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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Defining "Defining Experiences"

And the title is....

The title of a book or movie or -- as here -- a blog, should grab your attention, and then make a stab at answering the question: "What's it about?" I've tried to do both, also sneaking in a little word play.

The first aim worked, apparently, since you are here (unless you are here only as a dutiful daughter or a faithful friend).

As for the "about" question: Playing with words is part of what it's about, but even more, it is about working with words. I'm referring to the work that determines whether certain words should be admitted into dictionaries and, if they are let in, how much they should be pampered, or pretty much left to fend for themselves. That's the main reason the title refers to "defining" -- this blog will deal with defining, as in creating dictionaries, but also many other experiences that involve "doing definition."

So, the word play is...

"Defining Experiences" as a title can be understood several ways, and that's the fun of it.

"Defining" could be read as an adjective -- describing certain experiences as having lasting significance. That is probably the way you first perceived this "collocation" (i.e., two or more words typically used together, like "defining experiences" or "defining moments") That's not how I mainly mean it here, but I might give that sense of it a post, eventually.

Or, "defining" could be a noun -- the act or experience of defining -- which is the main way I intend the expression here.

And a third possibility: "defining" could be a verb, referring to applying the act, in this case, to the word, "experiences". At some time I might do a post on definitions of the word "experiences," but that's not for now.

Working with words is intriguing because...

I liked that title precisely because it self-exemplifies a fundamental feature of words and phrases that is not well-recognized for its sociological significance: Most words, alone and in phrases, have multiple meanings -- multitudes, in fact, if we consider fine shadings that apply in each individual conversation or document where words and phrases are performing their service.

Given that reality, a major goal of the considerable work put into dictionaries (more precisely, a goal of the professionals who write most dictionaries) is a valiant effort but is, in a deep sense, impossible to achieve. Dictionary-writers attempt in vain to encompass and pin down some limited number of definitions (a separate matter from deciding whether to include words to be defined). And dictionary-users in turn seek what is essentially unreachable -- general definitions that precisely apply to the unique situations where they encountered particular words, or plan to use them.

From that last paragraph -- which implies that dictionaries are cultural products that engage a broad range of users and producers -- lots of questions about language and society spring up. This blog aims to inform and entertain partly by clarifying and dealing with those questions.

(Did I mention that I am a sociologist and that's the perspective that will suffuse this blog?)

News reports about dictionaries and defining???

Yes, the media do pay attention -- rarely -- to these kinds of questions. So along the way, I'll throw in news and op-ed items involving dictionaries and "social defining."

There's more to explain, but...

This is enough, I hope, as a start to convey the thrust of this blog. Let me know if it's not clear -- or if you disagree (or agree) with the little bit of information I've shared so far.

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