rugged

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Can't find it, but eager to take issue with it anyway? Isn't it in the archives?

What "Ron's last post" in fact said was that the weather sense of "rugged" appears to be somewhat marginal if compared to "rough" and "nasty" (both of which NOAD1 explicitly connects with weather), given that the use of "rugged" in connection with weather is far less frequent (according to the results of Google searches) and is readily understood from the existing definition. It is thus neither surprising nor egregious that the editors of NOAD1, OED, and other dictionaries of record that Frank may have consulted (but perhaps chose not to report on) opted not to write a weather definition for "rugged." It is not so much that it is "obvious" as that it is marginally redundant. Because dictionaries are limited in space, they must make decisions to leave out some marginal material.

Frank asserts, "The fact is that there is an established thread linking "rugged" and "weather." This is in some sense true, but there are "established links" between lots of words that dictionaries don't bother to point out because it takes more than that to make pointing out worth the space it would take up.  However, it is also true that the number of links appears to be relatively small, and "rugged weather" is both somewhat metaphorical and easy to understand in terms of established definitions that ARE found. His implication that dictionaries that do not include a weather definition for "rugged" are to that extent not "good" stems from a rather naive view of what constitutes "good" dictionary making. Some dictionaries put it in; some leave it out. This is neither "fortunate" nor "unfortunate." it is merely evidence of the marginal lexicographical importance of the "meaning" that has occasioned Frank's judgmental posting.

Sent from my iPad

On Feb 7, 2011, at 4:27 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU> wrote:

> I can't find Ron's last post. But is it stating the obvious that
> comprehensive dictionaries these days are supposed to record and
> explain the obvious? For many centuries Chinese, Arabic, and European
> dictionaries focused on rare words or less common words to provide
> guidance to poets, scholars, and other writers. Today, dictionaries
> record the use of both common and less common words and their uses.
> What's obvious to you or me may not be obvious to another user. That's
> why the OED's entry for the verb "set" records more than 400 senses.
> The fact is that there is an established thread linking "rugged" and
> "weather" in English and it's the job of a good dictionary to point
> this out. Fortunately, most good English dictionaries nowadays do
> point out the existence of this link.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Frank
> Translator
> Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
> Espace de l'Europe 16
> Neuchâtel, Switzerland
> mobile +41 79 957 5318
> paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
> paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org