> Got a word Didn’t
> frozen water → ice boiling water
Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
11–20 of 286 posts
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#12There are nearly half a million compound phrases that aren’t in any dictionary—simply because they contain spaces. “Boiling water.” “Saturday night.” “Help me.” I would hope that none of those examples were taking up space in a dictionary.
Some are better than others. Many semi-transparents could get legit coverage. And many are good fodder for word game content.
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#13These are under-respected for non native English speakers.
Can you say more on this?
Consider phrasal verbs like "shut up", "get lost" or "kick off". Knowing what the parts mean doesn't let you understand the whole.
In your native tongue you take these for granted, but in a second language you have to learn that the sum is more (or different) than the parts.
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#14I imagine that languages like german that create composites of nouns have less of a problem with this: English: cream of mushroom soup Spanisch: sopa cremosa de champiñones German: Champignoncremesuppe
I just checked, Champignoncremesuppe is not in my dictionary ;)
It has some compound words. But including too many of them would quickly get out of hand
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#15> Got a word Didn’t > frozen water → ice boiling water Freezing water doesn’t have a word. Boiled water does have a word.
Freezing water doesn't have a word, it only gets one after water has changed phase. Boiling water also gets a word once it has changed phase: steam.
ice - water - steam
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#16I imagine that languages like german that create composites of nouns have less of a problem with this: English: cream of mushroom soup Spanisch: sopa cremosa de champiñones German: Champignoncremesuppe
I just checked, Champignoncremesuppe is not in my dictionary ;) It has some compound words. But including too many of them would quickly get out of hand
You are right! So the situation for german is worse: Millions of words are missing... ;-)
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#17There are nearly half a million compound phrases that aren’t in any dictionary—simply because they contain spaces. “Boiling water.” “Saturday night.” “Help me.” I would hope that none of those examples were taking up space in a dictionary.
Some are better than others. Many semi-transparents could get legit coverage. And many are good fodder for word game content.
The rest of the article did a good job explaining that. I just think those were terrible examples for the introduction. I think "shut up", "good night", and "hot dog" would have really got the point across better, but those might already be in dictionaries.
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#18I imagine that languages like german that create composites of nouns have less of a problem with this: English: cream of mushroom soup Spanisch: sopa cremosa de champiñones German: Champignoncremesuppe
but can't you basically make anything a composite noun in German? That it's a single word doesn't really help you decided if it has enough presence unto itself to be defined in the dictionary.
Seems like they would have just as much of a problem since the issue is delineating when a "phrase" becomes a "word"
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you say more on this?
Consider phrasal verbs like "shut up", "get lost" or "kick off". Knowing what the parts mean doesn't let you understand the whole. In your native tongue you take these for granted, but in a second language you have to learn that the sum is more (or different) than the parts.
Phrasal verbs are listed under the main verb. I never ever had a problem with that. As a native speaker sometimes I still have to search for some in some strange context.
Re: Half million 'Words with Spaces' missing from dictionaries
#20With Twain in mind, might I suggest we adopt the simple expedient of snake casing such terms.