focalist has adopted no words, looked up 0 words, created 0 lists, listed 0 words, written 12 comments, added 0 tags, and loved 0 words.
Comments for focalist
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Hi focalist, wanted to let you know we tightened up the random word rules considerably this morning.
It might be worth noting that Wordnik follows David Weinberger's injunction to filter on the way out. Which is to say we collect literally all the text we can, warts and all, and then use a variety of methods to try and decide what's worth making available.
Clearly we don't always get it right. But we've gotten much better over time, and have some changes on deck that will further improve our interestingness quotient, I think. Another great Weinberger quote is that "the solution to too much information is more information." The way that manifests on Wordnik is that we have a plethora of fantastic content providers whose text just entered the corpus, or is about to. As we get more and better data, the lower-quality material gets shoved out of sight, algorithmically speaking.
Thanks much for your feedback—hope that helps explain some of the quirks you noticed, and some of the ways we differ from a traditional dictionary. And welcome to Wordnik :-)
April 28, 2010
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Many thanks for the info, prolagus. As it happens, the only words I "look up" are the "Random words" found by clicking on the link at the top of the page. It's a bit depressing, if true, that Wordnik is perfectly willing to set up a new page for every "word" produced by the eternally typing monkey (who's going to come up eventually with not only the complete works of Shakespeare, but also those of Cervantes, Dante, Goethe, and Victor Hugo...)
Wouldn't it make more sense for it to say "We have no record of this word; are you sure would you like us to add it?" At least that might cause some of the poor typists/spellers to pause and reconsider, and could also cut out a great deal of what looks suspiciously like machine-read, automatically input garbage.
April 27, 2010
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Hi,
It might be worth telling you that Wordnik creates pages for every sequence of letters you look up, regardless of their validity as "real words". This means that you will "find" all kind of misspellings (mispelings, mizpellings, mspellings, msplngs...)
April 26, 2010
Comments by focalist
focalist commented on the user Prolagus
Many thanks for the info, prolagus. As it happens, the only words I "look up" are the "Random words" found by clicking on the link at the top of the page. It's a bit depressing, if true, that Wordnik is perfectly willing to set up a new page for every "word" produced by the eternally typing monkey (who's going to come up eventually with not only the complete works of Shakespeare, but also those of Cervantes, Dante, Goethe, and Victor Hugo...)
Wouldn't it make more sense for it to say "We have no record of this word; are you sure would you like us to add it?" At least that might cause some of the poor typists/spellers to pause and reconsider, and could also cut out a great deal of what looks suspiciously like machine-read, automatically input garbage.
April 27, 2010
focalist commented on the user focalist
Many thanks for the info, prolagus. As it happens, the only words I "look up" are the "Random words" found by clicking on the link at the top of the page. It's a bit depressing, if true, that Wordnik is perfectly willing to set up a new page for every "word" produced by the eternally typing monkey (who's going to come up eventually with not only the complete works of Shakespeare, but also those of Cervantes, Dante, Goethe, and Victor Hugo...)
Wouldn't it make more sense for it to say "We have no record of this word; are you sure would you like us to add it?" At least that might cause some of the poor typists/spellers to pause and reconsider, and could also cut out a great deal of what looks suspiciously like machine-read, automatically input garbage.
April 27, 2010
focalist commented on the word expofition
A mistranscription of exposition, mistaking the long s (ſ) for f.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word synapticdepression
A misspelling of synaptic depression.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word fellow’s
Is every English noun followed by 's included in Wordnik? Sounds like profligacy...
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word complimetary
A misspelling of complimentary.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word acrifice
A misspelling of sacrifice.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word theselves
A misspelling of themselves.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word stevens
A misspelling of the proper noun Stevens.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word manditory
A misspelling of mandatory.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word rumsfeld
A misspelling of Rumsfeld.
April 26, 2010
focalist commented on the word trema
Two of the citations illustrate the meaning of "trema" as a diacritical mark; the others are all examples of the Italian word "trema" (= "trembles"); and none of them refers to the botanical meaning which is the only one given here!
April 26, 2010