Now, have any of y'all ever looked up this word? You know, in a dictionary? (Laughter) Yeah, that's what I thought. How about this word? Here, I'll show it to you. Lexicography: the practice of compiling dictionaries. Notice -- we're very specific -- that word "compile." The dictionary is not carved out of a piece of granite, out of a lump of rock. It's made up of lots of little bits. It's little discrete -- that's spelled D-I-S-C-R-E-T-E -- bits. And those bits are words.
Si je kdo izmed vas že kdaj pogledal to besedo? Saj veste, v slovarju? (Smeh) Ja, se mi je zdelo. Kaj pa tole besedo? Najbolje, da vam jo kar pokažem: Leksikografija: sestavljanje slovarjev. Bodite pozorni -- smo zelo natančni -- na besedo "sestavljanje". Slovarji niso izklesani iz kocke granita ali kosa kamna. Sestavljeni so iz množice majhnih delcev. Majhnih diskretnih -- ločenih, ne zaupnih -- delcev. In ti delci so besede.
Now one of the perks of being a lexicographer -- besides getting to come to TED -- is that you get to say really fun words, like lexicographical. Lexicographical has this great pattern: it's called a double dactyl. And just by saying double dactyl, I've sent the geek needle all the way into the red. (Laughter) (Applause) But "lexicographical" is the same pattern as "higgledy-piggledy." Right? It's a fun word to say, and I get to say it a lot. Now, one of the non-perks of being a lexicographer is that people don't usually have a kind of warm, fuzzy, snuggly image of the dictionary. Right? Nobody hugs their dictionaries. But what people really often think about the dictionary is, they think more like this. Just to let you know, I do not have a lexicographical whistle. But people think that my job is to let the good words make that difficult left-hand turn into the dictionary, and keep the bad words out.
Ena izmed prednosti leksikografskega poklica je, poleg tega, da te povabijo na TED, da lahko izgovarjaš zares zabavne besede, kot je leksikografinja. Ta beseda ima čudovit vzorec z imenom dvojni daktil. In zgolj z omenjanjem dvojnega daktila sem kazalec na "piflarmetru" potisnila globoko v rdeče območje. Toda "leksikografinja" ima enako strukturo kot recimo "jejhata, jejhata", kajne? Je zabavna beseda, ki jo lahko pogosto uporabljam. Ena izmed slabosti leksikografskega poklica pa je, da si slovarjev ponavadi ne predstavljamo kot nekaj toplega, puhastega in prijetnega, kajne? Nihče ne objema svojih slovarjev. Ponavadi si ljudje slovar predstavljajo bolj tako. Toliko da veste, nimam leksikografske piščalke. Toda ljudje vseeno mislijo, da je moja naloga pravilnim besedam pomagati najti pot v slovar in napačnim besedam preprečevati vstop.
But the thing is, I don't want to be a traffic cop. For one thing, I just do not do uniforms. And for another, deciding what words are good and what words are bad is actually not very easy. And it's not very fun. And when parts of your job are not easy or fun, you kind of look for an excuse not to do them. So if I had to think of some kind of occupation as a metaphor for my work, I would much rather be a fisherman. I want to throw my big net into the deep, blue ocean of English and see what marvelous creatures I can drag up from the bottom. But why do people want me to direct traffic, when I would much rather go fishing? Well, I blame the Queen. Why do I blame the Queen? Well, first of all, I blame the Queen because it's funny. But secondly, I blame the Queen because dictionaries have really not changed.
