Talk:Dictionary

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Not sure about the Babylonians inventing the first dictionary - found a tertiary source stating Chinese scholars compiled one in 1109BC (http://www.sentex.net/~ajy/facts/firsts.html). Also, even if this isn't accepted, can we not change the wording? 'The first dictionary ever written was done by the Babylonians in 6th Century B.C' sounds like a child's written it...

Contents

[edit] Miscellaneous

Wikipedia has a 'sister' dictionary, Wictionary, but this is far from comprehensive. Is there a copyright problem with quoting other online dictionaries (Dictionary.com, Mirriam-Webster, Cambridge) in Wikipedia articles? -- Rob Williamson

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"The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is descriptive, and attempts to describe actual usage." This is scarcely true. The OED is highly prescriptivist. It's not uncommon to see a usage marked as "illiterate" or "incorrect" (see "ain't" or "refute" in the Second Edition, 1989). Try to find a Merriam-Webster dictionary which is that blunt! Instead you'll see "though disapproved of by many speakers...." everything is basically OK. So M-W is the modern exemplar of descriptivism, while the Oxford dictionaries have traditionally been prescriptivist, though they are rapidly becoming much less so (because prescriptivism is very out-of-fashion in linguistic circles). --user:rjp_uk

It is descriptivist, in that it allows those words to appear at all. Does a word's absence from a dictionary prevent you from using it? If you are being meticulous, it might give you pause, but descriptivists would say that a dictionary's lack of a term is an error in that dictionary. --Connel MacKenzie 14:38, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the /History bit since I think encyclopedia entries should consist of more than definitions, and that therefore the history of dictionaries should go on the main page. --Koyaanis Qatsi can't we do better than "A list of words defined in terms of each other"? --LMS ---

I tried to access the dictionnaries in the links, and I find them nothing like Wikipedia. Even in using Webster's 1913 edition as a starting point (as good as any place to start from) there continues to be an impulse to control events. Whether these controls are motivated by a desire to retain purity or to somehow derive monetary profit, they nevertheless diminish the democratisation of knowledge. Eclecticology

Why isnt wikipedia a dictionary? Lir 07:12 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

Because we are an encyclopedia silly. Read Wikipedia is not a dictionary and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. --mav
On the other hand, just as dictionaries can be encyclopedic, there is no reason that encyclopedias should not include definitions and etymological information as part of their general coverage. Just a definition is not enough, of course, but a definition in context may be just the ticket. For instance, castanet and copra include definitions, but go beyond what any dictionary would include, while train and bridge benefit from additional information on meaning, and the history and nature of Contract bridge is considerably illuminated by the inclusion of a couple of sentences on etymology. Ortolan88

Discussion from Wikipedia:Featured article candidates

  • Dictionary - decent content and good references. Need some heading. -- Taku
    • Agree that it's close, but it needs better organization and doesn't flow very well. Could probably be expanded too, still an excellent article but I wouldn't say brilliant -- oppose Tuf-Kat 03:59, Dec 22, 2003

How about these points?

Dictionaries are a collection of words/phrases (a list of entries, a repertory) sorted either in alphabetic order, or following a nomenclature (structured list of words identified numerically) with the objective of being helpful in learning/orientation, etc. traditionally in a book form. Such repertories contain various aspects/classes of knowledge associated with usualy one/each word/phrase in the list that must be possibe to search/expand to be useful. The collection itself is useful, because of the past work done in assembling such lists, saving the energy and effort for the new readers in similar need. When such lists are compiled, they should come under the check for meeting the general requirements for any information source to be useful, i.e. the items should be reliable, complete, precise, timely and exhaustive. This has not been possible or economically resonable with books, but it is highly desireable with respect to online dictionaries/tools of knowledge arranged in list format (for the sake of easy retrieval). These criteria are met by using the traditional approaches, yet checking for completion is not possible with alphabetically sorted sets. Therefore, an ambitious dictionary project shall never have an alphabetic list of items only, it should also follow a thesaurus structure, such as Longman's Lexicon and a few other book form dictionaries. Besides, bi- and muiltilingual dictionaries are impossible to maintain, if they are not using a nomenclature, or a system for the numbering the entry words that can be flexibly expanded. Most dictionaries made to this date are static, i.e they are a product of lemmatisation and decontextualisation efforts, at the end of which you have a word without context, accompanied usually by grammar and linguistic information only. Some add visualisation, cognitive points and relations too. The OED and similar projects have examples or references to the original occurence, but as a rule, the original context is got ridden of in the list. Not so, with the advent of translation memories and with the convergence of bilingual text collections and the collection of words (dictionaries). With the current trends in research and production, the dictionaries will remain static and not be of much help to people who look beyond a single word or its meaning, and want to solve their problem at syntactical level, that is in the real world of using dictionaries (as a means to help with translating from L1 into L2). And as opposed to former beliefs in using graph structure to represent the meaning of words in books and eelctronic files too, it is likely that the suitability of rings and circles will be recognised in the future design of really professional, "unbookish" electronic dictionaries. apogr

Huh? Nohat 18:09, 2004 May 7 (UTC)
A good start, Nohat, try again. apogr


suggestion: the input to enter target word should be more central on the homepage at least, if not all pages.

