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Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Ontologies and volunteers


Thank you for reminding me of The Professor and the Madman, which I read very favorable reviews of a few years back.  I agree with you that the discussion of ontologies would benefit from reflecting on the evolution of dictionaries. You wrote:

They took the position that in relation to the definition of words, there is value in recording and citing “usage” and that there is no “right” definition, because that would kill any living language.

In addition to "usage," etymologies (which might be seen as a kind of Ur-usage) work to achieve a good balance in relation to definition of words IMO (and, of course, the OED includes them, though they are not its special thrust).  I've been fascinated with etymologies since as I boy I discovered such interesting facts as that the Latin root altus figures in words meaning both high (e.g., altitude) and low (e.g. alto, the lower female voice), and that indeed any number of ontologies point to a broader spectrum of original meaning for particular words than much of the later usage might suggest.

Indeed the usage of some words have taken us far from their "roots." For example, education (from Latin, ducere, to draw, and e- out) which seems first to have meant something like the drawing out of the native potential of a person,  has since come to mean something closer to "putting in." (There is a variant of this etymology that suggests the "drawing out" was of a child at its birth by a midwife--but that birthing idea seems rather apt for education as well.)

Again, thanks for getting me to think about these matters again, something I haven't done for quite some time.

Gary Richmond

Mei Lin Fung wrote:
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Has anyone read the Professor and the Madman? About the making of the Oxford English Dictionary? I found it very inspiring.  Perhaps our discussion of ontologies might reflect on the history of dictionaries? Taking lessons from the evolution of dictionaries as an early knowledge artifact?

 

They took the position that in relation to the definition of words, there is value in recording and citing “usage” and that there is no “right” definition, because that would kill any living language.

 

About the recruitment of many many volunteers to contribute to this massive 44+ year project. That it took 27 years from the first suggestion of a dictionary to record all English words, to the actual beginning of the project,…. Yes, to get to just the beginning! Our human systems do not evolve easily, but inexorably, they work out what needs to work and mysteriously, find ways to do it.

 

 

Mei Lin Fung