Jaz pa nočem igrati prometnega policista. Prvič, uniforme niso moj stil. In drugič, določanje, katere besede so pravilne in katere napačne, sploh ni tako enostavno. In niti ni zabavno. In tistim delom poklica, ki niso lahki ali zabavni, se ponavadi poskušamo izmakniti. Če bi že morala svoje delo primerjati s katerim izmed poklicev, bi veliko raje bila ribič. Svojo veliko mrežo bi vrgla v globoki modri ocean angleščine, da bi videla, kakšna čudovita bitja lahko z dna privlečem na dan. Toda zakaj bi ljudje radi, da usmerjam promet, ko pa bi veliko raje šla lovit ribe? Jaz za to krivim kraljico. Zakaj krivim kraljico? No, prvič zato, ker je smešno. In drugič zato, ker se slovar, oziroma naše predstave
Our idea of what a dictionary is has not changed since her reign. The only thing that Queen Victoria would not be amused by in modern dictionaries is our inclusion of the F-word, which has happened in American dictionaries since 1965. So, there's this guy, right? Victorian era. James Murray, first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. I do not have that hat. I wish I had that hat. So he's really responsible for a lot of what we consider modern in dictionaries today. When a guy who looks like that, in that hat, is the face of modernity, you have a problem. And so, James Murray could get a job on any dictionary today. There'd be virtually no learning curve.
o njem, od obdobja njenega vladanja niso spremenile. Edina stvar, ki kraljici Viktoriji pri sodobnih slovarjih ne bi bila všeč, je vključitev besede "f<i>*</i>", ki je v ameriških slovarjih prisotna od leta 1965. Gospod iz viktorijanske dobe, ki ga vidite na sliki, je James Murray, prvi urednik slovarja Oxford English Dictionary. Nimam takšnega klobuka, čeprav si želim, da bi ga imela. On je zaslužen za večino tega, kar imamo danes pri slovarjih za moderno. Če je nekdo, ki izgleda tako -- s takšnim klobukom -- simbol sodobnosti, je jasno, da imamo problem. James Murray bi danes dobil službo pri uredništvu vsakega slovarja. Učna krivulja se praktično ne bi spremenila.
And of course, a few of us are saying: okay, computers! Computers! What about computers? The thing about computers is, I love computers. I mean, I'm a huge geek, I love computers. I would go on a hunger strike before I let them take away Google Book Search from me. But computers don't do much else other than speed up the process of compiling dictionaries. They don't change the end result. Because what a dictionary is, is it's Victorian design merged with a little bit of modern propulsion. It's steampunk. What we have is an electric velocipede. You know, we have Victorian design with an engine on it. That's all! The design has not changed.
Seveda, nekateri boste ugovarjali z računalniki. Računalniki! Kaj pa računalniki? Z računalniki je tako, sama jih imam rada. Sem zagrizen "gik", obožujem računalnike. Če bi mi kdo poskušal odvzeti Googlov Book Search, bi uprizorila gladovno stavko. Toda računalniki niso naredili nič drugega kot pospešili procesa sestavljanja slovarjev. Končnega rezultata niso spremenili. Kajti slovarji so še vedno zasnovani po viktorijanskih vzorcih, dodan jim je bil le moderni pogon. To je kot znanstvena fantastika v viktorijanski dobi, električni velociped. Imamo viktorijanski izum na motorni pogon. To je vse. Princip se ni spremenil.
And OK, what about online dictionaries, right? Online dictionaries must be different. This is the Oxford English Dictionary Online, one of the best online dictionaries. This is my favorite word, by the way. Erinaceous: pertaining to the hedgehog family; of the nature of a hedgehog. Very useful word. So, look at that. Online dictionaries right now are paper thrown up on a screen. This is flat. Look how many links there are in the actual entry: two! Right? Those little buttons, I had them all expanded except for the date chart. So there's not very much going on here. There's not a lot of clickiness. And in fact, online dictionaries replicate almost all the problems of print, except for searchability. And when you improve searchability, you actually take away the one advantage of print, which is serendipity. Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for, because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult.
V redu, kaj pa spletni slovarji? Spletni slovarji so gotovo drugačni. To je Oxford English Dictionary Online, eden izmed najboljših spletnih slovarjev. Mimogrede, to je moja najljubša beseda: Erinaceinae: pravi jež, pripadajoč družini ježev. Zelo uporabna beseda. Če si ogledate to, vidite, da je sodobni spletni slovar le papir, prenesen na ekran. To je statično. Samo poglejte, koliko je na celotni strani povezav. Dve! Vidite? Te majhne okvirčke sem vse povečala, z izjemo grafikona. Kot vidite, se tu ne dogaja prav veliko. Nimamo veliko možnosti klikanja. V bistvu je spletni slovar ohranil skoraj vse slabosti knjižnega, razen boljših iskalnih možnosti. Z izboljšanimi možnostmi iskanja pa je uničena edina prednost knjižne oblike, ki je srečno naključje. Srečno naključje nastopi takrat, ko najdeš stvari, ki jih nisi iskal, zato ker je tisto, kar si iskal, tako prekleto težko najti.
