Physicist demonstrates dictionary definition was dodgy
It is the defining moment that demonstrates a QUT physicist was correct in pointing out a 99-year-old mistake to one of the world's most authoritative dictionaries.
It is the defining moment that demonstrates a QUT physicist was correct in pointing out a 99-year-old mistake to one of the world's most authoritative dictionaries.
General Physics
Apr 23, 2014
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These days, "Star Wars" is everywhere. There are numerous films and all kinds of merchandise. But is "Star Wars" also an integral part of the English language? That is the question Prof Dr. Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer, ...
Social Sciences
Nov 27, 2023
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The bespectacled man with two pens in his shirt pocket and a black skullcap atop grey hair points to his computer screen and explains an epic project spanning generations.
Archaeology
Sep 14, 2017
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A team of palaeontologists is claiming to have "resurrected" Brontosaurus, the famous long-necked, pot-belled dinosaur. No, they haven't conducted some mad DNA cloning experiment. They have built a big new family tree of ...
Archaeology
Apr 7, 2015
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167
(Phys.org) —Ambiguity in language poses the greatest challenge when it comes to training a computer to understand the written word. Now, new research aims to help computers find meaning.
Computer Sciences
May 31, 2013
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An ambitious project to identify, explain and provide citations for the words written in cuneiform on clay tablets and carved in stone by Babylonians, Assyrians and others in Mesopotamia between 2500 B.C. and A.D. 100 has ...
Archaeology
Jun 8, 2011
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The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the word reference bible of the English language, may never appear in print and instead be accessible only online, its publisher said Tuesday.
Internet
Aug 31, 2010
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A Queensland University of Technology (QUT) physics lecturer has found a 99-year-old mistake in the Oxford English Dictionary - and is having it corrected.
General Physics
May 10, 2010
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(AP) -- When I was a kid, my dad bought a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It had 32 volumes and took up 4 feet in the book case. I loved to sit on the couch and flip through it, reading articles at random.
Consumer & Gadgets
Oct 28, 2009
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What does the word nature mean to you? Does it conjure visions of wild places away from the hustle and bustle of people, or does it include humans too? The meaning of nature has changed since the word was first used back ...
Environment
2 hours ago
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1
A dictionary (also called a wordbook, lexicon or vocabulary) is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon. According to Nielsen (2008) a dictionary may be regarded as a lexicographical product that is characterised by three significant features: (1) it has been prepared for one or more functions; (2) it contains data that have been selected for the purpose of fulfilling those functions; and (3) its lexicographic structures link and establish relationships between the data so that they can meet the needs of users and fulfill the functions of the dictionary.
A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries do not contain information about words that are used in language for general purposes—words used by ordinary people in everyday situations. 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 concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that don't fit neatly in the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), or rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a monolingual general-purpose dictionary.
A different dimension on which dictionaries (usually just general-purpose ones) are sometimes distinguished is whether they are prescriptive or descriptive, the latter being in theory largely based on linguistic corpus studies—this is the case of most modern dictionaries. However, this distinction cannot be upheld in the strictest sense. The choice of headwords is considered itself of prescriptive nature; for instance, dictionaries avoid having too many taboo words in that position. Stylistic indications (e.g. ‘informal’ or ‘vulgar’) present in many modern dictionaries is considered less than objectively descriptive as well.
Although the first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times (these were bilingual dictionaries), the systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest themselves is a 20th century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused of "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.
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