)b


I've been noticing lately that when I use google I get wikipedia pages back but from WordIQ. I also tried using the wordiq site to search for "wikipedia" and it seems to take a very long time and sends back very unuseful results.

Kstailey 12:19, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism ?

Compare http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Howl with Howl. Something funny going on? Matt Stan 19:18, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com takes its content from Wikipedia. Why this question on the Dictionary talk page?? --Valmi 23:43, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Merger?

Today I decided to work on extensive revisions to Webster's Dictionary and in poking around found a stub at Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition and a longer article at Webster's Third New International Dictionary. It seems to me it would be best to consolidate the second and third material at Webster's Dictionary, because it is the familiar name and it would put the history of the work, which has appeared under several names in one spot; then put in redirects under the other names. I've integrated the material at the present "Third" article with my own contributions at Webster's Dictionary. Would anyone with comments please contact me on my talk page? PedanticallySpeaking 16:40, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Six links rule

There is an interesting rule of thumb claiming that a chain between any two words in a dictionary exists, and have length of 6 or less pages. For example, let's take 2 random pages from Wiktionary: Wiktionary:俔 and Wiktionary:Fiction. These words are defined as the follows:

Wiktionary:俔 
Common Meaning: Wiktionary:like
Wiktionary:Like 
Synonyms (find attractive): be attracted to, Wiktionary:Fancy (British)

And now let's follow the chain starting from "Fiction":

Wiktionary:Fiction 
Literary type using invented or Wiktionary:Imaginative writing, instead of real facts
Wiktionary:Imaginative 
tending to be fanciful or inventive

So "俔" is defined as "like", "like" is a synonym of "fancy". The word "fiction" means "imaginative" writing and "imaginative" is tending to be "fanciful".

Any two words in a dictionary can be linked in this way, even if they seem to be completely unrelated. Perhaps someone, who knows English better than I, could find some funny examples.

This rule comes from the fact that words in a dictionary or encyclopedia are tightly related. The words used in descriptions of terms are often included in a dictionary itself. (Quote from PageRank article: PageRank seems to favor Wikipedia pages, often putting them high or at the top of searches for several encyclopedic topics. A common theory is that this is because Wikipedia is very interconnected, with each article having many internal links from other articles, which in turn have links from many other sites on the Web pointing to them.)

I found this rule in a Russian book on lexicography by Karaulov (Караулов Юрий Николаевич. Общая и русская идеография. - М.: Наука, 1976). It would be great to start a Wikipedia article on this topic, but I’m afraid it would be viewed as original research because I could find more books or articles about similar rules.

Some researches of WWW found that "on average any two Web pages are separated only by 19 clicks" [1]. It seems that Wikipedia also lacks of this information, though it’s very interesting.

May be we could put "Six links rule" in Dictionary or Lexicography? Everybody is welcomed to comment or extend this info. --Sdummy 07:03, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Etymological dictionary article needed

Yesterday I had cause to use some etymological dictionaries for Caucasian languages. As a linguistics hobbyist I realize I wasn't quite prepared for using such a dictionary. They seem to be sufficiently specialised that we could benefit from an article on their history, usage, etc right here in Wikipedia. Would anybody like to give it a stab? — Hippietrail 03:17, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary link

Shouldn't we link to the English Wiktionary instead of the generic wiktionary seeing as this is the English Wikipedia? Enochlau 03:55, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

True. However, it doesn't exactly fit in the "See Also" section. Neither does it fit with the "External Links". Does anone have an idea of where to put the Wiktionary?Chimchar monferno (talk) 00:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A Fictional Rhyming Dictionary

I think your excellent article on rhyming dictionaries is worthy of Wikipedia’s high standards.

I propose a link (which I think is distinctive) for your consideration www.benandverse.com/writings/index.htm.

My fictional rhyming dictionary is distinctive in that it attempts to teach the habit and craft of rhyming through word association. In order to implant the rhymes in the memory, I have strung rhyming words together into a pattern that suggests a scene or story.


Warning: I could make comparatively few words fit together to suggest this -- I guess more than a thousand but less than two. This must be the web’s shortest rhyming dictionary – and its rhymes are totally unrelated to poetry.

The work on this dictionary is from a section I have just added to my website, a literary miscellany, called “Phony Pearls of Fictitious Wisdom”.

