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You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

jsomers.net

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Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#51

Post by blago »

Back in 2014, this article inspired me to write an iOS app.

I took a few weekends putting most of my efforts into formatting and readability. Just when I was ready to release, I got really busy at work.

Weeks became months, and months became years. By the time I got back to it last year, Xcode wouldn't compile it anymore.

To my dismay, I also discovered that a number of other apps had been launched. After fretting a bit, I realized that most of the competition had done a poor job parsing the raw data and formatting the text.

So I released it anyway. Feel free to give it a try and let me know what you think: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1397172520

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#52

Post by aasasd »

xtracto wrote: post #41

Back when I was writing my PhD thesis (in English, as a non-native English speaker) I remember looking for a more efficient way to find synonyms for certain word. Usually when you are looking for synonyms, you know you already know the word but you just cannot find it. So the Idea I had was to make some kind of "graph" representation of Word relationships given their meaning. I remember finding a huge list of words w…

Thesaurus.com is similar—it has closer synonyms scored higher. But also separates different meanings of a word.

I think that it either has automated the process of finding synonyms, or started with a corpus like the one you're talking about.

I wish there was a quality open thesaurus, because Thesaurus.com's interface is annoying sometimes, and I could use some integration with a dictionary. Wiktionary's efforts aren't quite there yet.

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#53

Post by littlekosh »

AmVess wrote: post #47
ppod wrote: post #35

Did anyone else find the writing in this post almost unbearable? It's deliberately showy in a way while also seeming self-conscious about being perceived as pretentious. The predictable dig at modernist architecture is exactly what I expect from this kind of prescriptive aesthetic paternalism.

It is poorly written. Some writers confuse mental diarrhea with good writing. His style is overly wordy and needlessly punctuated. He takes too long to push the informative points, all the while cloaking them in too much empty dross. At first, I thought this was an example of something written by an AI program. It is lumpy and disjointed to the mind in the same way that the Uncanny Valley is disorienting to the eye.…

The information that writing can convey is not limited to an equation where the words used exist on one side and the meaning of the sentence on the other.

I hate to explain something someone else wrote, but the messy, tangential writing is mirroring the uncertainty that the author calls out in the dictionary definitions that they love. Their intent is to convey the joy that these words have for them when seen through the lens of Webster’s 1913. Joy is not constrained to declarative statements marching in lock step to the beat of logical coherence. To remove the “over wordiness” and “needless punctuation” is to lose the human aspect of the post.

Sometimes conveying information is a secondary or tertiary purpose to a piece of prose.

Also, not everyone is Raymond Carver. Some people are Henry James.

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#54

Post by novaleaf »

blago wrote: post #51

Back in 2014, this article inspired me to write an iOS app. I took a few weekends putting most of my efforts into formatting and readability. Just when I was ready to release, I got really busy at work. Weeks became months, and months became years. By the time I got back to it last year, Xcode wouldn't compile it anymore. To my dismay, I also discovered that a number of other apps had been launched. After fretting a…

This seems to be a real labor of love for you.

It must be slightly traumatic seeing your first review of the app:

> 1/5 stars: Missing many basic words. Seems like a phishing app

I don't think your target audience is those looking for dictionaries. LoL

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#55

Post by aasasd »

cge wrote: post #4

While an interesting perspective, I do have to question whether this is simply a matter of the author preferring Webster's prescriptive nuances over more descriptive approaches, even when those nuances do not appear supported by use. Taking the example they use, fustian, the OED does not include the idea that it refers specifically to a mismatch between topic and style, and gives numerous examples, from Marlowe onwar…

From my experience with Wiktionary which uses Webster's as the basis, it's exactly descriptive and has the different meanings that are in use. If OED has one meaning, it doesn't mean that people don't use other ones.

It happens that Wiktionary doesn't have one of meanings, but very rare.

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#56

Post by bitwize »

adt2bt wrote: post #10

I remember taking numerous vocabulary tests and quizzes in grade school where the definitions given were of the ‘modern’ type in this article. I wonder if the change in the dictionary was driven by a test based approach to learning the language? It’s a nice, quantifiable thing to ask a student to define fustian prose as pompous. It’s a lot harder to get the student to explain that fustian is when one tries to punch a…

I remember vocab lessons in school. Near as I can tell from what my sister, who is raising a school-age son, tells me, they don't teach that anymore. The TDD (Test-Driven Didactics) implemented by No Child Left Behind leaves no room for vocabulary lessons in the curriculum; instead, pupils are expected to infer the meaning of unknown words from context. Even the Scientologists have it better: LRH's study tech at least asks you to look up the word on your own.

Anyway, the vocabulary lessons I had came from textbooks, some of which wrote entire short essays on each word, The one for "brogue" (meaning an Irish accent), for instance, goes into its etymology and notes a comparison with a kimd of shoe of the same name. The shoe, it turns out, has a different etymology and the two twrms are not related. The essay concludes: "The idea that the Irish accent fits the tongue as comfortably as a friendly old shoe fits the foot is probably pure Irish fantasy."

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#57

Post by mrob »

tptacek wrote: post #42

If you like Webster's, Garner's Modern American Usage will blow your head off.

The latest edition covers non-American English too, so it's now "Garner's Modern English Usage". I first learned of this book from David Foster Wallace's review of the first edition in Harper's Magazine:

https://www.webcitation.org/6FU8Zx2N0?url=http://instruct.we...

I agree it is excellent, and Wallace's review is also worth reading.

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#58

Post by jimbosis »

xelxebar wrote: post #29

Oh wow. I just discovered this dictionary recently myself, via the GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English [0]. It turns out that this is the primary default for the cli dictionary tool `dict` [1], which has happily become my go-to. [0]: http://gcide.gnu.org.ua/ [1]: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dict/

The Dictionary [1] program included with MATE also defaults to giving definitions from Webster's 1913.

This is because it is using dict.org [2], which serves _The Collaborative International Dictionary of English_ v.0.48 (GCIDE) as it's default dictionary [3].

[1] https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-utils/tree/master/mate-...

[2] http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict

[3] http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict3&Database=gcide

edit: Newline formatting.

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#59

Post by gbacon »

You can see why it became cliché to start a speech with “Webster’s defines X as…”: with his dictionary the definition that followed was actually likely to lend gravitas to your remarks, to sound so good, in fact, that it’d beat anything you could come up with on your own.

Not just cliché but entirely juvenile and formulaic. Public speaking teachers mislead their students by teaching them this bore of an opening.

Re: You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014)

#60

Post by lisper »

> Recall that the New Oxford, for the word “fustian,” gives “pompous or pretentious speech or writing.” I said earlier that that wasn’t even really correct. Here, then, is Webster’s definition: “An inflated style of writing; a kind of writing in which high-sounding words are used, above the dignity of the thoughts or subject; bombast.” Do you see the difference? What makes fustian fustian is not just that the language is pompous — it’s that this pomposity is above the dignity of the thoughts or subject. It’s using fancy language where fancy language isn’t called for.

That last bit is an excellent definition of fustian, and reveals Webster's definition to be (IMHO) a bit, well, fustian.

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