[Lexicog] Time is money?

Tue Aug 7 02:18:57 UTC 2007

Dear Ron,

I think yours are very clever suggestions. However one should measure
what audience serves your dictionary. For us lexicographers the ideal goal is
to describe the word in all possible senses and usages. However many people 
who use the dictionaries react on them the following way: it is too complicated for me, I would like something simpler. So the lexicographer works always between extremes. To achieve  perfectness  or  to simplify. Now  it is possible  to do  this  like on websites.  The standard  entry in  the body of the dictionary with additional links to etymology, semantics, phraseology and examples.

Best wishes,

Hayim Y. Sheynin 

Ron Moe <ron_moe at sil.org> wrote:                                     
Because conceptual metaphors underlie many idioms and secondary  ("metaphorical") senses, I believe we need to identify the conceptual metaphors  that exist in a language and refer to them in our dictionary entries. It might  be possible, for instance, to include an appendix that lists the conceptual  metaphors and gives a list of examples under each:

 Appendix A: Conceptual Metaphors
 1.  Time is a resource that you use.
 waste  time
 save  time
 have  time
 cost  (number) (time word), e.g. cost two hours
 invested time in
 time  to spare
 (run)  out of time

 Then  each relevant dictionary entry could reference the appendix:

 waste  v. To use something without gaining any benefit from it. 'Leaving the lights on  all night wastes electricity.' (Using the metaphor 'Time is a resource that you  use', see Appendix A) 'I don't want to waste your time, so let's get  right down to business.'

 Note that I don't  consider the second example sentence to be a separate sense. The meaning is the  same. It is just applied to time as if time was a resource. We can talk this way  in English because of the conceptual metaphor. Other languages can't. Our  conceptual metaphor enables us to include the abstract concept 'time' in the  list of possible objects of 'waste' which would otherwise be limited to concrete  resources. Consequently I don't consider 'waste time' to be an idiom, but others  might disagree with me on this point.

 Ron  Moe

---------------------------------
   From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com    [mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Fritz    Goerling
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 7:11 AM
To:    lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] Time is    money?

   A while ago we had a discussion on the    most common nouns in the English language.
   “Time” was on top. I    think that is revealing. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson considered in    “Metaphors we live by” (2003)
   the metaphorical    concept TIME IS MONEY as is reflected in contemporary English, analyzing the    following examples:

   You are WASTING my    time.
   The gadget will SAVE    you hours.
   I don’t HAVE the    time to GIVE you.
   How do you SPEND    your time these days?
   That flat tire COST    me an hour.
   I’ve INVESTED a lot    of time in her.
   I don’t HAVE     ENOUGH time to SPARE for that.
   You’re RUNNING OUT    of time.

   To lose, use, put    aside, budget time are other expressions.
   All of them show    TIME AS MONEY, TIME AS A LIMITED RESOURCE, and TIME AS A VALUABLE    COMMODITY.

   The authors are    right by saying that these conceptualizations are tied to certain Western    cultures, and that there are cultures where time is none of these things or is    defined differently.

   You might know the    joke about the Mexican and the Arab. The Mexican says to the Arab, “I hear you    have a word for tomorrow that’s similar to our word mañana.”
   “Yes,” replies the    Arab. “Bukara. But it doesn’t    have the same sense of urgency.”

   Well, what about    strongly time-oriented nationalities like Americans, northern Europeans    (Germans, Swedes)? All who have travelled know about cultural clashes in the    area of different concepts of punctuality and time.

   What then are the    implications for dictionary-making, say in a bilingual dictionary    ‘English-language X//language X-English’?
   How are different    concepts of time handled vice versa? In an    ‘English-German//German-English’ dictionary it might be relatively easy    to find equivalent or similar expressions. But how about a bililingual    dictionary ‘English-language X which was just reduced to writing’ and vice    versa? 

   Fritz    Goerling

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