So -- (Laughter) (Applause) -- now, when you think about this, what we have here is a ham butt problem. Does everyone know the ham butt problem? Woman's making a ham for a big, family dinner. She goes to cut the butt off the ham and throw it away, and she looks at this piece of ham and she's like, "This is a perfectly good piece of ham. Why am I throwing this away?" She thought, "Well, my mom always did this." So she calls up mom, and she says, "Mom, why'd you cut the butt off the ham, when you're making a ham?" She says, "I don't know, my mom always did it!" So they call grandma, and grandma says, "My pan was too small!" (Laughter)
Torej -- (Smeh) -- če pomislimo, smo tukaj priča problemu zadnjega konca šunke. Pozna kdo izmed vas ta problem? Žena kuha šunko za veliko družinsko večerjo. Odreže zadnji konec šunke in ko ga že hoče vreči v smeti, nenadoma dobi preblisk: "Saj to je čisto dober kos šunke. Zakaj ga mečem stran?" Nato se spomni: "Ker je mama vedno tako delala." Tako pokliče mamo in jo vpraša: "Mama, zakaj pri kuhanju šunke vedno odstraniš en konec?" Mama pravi: "Ne vem, ker je moja mama vedno tako delala!" Nato pokličeta še babico, ki pove: "Moj lonec je bil premajhen!" (Smeh)
So, it's not that we have good words and bad words. We have a pan that's too small! You know, that ham butt is delicious! There's no reason to throw it away. The bad words -- see, when people think about a place and they don't find a place on the map, they think, "This map sucks!" When they find a nightspot or a bar, and it's not in the guidebook, they're like, "Ooh, this place must be cool! It's not in the guidebook." When they find a word that's not in the dictionary, they think, "This must be a bad word." Why? It's more likely to be a bad dictionary. Why are you blaming the ham for being too big for the pan? So, you can't get a smaller ham. The English language is as big as it is.
Nimamo torej pravilnih in napačnih besed -- imamo samo premajhen lonec! Veste, šunkin zadnji konec je slasten in ni razloga, da bi ga metali proč. Če nekega kraja ne najdemo na zemljevidu, si mislimo, da je zemljevid brezvezen. Če naletimo na nočni klub ali lokal, ki ga ni v turističnem vodiču, pomislimo: "Ta lokal mora niti nekaj posebnega, ker ga ni v vodiču." Če pa naletimo na besedo, ki je ni v slovarju, si rečemo: "Ta beseda je gotovo slaba." Zakaj? Večja je možnost, da je slab slovar. Zakaj krivimo šunko, ker je prevelika za lonec? Šunke se ne da spremeniti. Angleščina je velika toliko, kolikor je.
So, if you have a ham butt problem, and you're thinking about the ham butt problem, the conclusion that it leads you to is inexorable and counterintuitive: paper is the enemy of words. How can this be? I mean, I love books. I really love books. Some of my best friends are books. But the book is not the best shape for the dictionary. Now they're going to think "Oh, boy. People are going to take away my beautiful, paper dictionaries?" No. There will still be paper dictionaries. When we had cars -- when cars became the dominant mode of transportation, we didn't round up all the horses and shoot them. You know, there're still going to be paper dictionaries, but it's not going to be the dominant dictionary. The book-shaped dictionary is not going to be the only shape dictionaries come in. And it's not going to be the prototype for the shapes dictionaries come in.
