language through the Web. Of course, Webster's has long celebrated and conveyed language's evolution - unlike linguistic prescriptivists who fail to grasp that's just what language does; and - where I've compared entries - they've certainly done so in a more consistent, professional fashion than online amateurs have in recent years: might Open Dictionary - in conjunction with Webster's standard Online Dictionary - yield the best of authoritative (top-down) and organic (bottom-up), online lexicography?"
An "Open dictionary"?
Gee. Where have I heard of that before?
Wiktionary.org
Will it have translations to "sup mate" "wad up, biatch" 'k' 'ttyl' and all that... Neat.
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
So, how long before someone says they should be boycotted becasue they don't promote "family values"
that now SlashDotters will no longer have an excuse for poor spelling in their posts?
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Thats only one step better than www.dictionary.com which sometimes give pop-under adds. Anyway, neither of them have learned the google lesson. Pops are evil. I don't user their site.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Yes, but does it contain internet slang? Now that would be useful - the average MSN conversation my sister has contains atleast 30 words I don't recognize and I'm only 21 :P
LINUX ONLINE POKER: Linux Poker
would that be an American English dictionary with all its perversions or a RestOfTheWorld English dictionary ?
"Merriam-Webster's" is not "Webster's"
I'm going to make a few points defending prescriptive teaching of language. Although it's absurd to say that there is one right way to speak English (or any other language), and it's also absurd to set down hard and fast rules like "thou shalt only use 'good' as an adjective", saying that one thing is "correct" and another "incorrect", it is important to know how to accurately convey meaning, speak in a way that will not alienate your audience, and get your point across persuasively and effectively. That is what all good prescriptivists advocate.
Le français vous intéresse?
Merriam-Webster?
An on-line dictionary?
Fucking brilliant boys!
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
On /., the posts stop modding you up when you post the same rubbish into the discussion of every article, my little troll.
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
Slashdoting-adj-To have a large influx of people visit a website who are being redirected from slashdot.
Sentence-
The merriam webster website has just received a slashdoting.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
... at least for a laugh.
"Powers. I have them."
I have my chance to push the word I came up with in high school... Geriphilia (n.) - sexual perversion in which the elderly are the preferred sexual object.
You need a dictionary - you spelled "scum-sucking bottom-feeding cocksucker" wrong again. Oh, and you spelled "thief" wrong too.
Better open than "Free".
I hate it when I leave my dictionary open. I read on Wikipedia it isn't good for the spine.
really 867993
Karma schkarma
Well, I clicked the link and saw this under recent entries: dookie head : Someone who has poop on... 12/02/05 20:44
Wow, very cool too see Linux/Firefox listed on their page next to Windows and Macintosh as a supported OS/Browser: Surely did take a lot of time and work to get this type of recognition and acceptance from the mainstream world.
Silly and snide asides aside, here's a big *hurray* for all the GNU/Linux/*NIX folks along with a great big *cheer* for the Mozilla and Google people who are greatly contributing to accelerated acceptance for the F/OSSy ones.
This is really too cool! *beam* That I'm a long-time Merriam-Webster customer makes it even better: Thanks!
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
While this is open, I was left somewhat disappointed to find that it isn't actually Free (as in speech). The headline left me expecting it to be possible to download a dump of the list under a CC-like licence.
Maybe this is a way to fix their incorrect definition of prime number that I first notified them about 5 years ago?
I like how "language evolves" has turned into "language shouldn't even attempt to stay the same." There's a real problem with both extreme views on the issue, and the idea-- and what is borne out in most all languages-- is that there is a conservative section of the language's population which works as a retentive force and another section that works as a changing force. The changing force is always stronger, but the retentive force is still important... it's why we can still read older materials and understand them (although as they get older it gets more and more difficult). That's really valuable. By removing that retention, we run the risk of rending a lot of important writing incomprehensible to most, and at worst having dialects make the jump to separate languages by way of regional syntax.
