[Lexicog] Circular definitions

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 4 Mar 2004, Rudolph C Troike wrote:
> Some years ago, thinking that I would find a solidly-anchored definition
> in the word "cow", I looked it up in (I think) the then-current edition of
> the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, and found "the female of any
> species the male of which is called a bull". So I looked up the definition
> of "bull", and -- you guessed it -- found "the male of any species the
> female of which is called a cow".

In a sense, though the presentation is certainly lacking, this is like
saying that 'cow' and 'bull' are paired terms for female and male that are
applied to various (unspecified) species.  Thus there is a dependence, but
not a real circularity.  The problem is really the difficulty of
presenting domain-based information in an alphabetical format.  You could
solve the problem by referring to another entry (or one of the entries)
for a complete story.




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