December 11, 2003

• I found this criteria amusing: Definitions (25 points)—the accuracy, clarity, precision, and élan of the explanations of the words' meanings. How is accuracy and precision measured?
• I think it's funny you pointed that out over: Enjoyment ... for lack of a better word—and a phrase I feel guilty using with seven dictionaries strewn at my feet—chemistry: Did I feel the dictionary was looking down at me? Or that I was smarter than it was? Was it too clingy? Unobjectionable but unexciting? Simply put: Did it make me look forward to spending more time with it? Still I thought it was an interesting read, and if I were to do something like this, I probably would have approached it in a similar way.
• Well, enjoyment is a personal subjective thing. How do you judge accuracy of a definition in a source that's supposed to be the source for accurate definitions?
• Language is a wacky thing though. The population judges what's accurate by usage--which is, you're right subjective--but all things being equal, comparing what the dictionary says to what you know to be true isn't necessarily a bad way to judge in this case. Of course, the only way to know if you agree or disagree with her is to go try it yourself :)
• After reading the article, I looked up disinterested on dictionary.com. I think the Slate author's beef with the notes are a bit unfounded. He says he wants more clear-cut advice on usage. The first sentence states, "In traditional usage, disinterested can only mean 'having no stake in an outcome...'" Then it goes into a short history on the word, explaining how it's definition evolved over the centuries and why this particular controversy is interesting. Then, in case you missed the first sentence, it says, "Despite its resuscitation, this usage is widely considered an error." It doesn't even get to the surveys until the end and that's just to back up its assertion that "not interested" is generally considered incorrect. I thought it did a great job explaining the accepted usage without becoming authoritarian. I also like their Usage Panel statistics because they highlight that accepted word usage is not always a black-and-white issue.
• Oops! I mean she.
• Get text-only Slate here.
• OED. Complete, full, and preferably online (so much faster) You can look up variant spellings of seventeenth century dialect words for obsolete household appliances - and they are there. Add good etymology information, and non-American spelling (sorry, but Commonwealth is prettier), and you have me happy. Too bad it's too expensive and much too large, unless you have access to the online version through a university. But the Concise Oxford is the next best thing - desk sized, but with most words I've needed, and etymology. Just don't buy the Oxford French-English. I should have known better than to buy a British produced dictionary rather than French, but I was seduced by my love of the original OED.
• The best French-English English-French is the Collins-Robert. Fully concur on the general excellence of the OED. I use the Shorter Oxford quite a bit at home and have thus discovered that it has no entry for "bloviate".
• The Concise Oxford is also missing the word "ludic" - but I have always thought that if a word is not in the Concise Oxford, I should think strongly about whether is it is really worth using, considering that my reader will probably be unfamilier with it as well. (And I don't hold with any of that "if it's complicated, it's smarter" hogwash. Good writing should be clear, and preferrably concise.)
• Are "unfamilier" and "preferrably" in your Concise? I can't find them in my copy. Dunno, from where I sit "ludic" is a pretty common or garden word. Remember "Ludo"? It's also a pretty good description of anything Lawrence Stern wrote.
• Er, that would be "Laurence Sterne". Please pass me an ass, and I'll stick it on my head.
• Anyone who spends all day reading about "The Drayning of the Great Levell of the Fennes" is allowed to have idiosyncratic spelling. Actually, I love medieval and early modern spelling, especially that which is almost purely phonetic. Like the testimony of Jone Vorde (Jane Ford) in Salisbury in 1488, "In the name of the fader Son and holy goste iii persons and one godde in the trinitie that blyssed mayden and virgyne marie moder of god and all the holy company of heven..." You can hear her Wiltshire accent right there on the page.
• You can read more about fennes chez Languagehat. Well, "fens", anyway.
• You can also read more about the dictionary-rating -- not much more, but there are a couple of amusing comments. (Oh, and the fens are here.)
• Ah, good ol' languagehat. I have Webster's New World dictionary myself. I had to get it for some editing class or some such thing, and it's been with me ever since. Incidentally, there is an interesing article about office chairs now at Slate that I stumbled across while reading about the dictionaries.
• Speaking of etymology, somebody just pointed me here today. I was stunned I'd never seen it before.