Torej, če smo priča problemu zadnjega konca šunke in o njem razmišljamo, pridemo do neizogibnega, a hkrati protislovnega zaključka, da je papir sovražnik besed. Kako je to možno? Ne razumite me narobe, knjige imam zelo rada. Resno. Nekateri izmed mojih najboljših prijateljev so knjige. Toda knjiga ni najboljši medij za slovar. Sedaj se boste ustrašili: "Ojoj, ali mi bodo odvzeli moje prelepe knjižne slovarje?" Ne. Takšni slovarji bodo še vedno obstajali. S pojavom avtomobila, oziroma ko je ta postal glavno prevozno sredstvo, nismo zbrali vseh konjev in jih postrelili. Slovar kot knjiga bo še vedno obstajal, le ne bo več zasedal dominantnega položaja. Knjižna oblika ne bo edina oblika, v kateri se bodo slovarji pojavljali. In ne bo prototipična oblika za slovar.
So, think about it this way: if you've got an artificial constraint, artificial constraints lead to arbitrary distinctions and a skewed worldview. What if biologists could only study animals that made people go, "Aww." Right? What if we made aesthetic judgments about animals, and only the ones we thought were cute were the ones that we could study? We'd know a whole lot about charismatic megafauna, and not very much about much else. And I think this is a problem. I think we should study all the words, because when you think about words, you can make beautiful expressions from very humble parts. Lexicography is really more about material science. We are studying the tolerances of the materials that you use to build the structure of your expression: your speeches and your writing. And then, often people say to me, "Well, OK, how do I know that this word is real?" They think, "OK, if we think words are the tools that we use to build the expressions of our thoughts, how can you say that screwdrivers are better than hammers? How can you say that a sledgehammer is better than a ball-peen hammer?" They're just the right tools for the job.
Zavedajte se, da postavljanje namišljenih omejitev vodi v oblikovanje poljubnih kriterijev in privede do izkrivljenih predstav o svetu. Kaj če bi biologi lahko preučevali le živali, ob katerih se ljudje raznežijo? Kaj če bi živali razvrščali po estetskih kriterijih in bi preučevali samo tiste, ki bi se nam zdele ljubke? Ogromno bi vedeli o karizmatični megafavni in ne prav veliko o čem drugem. In po mojem mnenju to predstavlja problem. Mislim, da bi morali preučevati vse besede, kajti če pomislimo, lahko s pomočjo skromnih gradnikov izrazimo lepe misli. Leksikografija je v bistvu veda o gradivih. Preučujemo vzdržljivost materialov, ki jih uporabljamo za gradnjo svojega načina izražanja: govora in pisave. Ljudje me pogosto sprašujejo: "V redu, ampak kako veš, da določena beseda res obstaja?" Če so besede orodje, s katerim ustvarjamo izraz naših misli, kako lahko potem rečemo, da so izvijači boljši od kladiv? Kako lahko trdimo, da je kovaško kladivo boljše od kladiva s kroglastim kljunom? Sta le orodji, primerni za različna dela.
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anybody who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it. That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction. It doesn't make a word any more real than any other way. If you love a word, it becomes real. So if we're not worrying about directing traffic, if we've transcended paper, if we are worrying less about control and more about description, then we can think of the English language as being this beautiful mobile. And any time one of those little parts of the mobile changes, is touched, any time you touch a word, you use it in a new context, you give it a new connotation, you verb it, you make the mobile move. You didn't break it. It's just in a new position, and that new position can be just as beautiful.
In tako me ljudje sprašujejo, kako vem, če je beseda resnična. Veste, vsak, ki je kdaj bral knjige za otroke, ve, da s pomočjo ljubezni stvari postanejo resnične. Če imaš neko besedo rad, jo uporabljaj in jo tako naredi resnično. Prisotnost v slovarju je umetni kriterij. Zaradi nje besede niso nič bolj ali manj resnične. Če imaš besedo rad, jo narediš resnično. Torej, če se nehamo ukvarjati z usmerjanjem prometa, če presežemo papir in se raje bolj posvetimo opisu kot nadzoru, potem si lahko angleščino predstavljamo kot neko čudovito potujoče telo. Vsakič, ko se nekdo dotakne enega izmed njegovih delov, ko se dotakne besede, jo uporabi v novem kontekstu, ji doda pomen, spremeni besedno vrsto, se telo premakne. Zaradi tega se ne pokvari, je le v drugem položaju, ki je lahko ravno tako lep kot prejšnji.
