What's the Matter of Dictionaries?

Yes, I mean "the Matter of...," not "the Matter with..."

Setting aside momentarily the rich play on words offered by "matter" (18 senses of the word appear in one dictionary I consulted), today's theme picks up the thread from July 24's post [Use link in the left margin].

There I highlighted a matter of change which is also a change of matter (i.e., material) -- the surging shift of dictionaries from book to electronic form.

For some people, it is also a change that matters negatively; they bemoan loss of the tactile way they interacted with dictionaries.

Quite the opposite for others. To them, the less solid the material composition, the more solid the advantages they see for using dictionaries -- more flexibility, timelier definitions, more words and information about them, speedier definition-searches -- to name a few.

Which camp are you in?

Reconsidering: Does Art indeed have the last word?

Mainly, this post picks up where July 24th left off, peering deeper into the provocative perspective on the change of matter that artist Brian Dettmer's "book sculpting" reveals.

Yes, the image above (presented courtesy of the artist. Thanks, Brian), titled "Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd Ed." is a tantalizing example of his large and growing output.

(Visit www.briandettmer.com for more images and some galleries where you can see the real thing, if you are geographically lucky; online just doesn't cut it for fully experiencing such intricately crafted artwork.)

Previously I wrote "Art has the last word," referring to Dettmer’s sculptures as vivid visual messages that "use" language and books, but not in any conventional linear sense.

Since then I've read commentary by Brian, using language conventionally to explain his intended meanings in creating his sculptures. The explanations enrich my experience of the art -- so, does language really have the "last word"? The field of semiotics is the study of meaning, in which language is just a part: body language, clothing style, tone of voice, other symbols -- all convey meaning. But language is “privileged” -- ultimately we can share our comprehension of the non-verbal, whether art or personal presentation, only through language.

Language – Images – Information –Raw materials: A Media Mash-up?

Closing thoughts to ponder, from Dettmer’s May 2008 interview in Lodown Magazine (www.lodownmagazine.com)

“Images can work as words or phrases and language can work as an image or picture.”

And:

“Information is the natural material of our time and the analog shells can be explored like stone, or approached like their original wooden origin. There is a sensual, physical, tactile quality in old books that is becoming lost. When I approach the book as a raw material I am trying to rediscover and re-expose these qualities, highlight the natural qualities of the material.”

Maybe that’s the heart of the matter.

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Beware Wrong Contexts!

A Bonus Laugh

My “Words Count…” posting of July 8 was funnier than I anticipated, as a sharp follower of this blog alerted me offline.

Oops! Wrong context!

It seems that the acronyms I used, i.e., MWM -- referring to “Million Word March,” and GLM – referring to “Global Language Monitor” -- have totally different import when they show up in the “Personals.” In that context, when someone seeking or offering to meet up refers to MWM, it means “Married White Male”, and when he refers to GLM, it’s “Gay Latin Male.”

Oops!

On the other hand, if I had planned it, I couldn’t have found a better way to highlight a central point about definitions – not just of acronyms, but of ordinary words too: How well a definition works always depends on context.

Hilarious or Disastrous?

Usually, we share enough about the contexts in which we use words that we don’t need to make the context explicit. But sometimes that assumption is wrong. The result can be hilarious, or disastrous.

Dictionaries can never pin down all the contexts that apply for every definition, but they do often try, especially dictionaries aimed at new learners of a second (or more) language – those are users most likely to miss, or misread, subtle contextual cues.

MWM and GLM in Dictionaries

For the fun of it, I looked up these sneaky identity-shifting acronyms in some of the many online dictionaries handling abbreviations.

In www.abbreviations.com, I found “Married White Male” as the 3^rd most popular definition out of 12 listed for MWM, assigned to the category (i.e., the context) of “Community>Law.” My usage (“Million Word March”) doesn’t even appear there. Most popular by far is “Motif Window Manager”, found in the category “Computing>Software.”

Just the opposite applies to GLM: The definition “Gay Latin Male” doesn’t even appear among the 14 definitions there. But you or anyone can enter it, since the site invites definitions. (That variant of what I’ll jokingly call the “happy Hispanic hombre” definition does show up in some other dictionaries.) “Global Language Monitor” appears in www.abbreviations.com as the 2^nd most popular usage for those initials, in the category “Computing>software.” The most popular definition for GLM comes from Business, specifically stock exchange symbols, and refers to “Global Marine Inc.”

What is a “Word” Anyway?

In closing, it’s intriguing that this discussion relates also to my last posting (July 24) because it shows yet another way that OED and other dictionaries may violate themselves. They define dictionaries as defining “words.” So what about dictionaries of acronyms? Are acronyms “words”?

Once again, what dictionaries are doesn’t seem like such a straightforward matter.

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