[Lexicog] Circular definitions

[Mike Sangrey]

On Thu, 2004-03-04 at 11:39, Rudolph C Troike wrote:
> This is not about ambiguity, but interesting circularity. One of my
> favorite class exercises is to review the traditional "definition" of a
> Noun as "the name of a person, place, or thing", and then have students
> look up the word "thing" in various dictionaries, and follow each of the
> words used in the definition, such as "entity", which in turn gets defined
> as "thing" (sometimes with several steps in between).

FWIW:  On the Internet there is a famous dictionary called "the Jargon
file" used by the...ummmm...technogencia.  The definition of 'Tail
recursion' simply says 'See tail recursion.'

<chuckle>

--
Mike Sangrey
msangrey at BlueFeltHat.org
Landisburg, Pa.
                        "The first one last wins."
            "A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."




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