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Mining Neologisms from Wikipedia

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the everchanging-face-of-net-slang dept.

holy_calamity writes "Natual Language Programming researchers have developed a tool called Zeitgeist that can discover the meaning of new words for itself using Wikipedia. It looks for entries for words not in the WordNet database and works out their meaning by looking for known words linked to them. Development of the tool is focusing on using it to understand what bloggers (using slang and neologisms) are saying about companies' products."

93 comments

  1. Garbage collection by throatmonster · · Score: 1, Funny

    ...one entity gathers what another entity spills...

    --
    All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
    1. Re:Garbage collection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure that somewhere Jerry is rolling in his grave right now.

    2. Re:Garbage collection by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      > It looks for entries for words not in the WordNet database and
      > works out their meaning by looking for known words linked to them

      I suspect some bugs need to be worked out. For example, it came up with this definition:

      slashdot: v To surf for pictures of pretty girls (e.g. Natalie Portman) for the purpose of satisfying unrelieved sexual frustration owing to social retardation, using powerful network-enabled computers (e.g. Beowulf clusters).

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  2. Id love to see what it came up with... by mdhoover · · Score: 5, Funny

    if they pointed it at slashdot...
    "ass-hat" and "tard" could take on a whole new meaning

    1. Re:Id love to see what it came up with... by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're assuming that it would be spelled correctly.

    2. Re:Id love to see what it came up with... by truthsearch · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're right. Now that a comment with those words can be attributed to your username mdhoover will forever be synonymous with ass-hat and tard.

      Damn! Now so will truthsearch! Son of a...

      --
      Developers: We can use your help.
    3. Re:Id love to see what it came up with... by IDontAgreeWithYou · · Score: 1

      I wonder what it would come up with for "Natual Language Programming..."

      --
      Finding other idiots on /. that agree with your opinion doesn't make it any less stupid.
    4. Re:Id love to see what it came up with... by ajs · · Score: 1

      I'd love to see it automatically {{prod}} them as well.

    5. Re:Id love to see what it came up with... by JoshWurzel · · Score: 1

      Seriously. Everyone knows there's no hyphen in asshat.

  3. slashdotting (n., neolog.) by ettlz · · Score: 2, Informative
    The Slashdot, Digg, or Fark effect is the term given to the phenomenon of a popular website linking to a smaller site, causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic. The name comes from the huge influx of web traffic that often results from sites being mentioned on Slashdot, Digg, or Fark.com, popular user submitted news and information sites. Typically, less robust sites are unable to cope with the huge increase in traffic and become unavailable - either their bandwidth is consumed or their servers fail to cope with the high number of requests.
    1. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by daniil · · Score: 1

      The main weakness of the Zeitgeist seems to be that it takes the word out of context, meaning that in many cases, it gets the meaning of the word plain wrong (see the example of 'feminazi' from the article). They would probably run into the same problem with 'slashdotting'. If someone uses the term 'slashdotted' in relation to a company's product, then does it have a negative or positive meaning (or connotation)? Will they really understand what the bloggers are saying?

      --
      Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
    2. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by Alex+P+Keaton+in+da · · Score: 2, Funny

      Slashdotting is slashdotting. It is irritating that they are trying to rename it "the Digg or Fark effect." If Digg or Fark cause a site to get hammered, it should still ne called slashdotting. Why? Because we (this community) are the originals, and still, in my opinion, the best.
      By the way, I have an odd problem with the word neology. Why? Because in my 7th grade Latin Class, one of our assignments was to be a neologist, using latin roots to make up a new word. So the word neology makes me think of 7th grade. And 7th grade (well, much like now) was a time when I was especially awkward...

      --
      And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
    3. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by Killshot · · Score: 1

      Slashdot was not the first large website to cause a smaller website to go offline.

    4. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      It was the first one to do it on a regular and frequent basis, by a long shot.

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    5. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by Helios1182 · · Score: 1

      On Fark they use the term "Farked" in the same way Slashdot uses "Slashdotted."

