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Lexicographic Error
A lexicographic error is an inaccurate entry in a dictionary. Such problems, because they undercut the intention of providing authoritative guidance to readers and writers, attract special attention. An early English-language example was the definition of ''pastern'' as "the knee of a horse" in Samuel Johnson, Dr. Johnson's famed 18th-century ''Dictionary of the English Language''. That would suit the word ''fetlock'', but the pastern is in fact a long portion of the leg immediately below the fetlock. When a woman asked him why he had made the error, Johnson, according to James Boswell, Boswell, replied, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance." In the 1930s, Webster's Dictionary, ''Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition'' accidentally documented, for four years, a supposed word "dord", whose only basis was a clerical error by Merriam Webster, the publisher. The first edition (1987) of the ''Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary'' contained an entry for a verb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc.Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 2002 It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data. A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knee
In humans and other primates, the knee joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two joints: one between the femur and tibia (tibiofemoral joint), and one between the femur and patella (patellofemoral joint). It is the largest joint in the human body. The knee is a modified hinge joint, which permits flexion and extension as well as slight internal and external rotation. The knee is vulnerable to injury and to the development of osteoarthritis. It is often termed a ''compound joint'' having tibiofemoral and patellofemoral components. (The fibular collateral ligament is often considered with tibiofemoral components.) Structure The knee is a modified hinge joint, a type of synovial joint, which is composed of three functional compartments: the patellofemoral articulation, consisting of the patella, or "kneecap", and the patellar groove on the front of the femur through which it slides; and the medial and lateral tibiofemoral articulations linking the femur, or thigh bone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, ''Eohippus'', into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies ''caballus'' are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior. Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated ''The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue ''The History of R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the English writer Samuel Johnson, which is commonly said to be the greatest biography written in the English language. A great mass of Boswell's diaries, letters and private papers were recovered from the 1920s to the 1950s, and their ongoing publication by Yale University has transformed his reputation. Early life Boswell was born in Blair's Land on the east side of Parliament Close behind St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh on 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.). He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, and his wife Euphemia Erskine. As the eldest son, he was heir to his family's estate of Auchinleck in Ayrshire. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. As a child, he was delica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Webster's Dictionary
''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in honor. "''Webster's''" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles. Merriam-Webster is the corporate heir to Noah Webster's original works, which are in the public domain. Noah Webster's ''American Dictionary of the English Language'' Noah Webster (1758–1843), the author of the readers and spelling books which dominated the American market at the time, spent decades of research in compiling his dictionaries. His first dictionary, s:A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, ''A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language'', appeared in 1806. In it, he popularized features which would become a hallmark of American English spelling (''c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dord
The word ''dord'' is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the '' New International Dictionary'', second edition (1934). That dictionary defined the term as a synonym for density used in physics and chemistry in the following way: dord (dôrd), ''n. Physics & Chem.'' Abbreviation for density. Philip Babcock Gove, an editor at Merriam-Webster who became editor-in-chief of ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary'', wrote a letter to the journal ''American Speech'', fifteen years after the error was caught, in which he explained how the "dord" error was introduced and corrected. On 31 July 1931, Austin M. Patterson, the dictionary's chemistry editor, sent in a slip reading "D or d, cont./density." This was intended to add "density" to the existing list of words that the letter "D" can abbreviate. The phrase "D or d" was misinterpreted as a single, word: '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merriam Webster
Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as G & C Merriam Co. in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1843, after Noah Webster died, the company bought the rights to ''An American Dictionary of the English Language'' from Webster's estate. All Merriam-Webster dictionaries trace their lineage to this source. In 1964, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. acquired Merriam-Webster, Inc. as a subsidiary. The company adopted its current name in 1982. History Noah Webster In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, ''A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language''. In 1807 Webster started two decades of intensive work to expand his publication into a fully comprehensive dictionary, ''An American Dictionary of the English Language''. To help him trace the etymology of words, Webster learned 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COBUILD
COBUILD, an acronym for Collins Birmingham University International Language Database, is a British research facility set up at the University of Birmingham in 1980 and funded by HarperCollins, Collins publishers. The facility was initially led by Professor John McHardy Sinclair, John Sinclair. The most important achievements of the COBUILD project have been the creation and analysis of an electronic text corpus, corpus of contemporary text, the ''Collins Corpus'', later leading to the development of the Bank of English, and the production of the monolingual learner's dictionary ''Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary'', again based on the study of the COBUILD corpus and first published in 1987. A number of other dictionaries and grammars have also been published, all based exclusively on evidence from the Bank of English. References Further reading * External linksCOBUILD Reference {{DEFAULTSORT:Cobuild Online English dictionaries Linguistic research institute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghost Word
A ghost word is a word published in a dictionary or similarly authoritative reference work even though it had not previously had any meaning or been used intentionally. A ghost word generally originates from a typographical or linguistic error, taken as an unfamiliar word by readers. Once authoritatively published, a ghost word occasionally may be copied widely and enter legitimate usage, or it may eventually be expunged by more fastidious lexicographers. Origin The term was coined by Professor Walter William Skeat in his annual address as president of the Philological Society in 1886:Skeat, Walter William; Presidential address on 'Ghost-Words' in: 'Transactions of the Philological Society, 1885-7, pages 343-374'; Published for the society by Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill, London, 1887. May be downloaded at: https://archive.org/details/transact188500philuoft It turned out that "kimes" was a misprint for "knives", but the word gained currency for some time. A more drastic example ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It is, therefore, an esoteric joke, only humorous to those who are aware of the circumstances behind it. In-jokes may exist within a small social clique, such as a group of friends, or extend to an entire profession or other relatively large group. An example is: ::Q: What's yellow and equivalent to the axiom of choice? ::A: Zorn's lemon. Individuals not familiar with the mathematical result Zorn's lemma are unlikely to understand the joke. The joke is a pun on the name of this result. Ethnic or religious groups may also have in-jokes. Philosophy In-jokes are cryptic allusions to shared common ground that act as selective triggers; only those who share that common ground are able to respond appropriately. An in-joke can work to build comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
