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Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

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Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#71
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really prefer something not web-based, but if you know of any tool like this, I'm all ears anyway. What I'd really want is to be able to construct lexicographic sets and save the in SQLite databases, for use in apps of course - but that may be a tall order. You know of tools like this?

You know of tools like this? I don't. I do have a background in dictionaries, though: I created The Online Slang Dictionary ( http://onlineslangdictionary.com/ ) which is the eldest slang dictionary and thesaurus on the web. I've given some minutes of thought to turning the underlying code into a product... What sort of data would you like to capture in the DB, and what would apps do with it?

I would like to have a kind of API that allows me to add a new word entry, add its definitions, describe the derivations (if any) of the word, and have a field for examples of the words usage. Some sort of system that would allow me to take a corpus, deconstruct the terms and words used, create a definition for each word, and so on.

The reason is that I'm fascinated with dictionaries - the physical kind - in general, and would like to incorporate some sort of dictionary/glossary system in most of my apps as a means of documenting the technical terms for the subject those apps address.

Another thing is that I'm a complete newbie to the subject of lexicography, and I'd love to learn more from like-minded individuals, on what kind of tooling and methodology is out there. I suppose I could go and look at the sources for such things as the OpenDict, sdcv (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sdcv) and so on .. but surely there must be standards for the ways Websters and so on construct their lexicography. I'm just not familiar with these tools, so I'd hoped to have some insight from other like-minded individuals in this community, before I launch into a google-trail of my own investigation.

With your site (wonderful, by the way) - did you invent your own schema for the database, or are you using some standard tooling on the backend?

My ideal tooling would give me the ability to pipe a text file into it, construct a list of all un-defined terms/words/symbols, give the means of importing definitions from known sources for each word, and so on. Ultimately I'd love to be able to construct custom dictionaries for any given corpus, such that no term in that corpus is undefined; and to be even more meta about it, no term in the dictionary itself would be undefined. Obviously this is a highly iterative thing, as the undefined terms list grows with every definition added - which is why I think I have to understand the tooling better before I start constructing my own processes for this task.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#72
post #54
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want exactly the opposite - to be able to construct dictionaries where there are no words used in definitions that don't also have their own entries. To me this is a key feature of a dictionary - definition completeness. And its one of the reasons I'd like to know about the toolset used to construct dictionaries - I'd give anything to be able to throw a word set at these tools, have a custom dictionary constructed…

I actually assumed that was already a general rule, because any word I've ever cross referenced in a dictionary has always been there. In fact, in the diminutive "Little" Oxford[1] there are few enough words available for definitions that you can get stuck in a loop between two words! Although there's always at least one other synonym word in the definitions. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Little-Oxford-English-Dictionar…

I'd really love to know the technology behind lexicography, as a state of the art. If anyone works in this field, any pointers you might provide are highly appreciated.

I understand that unity is a difficult thing to attain in dictionaries, but perhaps there are tools and methods used by lexicographers that I need to learn about, as an interested party.

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