Now, if you're no longer a traffic cop -- the problem with being a traffic cop is there can only be so many traffic cops in any one intersection, or the cars get confused. Right? But if your goal is no longer to direct the traffic, but maybe to count the cars that go by, then more eyeballs are better. You can ask for help! If you ask for help, you get more done. And we really need help. Library of Congress: 17 million books, of which half are in English. If only one out of every 10 of those books had a word that's not in the dictionary in it, that would be equivalent to more than two unabridged dictionaries.
Torej, če nismo več v vlogi prometnega policista -- ti so problematični, ker jih je na enem križišču lahko le omejeno število, drugače v prometu zavlada kaos, kajne? Če naš cilj ni več usmerjanje prometa, temveč štetje avtomobilov, potem potrebujemo čim več parov oči. Lahko prosimo za pomoč! Tako lahko dosežemo več, saj pomoč resnično potrebujemo. Ameriška nacionalna knjižnica Library of Congress vsebuje 17 milijonov knjig, od tega jih je polovica v angleščini. Če je samo v eni izmed desetih knjig ena beseda, ki je ni v slovarju, bi jih skupaj naneslo za dva velika slovarja besed.
And I find an un-dictionaried word -- a word like "un-dictionaried," for example -- in almost every book I read. What about newspapers? Newspaper archive goes back to 1759, 58.1 million newspaper pages. If only one in 100 of those pages had an un-dictionaried word on it, it would be an entire other OED. That's 500,000 more words. So that's a lot. And I'm not even talking about magazines. I'm not talking about blogs -- and I find more new words on BoingBoing in a given week than I do Newsweek or Time. There's a lot going on there.
V skoraj vsaki knjigi, ki jo berem, naletim na neposlovarjeno besedo, kot je na primer "neposlovarjen". Kaj pa časopisi? Časopisni arhiv vsebuje časnike od leta 1759. V njem je 58,1 milijona strani. Če je samo na eni izmed stotih strani ena neposlovarjena beseda, bi jih bilo skupaj dovolj za slovar v obsegu Oxford English Dictionary. To je 500.000 besed več. Kar je veliko. In da niti ne omenjam revij in blogov. Na spletišču BoingBoing v enem tednu najdem več novih besed kot v Newsweeku ali Timeu. Tam je jezik res živahen.
And I'm not even talking about polysemy, which is the greedy habit some words have of taking more than one meaning for themselves. So if you think of the word "set," a set can be a badger's burrow, a set can be one of the pleats in an Elizabethan ruff, and there's one numbered definition in the OED. The OED has 33 different numbered definitions for set. Tiny, little word, 33 numbered definitions. One of them is just labeled "miscellaneous technical senses." Do you know what that says to me? That says to me, it was Friday afternoon and somebody wanted to go down the pub. (Laughter) That's a lexicographical cop out, to say, "miscellaneous technical senses."
In da niti ne omenjam polisemije, pohlepne navade nekaterih besed, da si vzamejo več kot en pomen. Takšna je na primer angleška beseda "set", ki lahko označuje jazbečev brlog gubo na nabranem elizabetinskem ovratniku in še kaj, saj v slovarju Oxford English Dictionary obstaja 33 definicij zanjo. Tako kratka besedica in kar 33 definicij. Ena izmed njih se glasi: "razni strokovni pomeni". Veste kaj to pomeni? Da je to iztočnico nekdo sestavljal na petek zvečer, ko se mu je mudilo ven. "Razni strokovni pomeni" je leksikografski izhod v sili.