    6. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by eepok · · Score: 1

      Remember that languages are written and enforced, but DIALECTS are spoken and understood. Thus, there may be multiple meanings for a single word or phrase to different cultures or sub-cultures.

      We'll use your example of "Feminazi". To some people, any feminist is a "Feminazi". To others (take some feminists), it's a feminist who is irrational in his/her ways and seeks power over equal or fair treatment and expectations.

      Another example would be the word "Jew". It can be said or used in such a way to give insult or it can be a simple description or ethnic, religious, or cultural background. Different groups of people will automatically assume particular meanings especially when particular groups of people use the term.

    7. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by belg4mit · · Score: 1

      Credit where credit is due: flash crowd.

      --
      Were that I say, pancakes?
    8. Re:slashdotting (n., neolog.) by Unequivocal · · Score: 1

      No, I think the first was some company called Microsoft. The specific page was called "IIS."

  4. Just imagine... by packetmon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Imagine the chaos and reboots as the program analyzes a George W. Bush speech

    --
    Infiltrated dot Net
    1. Re:Just imagine... by Snarfangel · · Score: 1, Funny

      Imagine the chaos and reboots as the program analyzes a George W. Bush speech.

      That's just part of his strategery to get people to misunderestimate him.

      --
      This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
    2. Re:Just imagine... by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      All too truthy.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  5. Marketing research on the net by perkr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Figuring out what people on the net says about your products is the "new" thing apparantly. IBM has their own engine for the task too. Kind of makes you wonder how much power the net community will in fact have in day-to-day decision making in the corp head quarters' marketing strategy depts.

    1. Re:Marketing research on the net by uioreanu · · Score: 1

      so far companies rely mainly on surveys for feedback regarding their products. One of the problem with surveys is that normal people tend to reject them, so then we end up trusting the feelings of a small survey-geek market; that are low paid to answer and give unrelevant feedback.

      blog/online feedback research is different in that it focuses on what people consider is worth saying/writing about a certain product. The risk of bias is less probable, because of transparency.

      --
      cut this signatures madness. stop reading them now!
    2. Re:Marketing research on the net by Who235 · · Score: 1

      Figuring out what people on the net says about your products is the "new" thing apparantly. IBM has their own engine for the task too [ibm.com]. Kind of makes you wonder how much power the net community will in fact have in day-to-day decision making in the corp head quarters' marketing strategy depts.


      I don't know, but I know those snakflabbing IBM products really zorf me right in the snurls. . .
    3. Re:Marketing research on the net by kramulous · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that link perkr .... another interesting thing to play with.

      --
      .
    4. Re:Marketing research on the net by rm999 · · Score: 1

      I am sure that the net has been an invaluable resource for some time. Any marketing or customer research department worth anything has probably employed someone to scour message boards and webpages to gather buzz and opinions surrounding their own products. Automating this task is simply the next step, but I question how much information a computer really can gather about something so subjectve.

  6. say hello to dictionary bombing by brunascle · · Score: 4, Funny

    George W. Bush
    n.
    1. 43rd president of the United States.
    2. miserable failure.

    1. Re:say hello to dictionary bombing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are just using this post as a WMD for espousing your liberal bias!

      WMD
      n,
      untenable pretext

  7. You just need more magic blue smoke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Put it back in the circuits and your fine.

  8. But Wikipedia seeks to avoid Neologisms! by sbaker · · Score: 4, Informative

    The trouble is that Wikipedia has a policy of not writing about (or using) Neologisms:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Neologism

    Many articles about neologisms *do* get created in violation of this policy - but they are generally put up for deletion via the Wikipedia process for deleting inappropriate material - so they only exist briefly.

    So, for example, the article entitled "Windows Rot" is being debated today, Although it looks like this one will be merged into an existing article, it won't survive as the name of an article - so Zeitgeist presumably won't be able to find it.

