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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.'' 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: ''Dord''. This w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. History Although dictionaries are often expected to be flawless, most lexicographers and people who frequently use dictionaries are keenly aware that all dictionaries contain errors. The preparation of dictionaries requires immense time, expertise and concentration, and there are never sufficient human and financial resources available to ensure complete accuracy. In the words of Johnson himself, "Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true." Examples An early English-language example was the definition of ''pastern'' as "the knee of a horse" in 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Webster's Dictionary
''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the US English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), a US lexicographer, as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in his honor. "''Webster's''" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for US 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, ''A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language'', appeared in 1806. In it, he popularized features which would become a hallmark of American English spelling (''center'' rather than ''centre'', ''honor'' rat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly study of semantic, orthography, orthographic, syntagma (linguistics), syntagmatic and paradigmatic features of lexemes of the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for information by users in specific types of situations, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and Electronic dictionary, electronic dictionaries. This is sometimes referred to as "metalexicography". There is some disagreement on the definition of lexicology, as distinct from lexicography. Some use "lexicology" as a synonym for theoretical lexicography; others use it to mean a branch of linguistics pertaining to the inventor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictitious Entries
Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, and directories, added by the editors as copyright traps to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and . Terminology The neologism ''Mountweazel'' was coined by ''The New Yorker'' writer Henry Alford in an article that mentioned a fictitious biographical entry intentionally placed as a copyright trap in the 1975 '' New Columbia Encyclopedia''.Henry Alford"Not a Word" ''The New Yorker'' August 29, 2005 (accessed August 29, 2013). The entry described Lillian Virginia Mountweazel as a fountain designer turned photographer, who died in an explosion while on assignment for ''Combustibles'' magazine. Allegedly, she was widely known for her photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trap Street
In cartography, a trap street is a fictitious entry in the form of a misrepresented street on a map, often outside the area the map nominally covers, for the purpose of "trapping" potential plagiarists of the map who, if caught, would be unable to explain the inclusion of the "trap street" on their map as innocent. On maps that are not of streets, other "trap" features (such as nonexistent towns, or mountains with the wrong elevations) may be inserted or altered for the same purpose. Trap streets are often nonexistent streets, but sometimes, rather than actually depicting a street where none exists, a map will misrepresent the nature of a street in a fashion that can still be used to detect copyright violators but is less likely to interfere with navigation. For instance, a map might add nonexistent bends to a street, or depict a major street as a narrow lane, without changing its location or its connections to other streets, or the trap street might be placed in an obscure loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phono-semantic Matching
Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with phonetically and semantically similar words or roots from the adopting language. Thus the approximate sound and meaning of the original expression in the source language are preserved, though the new expression (the PSM – the phono-semantic match) in the target language may sound native. Phono-semantic matching is distinct from calquing, which includes (semantic) translation but does not include phonetic matching (i.e., retention of the approximate sound of the borrowed word through matching it with a similar-sounding pre-existent word or morpheme in the target language). Phono-semantic matching is also distinct from homophonic translation, which retains the sound of a word but not the meaning. History The term "phono-semantic matching" was introduced by linguist and revivalist Gh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mondegreen
A mondegreen () is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. "A misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing, esp. of the lyrics to a song". Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense. The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, recalling a childhood memory of her mother reading the Scottish ballad " The Bonnie Earl o' Moray", and mishearing the words "laid him on the green" as "Lady Mondegreen". "Mondegreen" was included in the 2000 edition of the ''Random House Webster's College Dictionary'', and in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 2002. Merriam-Webster's ''Collegiate Dictionary'' added the word in 2008. Etymology In a 1954 essay in ''Harper's Magazine'', Sylvia Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frindle
''Frindle'' is a middle-grade American children’s novel written by Andrew Clements, illustrated by Brian Selznick, and published by Aladdin Paperbacks in 1996. It was the winner of the 2016 Phoenix Award, which is granted by the Children's Literature Association annually to recognize one English-language children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major literary award at the time of publication. ''Frindle'' was Clements’s first novel; all of his previous works had been picture books. According to Clements, the book originated from the thought, “What would happen if a kid started using a new word, and other kids really liked it, but his teacher didn’t?” Plot Nicholas "Nick" Allen is a class clown who has been formulating creative schemes throughout grade school. At the start of fifth grade in 1987, he is unhappy because his English teacher is the no-nonsense Mrs. Granger. One day, in an attempt to forestall, Nick decides to question Mrs. Grange ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictitious Entry
Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as Dictionary, dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, and directories, added by the editors as #Copyright traps, copyright traps to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and . Terminology The neologism ''Mountweazel'' was coined by ''The New Yorker'' writer Henry Alford in an article that mentioned a fictitious biographical entry intentionally placed as a copyright trap in the 1975 ''New Columbia Encyclopedia''.Henry Alford"Not a Word" ''The New Yorker'' August 29, 2005 (accessed August 29, 2013). The entry described Lillian Virginia Mountweazel as a fountain designer turned photographer, who died in an explosion while on assignment for ''Combustibles'' magazine. Allegedly, she was widely known for her photo-essays of unusual subject matter, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esquivalience
The ''New Oxford American Dictionary'' (''NOAD'') is a single-volume dictionary of American English compiled by American editors at the Oxford University Press. ''NOAD'' is based upon the '' New Oxford Dictionary of English'' (''NODE''), published in the United Kingdom in 1998, although with substantial editing, additional entries, and the inclusion of illustrations. It is based on a corpus linguistics analysis of Oxford's 200 million word database of contemporary American English. ''NOAD'' includes a diacritical respelling scheme to convey pronunciations, as opposed to the Gimson phonemic IPA system that is used in ''NODE''. Editions First edition Published in September 2001, the first edition was edited by Elizabeth J. Jewell and Frank Abate. Second edition Published in May 2005, the second edition was edited by Erin McKean. The edition added nearly 3,000 new words, senses, and phrases. It was in a large format, with 2096 pages, and was 8½" by 11" in size. It included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boole's Rule
In mathematics, Boole's rule, named after George Boole, is a method of numerical integration. Formula Simple Boole's Rule It approximates an integral: \int_^ f(x)\,dx by using the values of at five equally spaced points: \begin & x_0 = a\\ & x_1 = x_0 + h \\ & x_2 = x_0 + 2h \\ & x_3 = x_0 + 3h \\ & x_4 = x_0 + 4h = b \end It is expressed thus in Abramowitz and Stegun: \int_^ f(x)\,dx = \frac\bigl 7f(x_0) + 32 f(x_1) + 12 f(x_2) + 32 f(x_3) + 7f(x_4) \bigr+ \text where the error term is -\,\frac for some number between and where . It is often known as Bode's rule, due to a typographical error that propagated from Abramowitz and Stegun. The following constitutes a very simple implementation of the method in Common Lisp which ignores the error term: Composite Boole's Rule In cases where the integration is permitted to extend over equidistant sections of the interval , b/math>, the composite Boole's rule might be applied. Given N divisions, where N mod 4 = 0, the i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