So, we have all these words, and we really need help! And the thing is, we could ask for help -- asking for help's not that hard. I mean, lexicography is not rocket science. See, I just gave you a lot of words and a lot of numbers, and this is more of a visual explanation. If we think of the dictionary as being the map of the English language, these bright spots are what we know about, and the dark spots are where we are in the dark. If that was the map of all the words in American English, we don't know very much. And we don't even know the shape of the language. If this was the dictionary -- if this was the map of American English -- look, we have a kind of lumpy idea of Florida, but there's no California! We're missing California from American English. We just don't know enough, and we don't even know that we're missing California. We don't even see that there's a gap on the map.
Besed je veliko, zato resnično potrebujemo pomoč. In lahko prosimo zanjo, to ni tako težko, saj leksikografija ni kvantna fizika. Do sedaj sem vam podala le veliko besed in številk, sedaj pa je na vrsti vizualni prikaz stanja. Če si slovar predstavljamo kot zemljevid angleščine, so svetla polja tisto, kar poznamo in temna tisto, o čemer ne vemo še ničesar. Iz tega zemljevida ameriške angleščine je razvidno, da o njej še veliko ne vemo. Ne poznamo niti njenega obsega. Če bi to bil slovar -- če bi to bil zemljevid ameriške angleščine -- vidimo, da približno poznamo Florido, Kalifornije pa sploh ni! Manjka nam cela Kalifornija ameriške angleščine. Enostavno ne vemo dovolj, ne vemo niti, da nam manjka celotna Kalifornija. Vrzeli na zemljevidu se še zavedamo ne.
So again, lexicography is not rocket science. But even if it were, rocket science is being done by dedicated amateurs these days. You know? It can't be that hard to find some words! So, enough scientists in other disciplines are really asking people to help, and they're doing a good job of it. For instance, there's eBird, where amateur birdwatchers can upload information about their bird sightings. And then, ornithologists can go and help track populations, migrations, etc.
Še enkrat, leksikografija ni kvantna fizika In tudi, če bi bila, s fiziko se dandanes ukvarjajo tudi predani ljubitelji, kajne? Iskanje novih besed že ne more biti pretežko. Kar nekaj znanstvenikov iz drugih disciplin prosi za pomoč laike, ki dobro opravljajo svoje naloge. Primer za to je spletna stran eBird, kamor lahko ljubiteljski opazovalci ptičev naložijo podatke o svojih opažanjih. Ornitologi lahko na podlagi tega lažje opazujejo populacije, selitve ptic itd.
And there's this guy, Mike Oates. Mike Oates lives in the U.K. He's a director of an electroplating company. He's found more than 140 comets. He's found so many comets, they named a comet after him. It's kind of out past Mars. It's a hike. I don't think he's getting his picture taken there anytime soon. But he found 140 comets without a telescope. He downloaded data from the NASA SOHO satellite, and that's how he found them. If we can find comets without a telescope, shouldn't we be able to find words?
Mike Oates, direktor podjetja za galvanizacijo iz Velike Britanije, je odkril več kot 140 kometov. Odkril jih je toliko, da so enega celo poimenovali po njem. Je nekje malo naprej od Marsa, do njega je lep kos poti, ne verjamem, da se bo v bližnji prihodnosti tam slikal. Toda vseh 140 kometov je našel brez teleskopa. Našel jih je tako, da je potrebne podatke prenesel z Nasinega satelita SOHO. Če lahko najdemo komete brez teleskopa, bomo pa že lahko našli tudi besede.
Now, y'all know where I'm going with this. Because I'm going to the Internet, which is where everybody goes. And the Internet is great for collecting words, because the Internet's full of collectors. And this is a little-known technological fact about the Internet, but the Internet is actually made up of words and enthusiasm. And words and enthusiasm actually happen to be the recipe for lexicography. Isn't that great? So there are a lot of really good word-collecting sites out there right now, but the problem with some of them is that they're not scientific enough. They show the word, but they don't show any context. Where did it come from? Who said it? What newspaper was it in? What book?