So yes, language evolves. But the idea that we should throw whatever retention we have out the window because things eventually change is a really, really stupid view.
There are actually people out there that maintain that a word means what the dictionary says it means, no more and no less. Sadly some of them are related to me. :(
Sure, dictionaries are authoritative in the sense that the makers have researched what a word means in common usage, but no one and no group of people have the power to enforce word meaning. Sure some governmental entities try, but, no, they can't.
I'm sure some people are going to try to say that in some professions a word has a specific meaning. I'm sure that's truer than in the populace in general, but even then, there's some slippage.
Consider the event of the mix-up of language at the Tower of Babel.
Let's just talk about the shiny things and let other more formal forums worry about where to put their pronouns.
> Of course, Webster's has long celebrated and conveyed
> language's evolution - unlike linguistic prescriptivists who
> fail to grasp that's just what language does; and - where I've
> compared entries - they've certainly done so in a more
> consistent, professional fashion than online amateurs have in
> recent years: might Open Dictionary - in conjunction with
> Webster's standard Online Dictionary - yield the best of
> authoritative (top-down) and organic (bottom-up), online
> lexicography?"
Tip for the day - no sentence should have 70 words in it.
The idea for an open dictionary has been around since 1860, and in print since the 1920s (I believe).
Take a gander at "The Meaning of Everything" a book by Simon Winchester. It outlines the fascinating story of the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is THE dictionary by the way: it is a 30+ volume set that sets out to catalogue every word in the English language and is continuously updated.
How do the updates happen? Readers throughout the world read texts and write out definitions on slips that are returned to the OED offices for compilation and review. Think about the enormity of the undertaking back in the Victorian era. It's really an outstanding achievement.
English has never, ever been a prescriptive language. We've never had a council declaring what stays and what leaves the language.
Anyway, read the book and be duly unimpressed by these half-assed efforts for an on-line dictionary. Go to the nearest university and take a look at the full OED in all its glory.
First of all: prescriptive linguistics is not bound to induce linguistic stasis, it can be and has been intended to force a change in a language. This alone makes the issue more one of how much should the government interfere with everyday life, not one of whether government should conserve their state language against "foreign influence", whatever that may be.
Now what strict prescriptivist critics and advocates both fail to grasp: The evolution of a language common to one cultural or sub-cultural group is exclusively driven by the people of that respective group, in the most direct, democratic sense. Ultimately, no number of laws and recommendations will have lasting influence on how a natural every-day language evolves or does not evolve unless they mirror the majority's opinion (in which case the laws have been irrelevant to begin with anyway). Beware the day when that changes, for then "1984" will have come to full reality, because then The Man will have taken control of your thoughts. If you control language, the tool of your thoughts, then all your brains are belong to us, if you so prefer.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
I totally agree that words can mean whatever we want them to. Isn't that totally spam? It's lubricated! Well, I'm phasing.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
that now SlashDotters will no longer have an excuse for poor spelling in their posts?
No, it merely means that with a quick flick of a script, every "misspelling" gets added to the dictionary and thus becomes "proper English, 'cause it's in the dictionary"
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
"...might Open Dictionary - in conjunction with Webster's standard Online Dictionary - yield the best of authoritative (top-down) and organic (bottom-up), online lexicography?"
Yes. Next question.
It depends on the dictionary. There is a market for dictionaries that don't have those.
Most or perhaps all "Collegiate" dictionaries will have the definitions. They are often left out of dictionaries intended for primary and secondary schooling. One puts them in, M-W? I forget.
Honestly, who gives a shit? The definitions are useless. Who needs to use a dictionary to figure out those words and who would even use a dictionary to settle an argument about their meaning? I guess they're just in there for marketing purposes, so if people happen to look them up as a measure of completeness in the store, they'll buy the dictionary.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
define:word is pretty cool with google - is that an official google search operator or is google just figuring/ranking it 'cos of the definition of define and all I wonder..
