[Corpora-List] What is corpora and what is not?

[Ken Litkowski]

Despite calling myself a computational lexicologist (and being rather 
old), I ain't never yet communicated precisely and/or concisely.

     Ken

On 10/8/2012 10:28 PM, Laurence Anthony wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Angus Grieve-Smith <grvsmth at panix.com> wrote:
>
>>      Well, people communicate or they don't.  Or they sort of communicate.
>> Any of these can happen with or without mutually accepted meanings.  That's
>> what I see in my data.  What does your data tell you?
> We can never have completely perfect mutually accepted meanings. So,
> there is always an element of miscommunication. Scientists strive to
> reduce the amount of miscommunication by being very careful with the
> terms that they use.
>
>>>>       You can decide whether or not to bury someone without any kind of
>>>> definition.  You don't need the words "alive" and "dead" at all. You just
>>>> need a clear set of criteria.  But no matter how clear you make the
>>>> criteria
>>>> there will always be hard-to-decide borderline cases where people just
>>>> need
>>>> to use their best judgment.
>>> Very true. But, isn't a "clear set of criteria" a synonym for definition?
>>
>>      Only if it's attached to a term.  I'm saying that it doesn't have to be
>> attached to any particular term.
> Very true. But, isn't it convenient to attach a *complex* set of
> criteria to a particular term? I think doctors would prefer to write
> in their reports, " The patient is dead" rather than have to list up a
> very long list of properties that describe the state of the person
> that is no longer with us.
>
> Agreed definitions (mutually accepted meanings of terms) allow us to
> communicate precisely and also concisely.
>
> Laurence.
>
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-- 
Ken Litkowski                     TEL.: 301-482-0237
CL Research                       EMAIL: ken at clres.com
9208 Gue Road                     Home Page: http://www.clres.com
Damascus, MD 20872-1025 USA       Blog: http://www.clres.com/blog


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