Vsem vam je jasno, kam merim s tem. Pomoč bom poiskala na internetu, kot jo danes vsi. Internet je zelo prikladen za zbiranje besed, saj je poln zbiralcev. Manj znano dejstvo o internetu je, da pravzaprav temelji na besedah in navdušenju. In prav besede in navdušenje so sestavni del leksikografije, kaj ni to čudovito? Obstaja veliko spletnih strani za zbiranje besed, toda njhova pomanjkljivost je, da niso dovolj znanstvene. Prikažejo besedo izven konteksta. Od kje je prišla? Kdo jo je izrekel? V katerem časopisu, v kateri knjigi je bila objavljena?
Because a word is like an archaeological artifact. If you don't know the provenance or the source of the artifact, it's not science, it's a pretty thing to look at. So a word without its source is like a cut flower. You know, it's pretty to look at for a while, but then it dies. It dies too fast. So, this whole time I've been saying, "The dictionary, the dictionary, the dictionary, the dictionary." Not "a dictionary," or "dictionaries." And that's because, well, people use the dictionary to stand for the whole language. They use it synecdochically. And one of the problems of knowing a word like "synecdochically" is that you really want an excuse to say "synecdochically." This whole talk has just been an excuse to get me to the point where I could say "synecdochically" to all of you. So I'm really sorry. But when you use a part of something -- like the dictionary is a part of the language, or a flag stands for the United States, it's a symbol of the country -- then you're using it synecdochically. But the thing is, we could make the dictionary the whole language. If we get a bigger pan, then we can put all the words in. We can put in all the meanings. Doesn't everyone want more meaning in their lives? And we can make the dictionary not just be a symbol of the language -- we can make it be the whole language.
Ker beseda je kot arheološki artefakt. Če njegov izvor ni znan, to ni znanstveni primerek, je le lep okras. Tako je tudi beseda brez podatkov o izvoru kot utrgana roža. Na pogled je lep le, dokler se ne posuši. In posuši se prehitro. Do sedaj sem večinoma govorila o slovarju v ednini in ne o slovarjih. To pa zato, ker ponavadi slovar simbolizira celoten jezik. Ta beseda se uporablja sinekdohično. Problem poznavanja besed kot je "sinekdohično", je v tem, da pravzaprav iščeš izgovore, da se s tem pohvališ. Ta celoten govor sem v bistvu pripravila zato, da lahko pred vsemi vami rečem "sinekdohično". Se opravičujem. Toda ko del nečesa, kot na primer slovar, ki je del jezika, ali zastava, ki simbolizira državo, predstavlja celoto, potem je ta del uporabljen sinekdohično. Stvar je v tem, da bi slovar res lahko predstavljal jezik. Če bi si priskrbeli večji lonec, bi lahko vanj spravili vse besede in vse pomene. Si ne želimo vsi, da bi naše življenje imelo več pomena? Slovar tako lahko postane ne le simbol za jezik, lahko postane jezik sam.
You see, what I'm really hoping for is that my son, who turns seven this month -- I want him to barely remember that this is the form factor that dictionaries used to come in. This is what dictionaries used to look like. I want him to think of this kind of dictionary as an eight-track tape. It's a format that died because it wasn't useful enough. It wasn't really what people needed. And the thing is, if we can put in all the words, no longer have that artificial distinction between good and bad, we can really describe the language like scientists. We can leave the aesthetic judgments to the writers and the speakers. If we can do that, then I can spend all my time fishing, and I don't have to be a traffic cop anymore. Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Resnično upam, da se bo moj sin, ki bo ta mesec dopolnil sedem let, komaj spominjal, da je slovar včasih nastajal v tej obliki. Tako je slovar izgledal včasih. Želim, da bi o njem razmišljal kot o avdio kaseti. Kot o formatu, ki ni več aktualen, ker ni bil dovolj uporaben, ker ni zadovoljil človekovih potreb. In če bomo v novodobni slovar vključili vse besede, ne bomo več imeli navideznih razlik med pravilnim in napačnim. Jezik bomo lahko opisovali kot znanstveniki, sodbe o estetskosti pa prepustili pisateljem in govorcem. Če nam to uspe, bom lahko ves čas ribarila in ne bo mi treba več igrati prometnega policista. Najlepša hvala za vašo prijazno pozornost.