the miscast Net

[Thomas M. Paikeday]

I guess "static" and "dynamic" are relative in regard to time and space (or
distribution). Pace habitual users of Google, NexisLexis, ProQuest, etc., I
find them unsatisfactory for answering a question like mine without
ambiguity. When I Google "net", for example, the first 100 hits (out of
229,000,000) are for the "network" sense. But is that the whole truth (how
were the articles selected and on what criteria?) and how do you
disambiguate the whole lot? Who has the time and patience? Googling is like
going into a supermarket for a quart of milk when the corner store is faster
and more efficient.

For my User's® Webster 2000, I used a private database drawn from many
hundred books and journals published in the U.S. and Canada in 1989-1990. It
was more representative and better organized than an ocean of billions of
words (I mean Google), but when I check its Computer section for "net," I
see how the vocabulary has changed in 15 years. Nexis as of yesterday is not
representative of the language as of today. Databases, by their very nature,
are static, not dynamic.

However, as you say, we have to look at the good and useful aspects of
databases. Agreed.

TOM PAIKEDAY
www.paikeday.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Shapiro" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: the miscast Net


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: the miscast Net
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Thomas M. Paikeday wrote:
>
> > My earlier query about "the Net" was misdirected. Databases can't answer
> > my question because their evidence is like that of a museum, not quite
> > dead, but static, not dynamic, as the fast-changing English language is,
> > especially in regard to usage.
>
> Why are databases such as LexisNexis, ProQuest, or Google Groups static?
> They have their limitations, but staticness is not one of them.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
> Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
>   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
> Yale Law School                             forthcoming
> e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------