Near the title page you (the author or printer) note the Dictionary name and revision to which book is keyed and a color chart to indicate the number of the dictionary definition preferred by the author.
Black type means the reader is on his own. Dark black means 1. dark green 2 Dark blue 3 and so on. Very little difference from ordinary black, so it is easy to read. So the color in which each word is printed shows the authors intent for that word.
Some legal documents end up in the courts simply over which meaning was meant. This might help. This might screw things up completely.
It would eliminate some footnotes. And cause pages of explanation to be added.
It would make some things more expensive to print due to the color.
If jesus, etc. had written the bible in this way, there would be a lot less argument about it. The arguments would be mostly about the dictionary.-- popbottle, Nov 06 2014 Additional options... _27TIS_20A_20read [normzone, Nov 06 2014] Death of the Author http://en.wikipedia...Death_of_the_Author [calum, Nov 07 2014] //If jesus, etc. had written the bible in this way, there would be a lot less argument about it. //
I think the problem is that those multicolour ball- point pens that look like little rockets weren't invented until the 3rd century AD, or possibly even later than that.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 06 2014 I guess dictionaries were invented in the 1600's. So that lets the bible authors off the hook, unless they took a really long nap. Sam Johnson a prime mover.-- popbottle, Nov 06 2014 I'm trying to write a book in 2014, and it's so hard to resist making things html links. Footnotes are so 20th century & cumbersome by comparison. But, in the (dying) print mode, I guess we need something better, and I kind of like your idea.
However, you'd still need a copy of those dictionaries handy (since, if they were really relied upon & not present, it'd defeat the purpose, or make things worse because authors would be more ambiguous thinking they had support.) If you don't want to sell so many copies of dictionaries with it, you'd make a condensed version that only contained the referenced words. But, then, you'd essentially just be recreating what we call a "glossary" afterall.-- sophocles, Nov 06 2014 You would sell a lot of dictionaries. Publishing several standard dictionaries both in print and on the Internet, might help. A general, a legal, and a technical dictionary ought to be enough to start.
Some means to guarantee the internet version is the same revision and substance as the printed version. I wonder if Websters or Oxford would let you put their words online. How would they get paid?-- popbottle, Nov 07 2014 The chances of a document ending up in court because of an ambiguity in relation to the meaning of a single word is very low. This is because it is easier for lawyers to analyse each word for potential alternative meanings than it is for a lawyer to identify, say, provisions in one part of an agreement which might conflict - and therefore cause confusion - with provisions in another part of a document (or - yikes - suite of documents).-- calum, Nov 07 2014 Jesus didn't write the red-letter edition?-- RayfordSteele, Nov 07 2014 Jesus wrote down nothing. Not a BIT. He is directly quoted about a page and a half. The rest is what people remembered happened 30 years after. And that is a second hand copy because the Q document got lost. No current account like in the daily newspaper exists. No "Jesus here tonight in the arena. Get your tickets now".
I Guess they got careless because they were all going to live forever.
(You mead "ode to a mouse and a bronze age draw plane", when he wus with the carpenters. )-- popbottle, Nov 07 2014 //Jesus wrote down nothing. Not a BIT.// But I believe some lewd anonymous poetry of the period is attributed to him.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 07 2014 random, halfbakery