My original website, “Ben and Verse,” is devoted to Ben Franklin. It received the A+ award from the www.englishwebteacher.com (together with a link from the Franklin Institute).

The original website has persisted for years; I have instructed my executors that both the original website and this new addition shall remain unchanged until long after my death.

I’d consider it an honor to receive a link from the Wikipedia.

Sincerely,

John McCall Mccall63@aol.com

152.163.100.74 15:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abridged Unabridged

Why no discussion of abridged vs. unabridged dictionaries? How many words do most modern [abridged] dictionaries have? How many words does the Merriam Webster Unabridged dictionary have? (476,000--from www.m-w.com) What determines what goes into an abridged dictionary and what gets put in an unabridged dictionary?

- Adam H. June 19, 2006


[edit] Where is Merriam-Webster?

How come the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Eleventh Edition dictionary isn't listed? That seems to be the most recent and popular dictionary nowadays, even though I have the Oxford.

- Adam H. June 19, 2006

[edit] Yawiktionary

I decided (after review of the external link policy to remove this link, until a more seasoned editor has decided to include it, or not.)

I am the creator of yawiktionary (yet another web dictionary) Please check the below link, I dont want it to be considered spam, so I am putting it in the talk pages - as described in the external link policy. The project is a "parents basement" operation, It is non-for-profit. Because I am non-neutral, I will not add the link, but let others decide weither it should be added.

I created this fork because I felt that "over-wikification" is bad for "ordinary" editors. Yawiktionary will always remain excessive wikification free.

The underlying engine, yawiki engine, is 100% Java based, and accepts RWF, (Reduced Wiki Format). The engine is not complete, not thus the wiki appears to be static (which it currently is) However, once the yawiki engine is finished, it will be followed shortly after by the launch of a yawiki rich client.

The yawiki engine is a inspired, and is essentially a derivative work of a current wiki engine.

Here is the link:

[edit] Suggestion

I`m shure that "Farsi Dictionary Free online Persian-English and English-Persian Dictionary" should be moved from Online-only general dictionaries to Multilingual Dictionaries.

Same situation:

  1. Digital Dictionary of South Asia (Hindi)
  2. शब्दकोष (Shabdakosh)
  3. CantoDict a Cantonese Chinese-English dictionary. Also has Mandarin pronunciations for most words.
  4. MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary Contains Mandarin pinyin for words, also has Cantonese Yale/Jyutping for individual characters. Clicking on characters will allow you to hear their pronunciation in Mandarin or Cantonese.


Thanks.

[edit] dictionary.com

Wouldn't dictionary.com be a good link to put under the online dictionaries page? Also thefreedictionary.com is good as well.

Bostonvaulter 23:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)Bostonvaulter

Dictionary.com looks like a parked page to me, why should that be included? LinguistAtLarge 19:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

What is a parked page? I personally often use onelook.com, but all onelook is is a convenient way to search many online dictionaries at once, something like using dogpile as a search engine.--Filll 15:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In reply to the first post of this topic.

In the article, I think that they do not want to include online dictionary website. Perhaps someone could construct such a site? I know plenty of websites other than Dictionary.com and Thefreedictionary.com, such as http://www.m-w.com/.Chimchar monferno (talk) 00:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Do so many external links need to be on this article? I don't see the need for so many, and WP:NOT says that Wikipedia is not a repository of external links. I think the whole section should be removed, but if it can be majorly trimmed down, it would be much better than it is now. J Ditalk 12:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. I trimmed it to the major ones once in April and a few month earlier anonymously, and it all just comes back. I think the languages other than English, at least, should go, since they tend to duplicate what is in the whatever_language article. Tono-bungay 09:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links section

First, I agree whole-heartedly that we don't need a huge (spammy) external links section.

I just got done removing spammy keywords from the link text and re-orginising the list in alphabetical order. I think it looks a lot more orderly like that.

I'd examine adding a couple of good exemplary dictionaries to the list and maybe removing a couple that are currently in the list.

Currently the list looks like this:


  • AllWords Full featured online dictionary.
  • AskOxford The Compact Oxford English Dictionary.
  • bab.la - Multilingual Dictionary —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.244.116.209 (talk) 11:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Babylon Machine Translator.
  • Bartleby American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language Fourth Edition.
  • Cambridge Cambridge Dictionaries Online
  • Dict.cc Online bilingual dictionary.
  • Foyz A dictionary and thesaurus.
  • Leo Online bilingual dictionaries.
  • Merriam-Webster The Merriam-Webster dictionary.
  • Oxford Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
  • Scrabulous Scrabble dictionary and word lists.
  • Super55 Multilingual Dictionary Project —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.9.39.35 (talk) 06:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • [2] Some 60+ languages. Could replace interglot for example with ease.