    It may be that enough of these kinds of articles slip through the system to be useful to Zeitgeist but that is not by design - so coverage will be patchy at best.

    A further consequence of this is that the articles that Zeitgeist does find will most likely be so new that only one person will have worked on them - which will make for poor quality.

    Also, it is very common for people such as bloggers who come up with what they consider to be clever new words to try to wedge them into common usage by writing about the word in Wikipedia. This 'vanity word' problem is one of the main reasons that Wikipedia seeks to avoid articles on neologisms.

    --
    www.sjbaker.org
    1. Re:But Wikipedia seeks to avoid Neologisms! by settrans · · Score: 1

      Of course, you're presupposing that having an official policy can preclude the development of language. This isn't quite the case: see for example the strictly conservative linguistic prescriptivism in France, carried out by institutions such as Académie française, who are charged with the final authority on French usage, and their total inability to prevent the pervasive influence of the English language on the French lexicon. Likewise, despite Strunk and White's steadfast insistence, "hopefully" continues to be used to mean something similar to "I hope". The fact is, language changes, despite official regulation, and Wikipedia will exhibit those changes.

      --
      "When I wake up in the morning I piss cryptographic excellence." - Bruce Schneier
    2. Re:But Wikipedia seeks to avoid Neologisms! by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      You're correct, but Wikipedia is not a dictionary -- Wiktionary is.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    3. Re:But Wikipedia seeks to avoid Neologisms! by sootman · · Score: 1

      This is a totally bogus policy. Most neologisms are perfectly cromulent words.

      (BTW, am I the only one who has added 'cromulent' to his spellchecker's list of good words?)

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    4. Re:But Wikipedia seeks to avoid Neologisms! by sbaker · · Score: 1

      I don't know whether Wiktionary has similar policies to Wikipedia as regards neologisms. I agree that these guys should theoretically be using Wiktionary instead of Wikipedia - but that's not what they are doing, so it's somewhat irrelevent.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
    5. Re:But Wikipedia seeks to avoid Neologisms! by sbaker · · Score: 1

      I'm not in any way suggesting that Wikipedia's policy is an attempt to control the language. The Academie Francaise is ineffectual because they are trying to regulate the way people speak - and there is no way to make that stick. They have made rulings about words like "Parking" which are creeping into the French language because there is no good single-word alternative. The Acadamie says "Stationary at the side of the road" is "correct" French - and make laws that say that roadside signs must use that phrase (and they do). But still - people TALK about "Parking". You can't outlaw language.

      But Wikipedia's policy is not to change how people think and talk - it's an effort to control the quality of Wikipedia articles by rooting out the junk. The problem with neologisms isn't that they are so new - it's that their lifetime is so very short. A new word may get into common usage - but whether it'll still be around in a couple of years from now is much more problematic. We don't want an encyclopedia that requires to be rewritten at the rate that neologisms drop out of usage - so it's better to simply require people to avoid using them at all.

      Once a neologism gets a toe-hold and falls into common usage (as "Parking" had in French) - Wikipedia is happy to use the word and to an article written about the word. There is much talk on Wikipedia about "The Google Test" - if the word gets a few thousand hits, it's probably "real".

      As for articles ABOUT neologisms, the problem is that people will continually try to get some kind of recognition for inventing new words. They'll use the word once or twice in blogs or email - then write a Wikipedia article about the word that purports to say that the word is in actual usage. This might succeed if Google indexes the word - Wikipedia is heavily linked to and widely mirrored - so if a word does make it into an article, Google will report hits for it shortly afterwards...not enough to pass the "Google Test" though.

      But an encyclopedia is about reporting the way the world is - not trying to change the world in it's image. So this use of Wikipedia to create new 'vanity words' really does need to be stamped out. It's as bad as spamming or 'linkspamming'.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
  9. For slang, it is useles without a context by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 2, Informative

    For example, in french slang, the same person could use the word "batard" as either an insult or a display of respect, and neither of these meaning is related to the target's father.

    I wish them good luck...