If it's slang you want http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Now they need to have an open dictionary for French... a counter-balance for L'Académie française. ;)
It's just a collection of made-up sniglets so far. The fact that it doesn't require several citations of actual usage is its weakness. There seem to be several people spamming it with fake words as a joke.
LOL, this is ginormously craptacular.
I wonder how long before the meaning of Liff words are entered into it? :-)
:-)
I'd love to see stuff like:
DITHERINGTON (n)
Sudden access to panic experienced by one who realises that he is being drawn inexorably into a clabby (q.v.) conversation, i.e. one he has no hope of enjoying, benefiting from or understanding.
and
NAD (n.)
Measure defined as the distance between a driver's outstretched fingertips and the ticket machine in an automatic car-park. 1 nad = 18.4 cm.
ohh and without a doubt..
SCRAPTOFT (n.)
The absurd flap of hair a vain and balding man grows long above one ear to comb it to the other ear.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Harsh realms, dude.
embiggens us all. Hurrah!
Is that not a word? Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is a word.
Adverbs. "Good" can be either an adjective or an adverb.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
... and they want their sniglets back.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Opendictionary.com
Search: Prescriptivist
Prescriptivist: Your search for 'Prescriptivist' did not result in any exact matches. We were able to locate five possible suggestions close to your search query:
* Prescriptive
* Prescriptively
* Prescripts
* Prescript's
* Proscriptive
I have a very dear friend who teaches college level english classes. I have, on more than one occasion, helped her grade papers. Sadly, it generally looks like I've slashed my wrists over the pile of papers by the time I've done. These students do not know the difference between "there", "their", and "they're" and use all of the interchangably. They also do not know the difference between "two", "too", and "to". I have seen 3-page papers that were a single run-on sentence. The only period in the whole paper was on the last page at the end. You should have seen what they did with commas and semi-colons.
When she started failing these students for not being proficient in what is ostensibly their native tongue, she got reprimanded for failing too many of them. Her superiors told her that she must learn to curve the grade so that more of them will pass. Her contention is that if you are not literate, you do not deserve to be in regular college classes. She felt like these students should be in remedial classes. When they threatened to fire her for refusing to change some of her students grades, she quit and went to work at another university. How much good is a college degree if you can pop open a crackerjack box and yank one out?
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
There's something to be said for being conservative with respect to grammar and spelling; using well-established and widely recognized conventions and standards allows one to communicate one's ideas with a greater degree of precision and fidelity. Consider the difference in this sort of "quality" between, say, Charles Dickens and Jack Kerouac. But it would be difficult and somewhat meaningless to argue that either of them is "better". Their audiences are quite different, but both are respected as literature.
We have something today that we never had before, thanks to the Internet. We have numerous snapshots of the current state many of the world's languages, thanks to archived Internet content. I don't think there will be nearly as much ambiguity or difficulty in understanding early 21st century English as there is today when we try to grok exactly what Chaucer or Shakespeare meant.
We ought to let our languages evolve as naturally as possible. Natural selection will always produce something "better". After all, we're "better" than bacteria, aren't we?
And anyway, you can sitll raed Egnlsih txet jsut as qiuklcy as lnog as the frsit and lsat lrttees are lfet in pacle.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
"Of course,..." [5 dahes, a semi-colon, and a colon later] "...online lexicography"
It won't help much for submission grammar.
There are two kinds of dictionaries in the world: prescriptive, and descriptive. The distinction is not necessarily ideological, as implied by the poster and a number of others in this thread, but functional.
The classic descriptive dictionary is the OED: it basically lets you know exactly how a word is used, where, and when. Great for dealing with contemporary non-literary texts, minority dialects, and especially historical literary texts. Descriptive dictionaries are anthropological in tone. The purpose of a descriptive dictionary is to teach you how words are and have been used in a language.
The classic prescriptive dictionary should be the Merriam-Webster New Collegiate Dictionary, though I think they've become more descriptive over the years. A prescriptive dictionary provides the normative usage in a standard dialect, by which I mean specifically a shared artificial dialect used for public discourse. The purpose of a prescriptive dictionary is to teach you how to use words yourself to engage in public discourse so that you remain within the main stream of a discourse community's spoken conventions.
