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

[Gary Richmond <garyrichmond@rcn.com>]

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