    1. Re:For slang, it is useles without a context by RubberBaron · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, you gotta admit, it's a wicked idea...

    2. Re:For slang, it is useles without a context by UnHolier+than+ever · · Score: 1

      In what french expression exactly is it a show of respect to use "bâtard"??? I cannot think of one.

    3. Re:For slang, it is useles without a context by belg4mit · · Score: 1

      Indeed, in my experiences in both Belgium ('95) and France ('05) bastard is very much a deragatory term. Perhaps he means in English. In English bastard can be used in a familiar sense, though even in the familial sense the "target" is not the father.

      --
      Were that I say, pancakes?
    4. Re:For slang, it is useles without a context by 4D6963 · · Score: 1

      Well, for example, when you refer to a friend you envy for a precise in-context reason, calling him a bastard would somehow be what the GP is talking about. But that would also work for other insults, such as enculé, and undoubtfully even in other languages.

      Example :
      "-Dude, I just had sex the Olsen twins!
      -You bastard!"

      --
      You just got troll'd!
  10. omg it reads L33t? by bombastinator · · Score: 2, Funny

    31g 3r0+her iz wa+ch1ng U!

    1. Re:omg it reads L33t? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it doesn't.

      What use would it have to mon1t0r all the l33t people out there? Remeber: Market researchers are interested in the people that have the money to buy their products. And are dumb enough to be manipulated by advertising.

      ok in respect to that fact... f33r th3 cut3 r0b0t1c r33d3r!

    2. Re:omg it reads L33t? by pod · · Score: 1

      ZOMG!!!1one!!1

      --
      "Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
  11. Urban dictionary by Intron · · Score: 1

    This is what the Urban Dictionary is for.

    --
    Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
    1. Re:Urban dictionary by TheBogBrushZone · · Score: 1

      Indeed. A quick look at number 5 on that list shows just how reliable a dictionary written, reviewed and read by a community of prurient 13-year-olds can be (as of writing the 5th most popular definition of neologism is The One's manjuice) . People question Wikipaedia's accuracy - just take a look at the Urban Dictionary and see how bad it could have been.

      --
      And behold, a command prompt and he who sat upon it, his name was shutdown and -h 3:11 followed with him
  12. What if it went in to a loop by clickclickdrone · · Score: 5, Funny

    and started creating its own gazornaplatting words that no-one but the program itself could middlybundy? It could eat up bibblys of disk space as all the new words chimmdudlied in a grawn.

    --
    I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
    1. Re:What if it went in to a loop by sbaker · · Score: 2, Funny

      started creating its own gazornaplatting words

      Gazomplat. Wow! I remember that word from the mid 1970's. Bear with me a moment...

      When I was learning to program in FORTRAN in my high school math class. Our teacher (who didn't know how to program either) was trying to teach us by the age-old process of reading the book one chapter ahead of the class she was teaching. As a consequence, she was no better at it than the rest of us and we ended up debugging her code about as often as she helped with debugging ours.

      Anyway, she was trying to write a program to sort words into alphabetical order - and something went horribly wrong and the program spat out a series of nonense words made up by chopping up and reordering the words it was given. Most of them were unpronouncable garbage but a couple sounded like real words.

      Gazomplat was one of them. It's such a nice sounding word that it's usage spread through the math class and beyond - since it had no meaning, it could be stuck into conversation at any convenient point. So it's use as a verb: "Gazomplatting" is entirely appropriate.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
    2. Re:What if it went in to a loop by Kojiro+Ganryu+Sasaki · · Score: 1

      That's ALMOST as bad as when people use "of" instead of "have". Ie: "I would of been rich by now if i hadn't..."

    3. Re:What if it went in to a loop by CptNerd · · Score: 1

      I really whimmle them glogsnarp with that shnazpackle. Shivlepate the wonkpregark when it azgranks wooversmeeps!
      Shmorkle!

      --
      By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
    4. Re:What if it went in to a loop by Shadowlore · · Score: 1

      Dude, something might be wrong with your fron.

