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If you're reading a book or article that was written in 1870 and they use the word "terrific", the word probably had a different meaning than is shown in today's dictionaries.
With TimeTravelDictionary.com, type in a word and a year, and the dictionary will give you its definition as it was used in
that year.
Ideally, the definition itself should use _modern-day_ words (with their 21st-century meanings), but should explain the _old-fashioned_ use of the word. Else you'd get "clept" defined in terms of "girtisole" and "yeatlet", which would be useless. This ultimate ideal would require labor-intensive rewriting of old dictionaries by literary experts, and would be difficult.
A simpler solution is just a series of 30 or 40 dictionaries stored in parallel. You could simply scan in the most modern dictionary from each decade, 1600 through the present, to create the database.
Graphical controls could be added later to let the user scroll through definitions from 1600 through the present. It would be interesting to see when (and why!) new definitions suddenly sprung up, or see the "[Obsolete]" marker disappear from some older words as you scroll back in time.
Thank you.
Alphabet development
http://janpeters.ne.../stuff/alphabet.gif
not really related at all, except at some high and inchoate level. [calum, Dec 22 2005]
On-line etymology
https://www.etymonline.com/
A go-to reference for anyone interested in the history of words. [DrBob, Apr 26 2022]
[link]
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It should include slang where possible as that tends to change more rapidly. Apologies for giving this only one bun, it doesn't feel sufficient. |
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Check up the definition of 'oats' in Dr. Johnson's original dictionary - great for giggles, and the definition is a lot different from the standard meaning. |
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Yep, anything etymologish works for me. |
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A good book that touches on the subject is Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue", which describes how in the 17th century, the newly rebuilt St Paul's cathedral is praised as "awful" and "artificial" |
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was is spelt "aweful", copro? |
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See also Melvyn Bragg's book "The Adventure of English." |
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[po] Sorry, don't have it to hand - recommended read though, to see how English and American English have diverged, and how usage changes.
I don't know that it matters much that the "e" may have disappeared - the root meaning is the same in either case. |
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I thought that this was going to be a new form of grammar for time travelling, but never mind. Anything to do with words gets my vote. |
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I'm surprised nobody has pointed this out before .. but this
has
been very baked for a very long time, probably for as long
as
there have been ordinary dictionaries of the more normal
variety. |
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I remember a set of big old volumes in my college library I
had
a lot of fun dipping into on occasion, each word came with
a
long list of definitions with dates tracing the evolution of
the
words meaning & use through history, I used them to check
if Terry & Neil were telling the truth about the word nice in
Good Omens or had just made it up. |
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Or is the idea just that it would be digitised for easier
searching? |
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Would have thought some of them already
were by 2005? |
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Sometimes I feel as if HB is using advertising-style psychological suggestion, because I'd also started wondering about era-specific wordings in history. Great point about dictionaries, [Skewed], which suggests that it wouldn't be impossible to write an 1850s to 1950s translator. |
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You might have missed this bit:
//definition itself should use _modern-day_ words//
Which differentiates it from just "look at old dictionary".
But yes, a good dictionary will have etymological & historical
info in there too. |
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[Rolls eyes in exasperation] |
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No [neutrino] I didn't miss that bit, I think you've perhaps
never seen a good hardcopy etymological dictionary (as
apposed to 'a dictionary'), they
have everything this idea asks for. |
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Of course they use modern words to explain the old
definitions, as a product meant to explain these things to a
modern reader it wouldn't be fit for purpose if they didn't
would it. |
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[Rolls eyes in exasperation] |
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Can I have a hit on that thing your smoking? its gotta be
some pretty good stuff. |
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[skewed] is right; the Oxford English Dictionary does this
already, and I don't suppose it's the only one. I suppose the
only thing missing is a date of obsolescence, which would
be a slippery thing to define. We might be able to add that
in software by looking at Google n- grams and defining
obsolescence as a percentage decline from peak usage.
But then we might get caught out by some word that had a
brief but ridiculous spike in usage, then subsided to its
normal, modest but not really obsolete level. |
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//good hardcopy etymological dictionary//
Much as I hate to admit it, no, I haven't. The bit that got me
was where you said "big OLD volumes"; thinking you were
looking at dictionaries of various ages.
Might want to see an ophthalmologist about that eye-roll. |
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//Might want to see an ophthalmologist about that eye-
roll// |
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Oh I did, months ago, the exercises she gave me were very
helpful, I can maintain it for a whole four minutes now. |
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Her
advice on not walking at the same time was very helpful
too,
it's been ages since I last walked into a lamppost. |
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//bit that got me was where you said "big OLD volumes"// |
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Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been then. Sorry. |
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