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Katie Brooks writes: > I am working on the basis of dictionary > definitions here (OED online) but I am intrigued to know from where > else we are to take our definitions, and how else we are to arrive at > them if we don't trace "the historic meanings and senses of words > through analysis of historic quotations." Do we make them up to suit > ourselves at the time? If each of us does that, then how can other > people be sure what we are talking about? Dictionary entries are secondary (at best) to everyday language use. We know most of the word meanings we know not because we've memorised dictionary entries but because we're experienced users of those words. We learn language by doing; looking up words in dictionaries forms a tiny part of that doing. Dictionary 'definitions' are not really definitions at all. They can't be. Most users of most words have never looked up most of the words they use. The dictionary entries for those words they have looked up generally have only a very small effect on their uses of those words. Never compare the 'definitions' of any decent selection of words in a range of contemporary desktop dictionaries if you don't want to lose your respect for dictionary 'definitinons'. The preparing of most dictionaries - and here I mean the ones most people actually do use (as opposed to the OEDs of this world) - is done _not_ by painstaking research in linguistic corpora but by compilation. The compilers work from the definitions in other dictionaries to compose their own. Chris -- Chris Stokes ********************************************************************** 1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message: set psci-com nomail 2. To resume email from the list, send the following message: set psci-com mail 3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message: leave psci-com 4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive, can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html 5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and science and society can be found at http://psci-com.org.uk **********************************************************************