      --
      My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
    5. Re:What if it went in to a loop by neminem · · Score: 1

      Might it then, possibly, go whiffling through a tulgey wood, burbling as it went? Might a hero need to be dispatched to cut off its head (vorpally, of course)? P.S. "bibblys" of disk space doesn't sound any sillier than "gibibytes" does...

  13. Acme-sucks.com locator by denis-The-menace · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This sounds like a great way to locate (and sue) walmartsuck.com type sites.

    Corporate censorship. Now Automated with "Zeitgeist".

    Think I'm a nut.
    Call me back in 5 years...

    --
    Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
  14. chance by Jon+Luckey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sounds like a excellect chance to inject some new perfectly cromulent words into wide use.

    --
    -- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
    1. Re:chance by shotgunsaint · · Score: 2, Funny

      You've embiggened the Wikipedia with your cromulent entry.

      --
      The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
  15. Step One is Complete by Hoplite3 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Time for step two: deliver a mild electric shock to neologism users. Then I won't have to hear "blogosphere" ever again.

    --
    Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
    1. Re:Step One is Complete by vjmurphy · · Score: 1

      "deliver a mild electric shock"

      That should be "giving a bzzzzt!" or "live-wiring their butts" I think.

      --
      Vincent J. Murphy
      Spandex Justice
    2. Re:Step One is Complete by Minwee · · Score: 1

      I think that would be "link-zotting the zap-ups".

  16. A better name by tecker · · Score: 1

    What is with people using the term ZeitGeist? Google uses it for its end of the year search roundup. It is even used more heavily by others not associated on the internet.

    OK why not the term DefMiner? Then get an old guy to be the site mascot? On second thought, never mind. Just dont be supprised when people get you confused with another product.

    --
    Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
    1. Re:A better name by Tennguin · · Score: 1

      I was thinking the same thing. The word is PLAYED. If was "hip" in the beginning and gave the person who used it a certain linguistic gravitas but now people make up bullshit just to squeeze the word into their articles, blogs and evening meals. Its like the word plethora or pedantic.

    2. Re:A better name by Tennguin · · Score: 1

      ... or gravitas. (before someone beat me to it)

    3. Re:A better name by Omestes · · Score: 1

      I guess the estate of Hegel should sue, since he used it first. Actually I think it was a common german word in the 18th and 19th centuries, so I guess common language has prior art. It means spirit of the times, which is pretty applicable to both Google's use, and this use.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  17. Santorum! by mr_stinky_britches · · Score: 4, Funny

    One of my personal favorites is the word Santorum.

    --
    Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
  18. thats how I learn new words in languages by peter303 · · Score: 1

    If I see a new word in text, I hypothesize its meaning from its context rather than lookup its meaning. However, recently dictionary lookup been easier when reading online with Google Define: available.

    This usually only works in languages I know fairly well. If there are two or three unknown terms in a paragraph I'll have less success in understanding them.

  19. Hello? by MarkusQ · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Development of the tool is focusing on using it to understand what bloggers (using slang and neologisms) are saying about companies' products."

    You do not need a fancy program to do this. I can do it for you, without even reading the blogs in question.

    Watch.

    They are saying your products suck, and that your customer support is worthless.

    See how easy that was? Now, you might be wondering how I know this. Simple. They don't use made up words to say good things about you. I'm not sure why (maybe they aren't worried about being sued for saying good things?), but the pattern is very consistent. If somebody goes to the trouble of writing about you in their blog using made up words, they don't like you or the horse you rode in on.

    Likewise, if you are a journalist, they call you funny names (Steno Sue, Laura Dildo, Kneepads Miller, "Dollar a Word" Armstrong, etc.) because they've noticed that you consistently write to favour a certain party, position, politician, company, or lifestyle, even when this requires ignoring a pile of facts the size of Paraguay, any one of which would shred your position.