When you understand the standard dialect of your community well enough to communicate in it easily, then you can learn to integrate the dialects you use with family, with friends, and with other discourse communities to enrich your writing and speaking in what are traditionally more formal discourse communities.
When a student is reading a book, a descriptive dictionary is the most useful. When a student is writing a paper, a prescriptive dictionary is most useful.
I'm waiting for the word "Dord" to be added.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
anyone ever heard of the rap dictionary:
http://www.rapdict.org/Category:Terms
soO GOod
And it really irritates me that some people don't see it that way. The best example is the phrase "begs the question". I know that the traditional dictionary says one thing when lots of people say it to mean something else. Language is what people use it for. The traditional meaning of "begs the question" is going out of style; just get over it and get on with your lives.
It's good to see some of our most important words are being submitted first.
| Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
With only early entries to go by, this thing is already looking like it's going to be about as useful as Wiktionary, which is to say, not very useful at all :( Hopefully M-W have plans to deal with this, and will have people who know what they are doing trudge through the crap and mark the useful ones as such.
yeah well I added the word "poopjob" hee hee!
on..., on what!?? the suspense is killing me!
ôó
Rediculous...
That will teach those spelling nazis!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Only if there is only one language considered. The Kamusi project is more relevant for English when you consider it in combination with Swahili for instance.. Only English is so limited..
Thanks,
GerardM
1. The last Webster to compile an "English" dictionary completely bastardised the language.
2. There are now more speakers of "English" in China than England.
Therefore the final result will be closer to Chinese than English.
Open or not, I find it hard to endorse the Wiktionary project. I'm an avid Wikipedian, and I contribute to multiple Wikimedia Foundation projects; nonetheless, I don't think Wiktionary will ever be good.
When I consult an online English dictionary (something I do several times a day), the abridged Merriam-Webster is my first stop (unabridged is for paying subscribers). Only when M-W's free, abridged resource can't deliver do I consult Dictionary.com (which, although a more comprehensive aggregate of several dictionaries, is not as current and refined as M-W).
Lexicography requires a level of expertise, thoroughness, and precision that Wiktionary's entries generally lack; and etymology is not the place for flimsy assumptions.
If the founders of Miriam-Webster were still running things, they would have provided solutions like this up to 10 years ago, rather than now try to make it into a money-grubbing/PR move.
It's the end of the world.
Regards, Lex
As an example, hastily written entries by people such as Raster from the enlightenment window manager project have horrible spelling and grammar but are still worth reading and have been linked to on this site since it started. There are also people with English as a second language here - and there are those with it as their first language that are educated at a university level often use it poorly in formal written situations.
It is better to improve your own level of reading comprehension than to demand that some random person on the net making a quick comment run their post through a spell checker. They used to get every kid who was bound for university in english speaking countries to read Shakespear (we really don't even know how to spell his name) and one thing that should come out of it is better reading comprehension when you are not dealing with BBC english.
When you see obvious language mistakes in situations where people should take care like on a sales website, in a specification or a quote for services the usual reaction may be "what kind of loser is this?". On USENET or decendants like this vaugely technically oriented forum it doesn't matter as much. With a phone text message no-one cares or should care about the spelling - why should it matter a great deal more in the comments here? My written english would probably be considered as appalling by someone who studied the langauge at a university level as I considered the work of engineering students with english as a first language in their answers to exam questions. Does it really matter in most situations? I'm not writing novels, speeches or sales material - and reports, websites etc are written with care (and any decent technical report should reviewed by someone else anyway before it goes out).
The funniest thing was the AC who corrected the seventh error in the previous post for me and completely missed the point (as well as the first six errors).
Anyway, it's my day off - I shouldn't be posting to Slashdot - I should be going in to work to see why something minor is down and then post to Slashdot.