To remove: (maybe) Foyz, Dict.cc & maybe Babylon (the focus is different)

Possible candidates for inclusion: http://wordreference.com http://tomisimo.org http://diccionarios.com These 3 along with Leo have been a pillar in my attempts at foreign language learning. (Glad to see Leo's still in the list)

This is just my opinion, what do you all think? LinguistAtLarge 19:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the removal list. I would reluctantly remove Leo even though it's great, because if we open the door to bilingual dictionaries we will get an endless list. If we are to have a list of major multilingual dictionaries, I would have yourdictionaries.com (English version of diccionarios.com), wordreference, majstro, lookwayup, logos.it, and EuroDicAutom. Tono-bungay 02:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scrabble Dictionary link removed

I am undecided if this is a good or a bad thing. What do you think?--Filll 19:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. I hadn't looked at it earlier. Tono-bungay 10:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
It came right back, this time in the body. Anonymous user from India, please make a case here why that Scrabble Dictionary link (also from India) is important. Tono-bungay 15:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that anyone who wants to put in information about scrabble dictionaries should do it on scrabble-related pages, if it is not there already. When I look at the list of dictionaries, it is already getting pretty long.--Filll 15:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dictionaries for mobile devices

I was wondering if you would consider adding a link(maybe a section) for dictionaries for mobile devices. Here is the link : Dictionaries for mobiles

[edit] Dictionary Through A Lens image

In the "Prescription and Description" subsection, there is this image. As nice as it is, I don't think it fits in that section, or anywhere really. It doesn't clarify anything as far as I can tell. I am hesitant to remove it myself, as it does make the article look nicer. Any thoughts? --Goyston 02:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I say keep it, unless the article gets so many images it becomes hard to read. Then remove it.--Filll 05:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of online dictionaries

I have moved external links to point to the already created List of online dictionaries article. This will decrease the amount of links popping up in this article Vlllkkkez 01:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this decreases links. The new links page is resurrecting a page that had been deleted because it was mostly link spam without content. I'm not thrilled about seeing it come back, away from the watchful eyes of the lexicographers who monitor this article. Tono-bungay 05:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I shall invite here the admin who undeleted it. --Quiddity 06:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I was asked why I undeleted it? Answering: it is useful and it was repeated many times ad nauseam: lists do not replace categories and vice versa. By the way, I deleted "major multilingual" as Original research: who says they are major? Must be wikipedia article. `'mikka 06:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
..And the wikipedia articles all have their relevant external links. Merge tags duly added. --Quiddity 07:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll do it. Wissahickon 05:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I did it. Wissahickon 05:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BT, NT, RT

I wish this entry explained Broad Term (BT), Near Term (NT), Related Term (RT), and so on. Thanks to anyone who can add it. --Bruce.norman.smith 02:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Onelook

I found out we have a WP article for this, so it might be better as a "see also" link rather than an external link. I do wonder about the tremendous number of links. Shouldn't a separate article for organizing some of these be created?--Filll 22:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] word source

Can you add word.sc to the list of online dictionaries? It does for online dicts what google did for search engines. Very clean and simple layout, fast to load.

[edit] History section needs organizing.

The history section seems to be a bit disorienting, as it jumps between different kinds of dictionaries --KelvinHOWiknerd(talk) 09:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trademarks

Something should be mentioned about trademark terms in dictionaries, and the fact that some companies have sued or threatened to sue dictionary publishers over various definitions, like McJobs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.142.217 (talk) 03:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Description vs. Prescription

The following quote is included under Dictionary:

“In the long run, however, usage primarily determines the meanings of words in English, and the language is being changed and created every day. As Jorge Luis Borges says in the prologue to ‘El otro, el mismo’: ‘It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature.’”

There are many ideologues and academics who have become sorcerers of the “magic” of word meaning. This does not include the “legalease” found in legal documents that confound the average reader (but are actually intended to control the meaning precisely). Nor does it include government (especially military) descriptions that substitute common, easily understandable and descriptive words with less common words with vague meanings that are none-the-less accurate and consistent with widely accepted definitions. The sorcerers I mention are those who are engaged in combing through the popular usage of words and selectively pruning that set in a way that establishes definitions that are friendly to a particular ideology or political philosophy. This pruning of word usage may be a conscious effort or not, but it alters the meanings of words and probably controls social thought processes and is probably more sinister. Words and their meanings are the tools we use to communicate with others and the tools we use to reason. A popular quote says, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.” The sorcerers have identified that there is not just a choice between hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches, but that the tool’s shape can be modified slightly over time. As a result, even “Descriptive” dictionaries are deceptively “Prescriptive” in a progressive rather than conservative way. See the Wikipedia entry on [1]. (I should probably post this comment there as well.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.95.106.94 (talk) 22:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reverse dictionary

Anyone interested in adding an article on this? Samantha of Cardyke (talk) 19:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)