[Ads-l] words connected to a single provenance

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Mark Mandel  wrote:
> > Uncertainty maybe in the Heisenbergian sense, but surely not in the
> > pre-existing sense(s)
> > (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uncertainty)
> >
> > 1 : the quality or state of being uncertain : doubt
> > 2 : something that is uncertain

Laurence Horn wrote:
> True, but not that different from relativity in this respect, or some of the
> other words that have old general senses and new single-provenance
> technical ones.

A list with "relativity" and "uncertainty" should probably include
"incompleteness". Special senses emerged from the work of Albert
Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Kurt Gödel, respectively.

Great thanks to Fred for recalling the title and author: "Authorisms"
by Paul Dickson.

The book description begins with the statement: "William Shakespeare's
written vocabulary consisted of 17,245 words, including hundreds that
were coined or popularized by him." On this list the problem of data
collection bias has been mentioned. As databases have grown the number
of coinages ascribed to Shakespeare has shrunk.

Geoff asked for "words in more-or-less general use that are associated
with a single prominent historical or literary provenance", so this
book should be helpful. The book was published in 2014; hence, the
etymological information may not be completely current.

Garson




> > Mark Mandel, certain of his own name
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 28, 2018, 9:26 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>> On Aug 28, 2018, at 4:53 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> relativity
> >>>
> >>> Stephen
> >>
> >> I’ll call your relativity and raise you (also translated from the German)
> >> uncertainty, via Heisenberg (not the one played by Bryan Cranston)
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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