    And if you're a politician, it means that someone noticed that what you say in speeches is so unconnected to what you do with the office you hold that the only link between them is the way in which they combine to mollify your nominal constituents while maximizing the benefit to your corporate sponsors.

    If you are an industry association, they are saying they hate you, period, and that you are evil incarnate.

    See how easy this is? If you still don't get it, I am willing to come out of retirement as a consultant to explain it to you, provided the price is right.

    --MarkusQ

    1. Re:Hello? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Mod parent doubleplusspiffy.

    2. Re:Hello? by rhandir · · Score: 1

      AC is right, grandparent comment is really rather good. Er, I mean, nifticated.

    3. Re:Hello? by Khmer+Luge · · Score: 1

      Indeedykins, MarkusQ's quoteable braindroppings are synergistically powwow-provoking.

  20. Comparison of Wordnet to Current Hutter Prize by Baldrson · · Score: 1
    I suspect database mining algorithms for Wikipedia Neologisms could also help refactor Wordnet's definitions to be more succinct and hence provide a better basis for modeling other natural language corpora.

    paq8hp3 is the current Hutter Prize lead contender and has compressed the first 100M of Wikipedia to just over 17M. Wordnet's .exe file is just over 17M. One wonders what would happen if the "cream" of Wordnet's vocabulary were compressed using paq8hp3 and then incorporated into paq8hp3 to be a better compressor by inferring what words are more likely than others to appear near various combinations of words. You wouldn't have to go very deep to generate a large temporary file of word associations. Identifying the "cream" of Wordnet would be more than just frequency of usage. Some refactorization of the definitions may be in order to find which words are most powerful descriptors of other words. How much of that sort of work has been done?

    --
    Seastead this.
    1. Re:Comparison of Wordnet to Current Hutter Prize by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You, sir, are one crazy-ass motherfucker.

  21. ... enables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... enables companies to automate the litigation process with Java AutoCeaseAndDesist email modules.

  22. Slashdot Font Confusion by Slightly+Askew · · Score: 1
    started creating its own gazornaplatting words
    Gazomplat. Wow! I remember that word from the mid 1970's. Bear with me a moment...

    If you needed any more proof that the slashdot font sucks, here you go.

    It's a sad day when

    gazornplat
    is mistaken for
    gazomplat

    Next thing you know, pom enthusiasts stray into the wrong conversation, and you can never go back from that.

    --
    Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
    1. Re:Slashdot Font Confusion by XorNand · · Score: 1

      Slashdot doesn't define the page fonts. Change your browser's default sans-serif to whatever you choose and you're golden. I personally use Swis721 BT as my sans-serif font and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono as the monospaced font. They work nicely.

      --
      Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
  23. Mark V Shaney from usenet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    TFA says it looks at the links and uses the keywords on those links, and doesnt even look at the content of the link, or the context of the word in the paragraph. Remember Mark V Shaney from usenet?

    It'd be better of using markov chains and a nice index of all the content where the word is found and the content on the outgoing links, and determine its meaning based on its context within the article. Google would really be the people to ask for this kind of info, with how huge their index is, i'd love to let a semantic program chunk of some of that data.

  24. "Natual"? by grampy · · Score: 1

    So, I tried WordNet and it didn't work! Natual! Indeed!

  25. Urban Dictionary? by zxking · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't they also crawl through something like the urban dictionary which will have ten times more slang definitions?

  26. this is not at all true... by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 1

    Wikipedia greatly endorses the Neologism (or perhaps Protologism according to their page) "initialism".

    For some reason, someone decided to redefine acronym and make up a new word to cover what acronym covered before. And Wikipedia uses it constantly, despite the pointlessness of it and the fact that the word hasn't caught on widely, thus making it a protologism. Although protologism isn't a word that has caught on widely either, thus making it a protologism itself at best, more likely a vanity word.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
    1. Re:this is not at all true... by sbaker · · Score: 1

      Initialism is defined in Websters - it's not new. What might be new is the annoying tendance for people to argue that an acronym like 'IBM' is in fact an initialism.

