Crowdsourcing & OED

Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic. Sources: Wikimedia; Getty.

The origins and uses of words have been of interest to us since early on, because the terminology around conservation is relatively young; also because words are essential to the cause. Stephanie Hayes, writing this review in the Atlantic, reminds us to keep paying attention to how we know what we know about words:

Who Made the Oxford English Dictionary?

A new book gives life to one of the world’s greatest crowdsourcing efforts.

The Oxford English Dictionary always seemed to me like the Rules from on high—near biblical, laid down long ago by a distant academic elite. But back in 1857, when the idea of the dictionary was born, its three founders proposed something more democratic than authoritative: a reference book that didn’t prescribe but instead described English, tracking the meaning of every word in the language across time and laying out how people were actually using each one. Continue reading

Organic Is A Word Well Suited To Curiosity

From the Oxford English Dictionary, skipping past the obsolete and rare definitions of the word organic, and picking the ones we find most interesting for our purposes, all of which predate by decades, and even centuries, one of the latest uses of the word organic in the categorization of a method of agriculture:

Belonging to the constitution of an organized whole; structural.

Of or relating to an organized structure compared to a living being.

Of, relating to, or characterized by connection or coordination of parts into a single, harmonious whole; organized; systematic.

Designating a work of art in which the parts seem naturally or necessarily coordinated into the whole; (Archit.) (in the writings of Frank Lloyd Wright) designating a style which attempts to make a unity of a building and its setting and environment; (also, more generally) designating any of various styles in which the character of buildings is more or less reminiscent of a living organism.

Characterized by continuous or natural development; (Business) designating expansion generated by a company’s own resources, as opposed to that resulting from the acquisition of other companies.

We care about these definitions because the word organic comes into our conversations constantly. We have avoided overuse in these pages of this and other words that we care about. But recently this word stands out, worthy of more of our attention. We will use it more, but carefully. A balance is required.

 

Wordsmithing: Tribal

Western travelers to Kerala at first can be startled by the frequent use of this word, which has been replaced by the word indigenous in other parts of the world, but whose noun form has special mention in OED:

A member of a tribal community (usu. in pl.). Chiefly Indian English.

1958    New India: Progress through Democracy iii. vi. 378   Illiteracy is almost universal among tribal peoples.‥ Tribals are being trained as teachers.

1964    Economist 18 Apr. 261/1   More are arriving daily, among them Christian and Buddhist tribals.

1979    South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) 28 Dec. 3/1   Teams of mountain tribals are to join the search for three Singapore Air Force Skyhawks which disappeared over the northern Philippines eight days ago.

The word has no “tone” to it, at least not perceptible to foreigners living in Kerala.  Continue reading

Wordsmithing: Altruistic

We have made references to this word and its relatives on several occasions but as yet failed to formalize it.  According to the OED it is defined as:

1. Unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others.

And, a bit of a surprise:

2.Animal Behavior. Of or pertaining to behavior by an animal that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind, often its close relatives.

Continue reading

Wordsmithing: Spa

When it is capitalized, this word refers to the mineral springs in Liège, Belgium, believed to have curative properties.  In the last several centuries the meaning of the word has been generalized to refer to almost any place that has curative mineral waters, according to OED, so that “a town, locality, or resort possessing a mineral spring or springs; a watering-place of this kind” is fairly known as a spa.

The generalization has expanded further in recent decades through commercialization, and as always OED’s tracking of the etymology is intriguing:

A commercial establishment which offers health and beauty treatment (esp. for women) through steam baths, exercise equipment, massage, and the like. U.S.

1960    Life 8 Feb. 111/1   The submerged specter above‥is getting a hydraulic underwater massage at a plush health spa near San Diego called the Golden Gate beauty resort whose customers are usually female.
1976    Vogue Dec. 214/1   Most American spas are designed exclusively for women.
1981    W. Safire in N.Y. Times Mag. 21 June 10/2   Only fuddy-duddies go to the gym,‥the upscale‥crowd goes to the spa.

Wordsmithing: Dictionary Attack!

Another December 2010 addition to the OED brings to mind a phrase in our lexicon describing large books as “heavy enough to stun an ox”.

dictionary attack n.

While it is perhaps a matter for regret that the quotation paragraph for this term does not catalogue incidents of physical harm meted out by wielders of dictionaries—the 20 volumes of OED2, in particular, could cause someone considerable damage—it does provide an insight into one aspect of a very 21st-century preoccupation, the security of the information held on computer systems. Here the “dictionary” in question is nothing more than a word list held electronically, and although the attack for which it is used is unlikely to cause physical harm, the virtual damage might be very high indeed: if a dictionary attack is successful and an automated program correctly matches a password, the files on a computer network or system are at the mercy of the initiator of the attack.

Hold on to your words!