Sheidlower in NY Times

[Fred Shapiro]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2000, Laurence Horn wrote:

> describing--DISAMBIGUATE as a verb "mostly used in computational
> lexicography".  Is it really that restricted?  Generative, and
> probably pre-generative, linguists have been disambiguating lexical
> items and syntactic structures under that name since at least the
> early 1960's, judging by the OED cite from _Language_ and my own
> recollections within the field, and I'd like to think computational
> lexicographers still make up a minority of its wielders.

If anyone is interested in the term's history, the OED indicates that
_disambiguation_ was coined by Jeremy Bentham or his smarter brother,
George (alright, nephew).  The OED's earliest citation is dated 1963, from
the journal _Language_.  Here's an earlier one I have found:

1960 Jerry A. Fodor in _Journal of Philosophy_ 57: 503  One disambiguates
an utterance by adding to the context of the utterance.

Personally, "disambiguate" is my second favorite word -- I just like the
sound of it.  (My first favorite is "antepenultimate").

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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