      Ironically 'protologism' does seem to be a neologism - there is a definition for it in The Urban Dictionary from 2003 - so it's at least 3 years old.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
    2. Re:this is not at all true... by sbaker · · Score: 1

      Neo = New
      Logism = Word

      Once it's not new, it's not a neologism anymore.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
  27. Re:What if it went in to a loop loop loop loop by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

    That's ALMOST as bad as when people use "i.e." instead of "e.g.", e.g. "Ie: 'I would of been rich by now if i hadn't...'" (explanation).

  28. No better name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "hip" in the beginning?? I doubt "hip" would have been used to describe it in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the word was much more prevalent. It is German and means spirit (geist) of the time (zeit) and is used to refer to, you guessed it, the spirit of a particular time/era/century/etc. It is a show of arrogance for Google to use it but, it makes clear what this program actually does. Personally, I think the loop would be much more gezuhnderfast.

  29. Re:What if it went in to a loop loop loop loop by Fishstick · · Score: 1

    good link, I've tried to avoid those not always able to remember which was which. thanks

    --

    There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
    Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

  30. Re:this is not at all true... (off topic) by Unequivocal · · Score: 1

    And thus protologism would then be true of itself, making it homological. Reminds me of this quote:

    If a homological adjective is one that is true of itself, e.g., "polysyllabic", and a heterological adjective is one which is not true of itself, e.g., "bisyllabic", then what about "heterological?" Is it heterological or not?
        - Grelling's Paradox

  31. that doesn't mean it's caught on... by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 1

    It doesn't get promoted to neologism just because of its age.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
  32. When turned on mentions of itself, by Geminii · · Score: 1

    Zeitgeist today decided that it was a perfectly cromulant product.

  33. if only urbandictionary were so restrained by Wry+Cooter · · Score: 1

    I wish there were a better feedback system for sites that could be useful slang dictionaries, like urbandictionary.com (I think that is the url). Some entries reflect actual usage, some are obvious inventions on the spot, but get ranked highly anyway, because someone thinks they are funny or useful enough.

  34. try out my fun toy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this page randomly combines prefixes and suffixes to create neologisms.

  35. what's in a name? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zeitgeist is german for 'Ghost of time' or 'Time spirit'

    what does this have to do with this technology?

    odd name...

  36. Searching for the meaning of words? by Scoldog · · Score: 1

    May I offer my heartiest contrafibularities!

    I am leaving now, but I shall return interfrastically.

    (5 points to whoever places the origin of this bastardized quote)

    --
    This space for rent
    1. Re:Searching for the meaning of words? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blackadder, series three.
      The Doctor Johnson episode (can't remember the name).

      Remembered chiefly for Blackadder threatening to cut Baldrick into thin strips and tell the Prince he walked over a razor-sharp grating wearing a very heavy hat. What a classic.

  37. Temporal flash crowding by GreenSwirl · · Score: 1

    Excellent insight by Larry Niven.

    To extend, the lack of huge crowds of time-travelling tourists at events such as the WTC collapse is the best evidence that time travel from the future into our present cannot happen. Either that, or time travellers are required to cloak themselves. Otherwise, the streets and skies of NYC would have been packed with tricked-out Deloreans on 9-11-01.

    Stephen Hawking thinks this may be because the furthest you can travel back in time is to the invention of the time machine (and it hasn't been invented yet). Even if there is no technological limitation, it might also be that going back to the time before the invention of the time machine is societally forbidden, in order to preserve the timeline that created the possibility of time travel. But that's another can of wormholes.

    1. Re:Temporal flash crowding by belg4mit · · Score: 1

      Robert L. Forward's "Timemaster" deals with confined time travel like that.
      You make two ends of a wormhole and carry them to wherever you want. It
      obviously takes a very long time at ~cee to do this. Your wormhole is now
      a fixed-length (space-)time machine on the order of how much time you spent
      transporting the ends.

      --
      Were that I say, pancakes?