Later this week is January 18th, which for taxonomists is notable for two things: 1) it’s Thesaurus Day; and 2) it’s the birthday of Peter Mark Roget. This double occurrence is no coincidence. We may consider Doctor Roget to be the inventor of the thesaurus (or at least one of its pioneers), and a person whose birthday is cause for taxonomists’ celebration.
As we anticipate the approaching new Gregorian year, those of us who are taxonomists are looking forward with renewed anticipation to the taxonomic challenges that certain kinds of words bring. Take “glass”, for example. “Glass” is one of those words that contain an abundance of possible meanings. Ironically, this poses the potential for ambiguity. What makes this particular situation even more ironic is that this ambiguity clouds the very clarity that the word often symbolizes. Ambiguous words are tricky to work with in constructing and developing taxonomies and thesauri. Moreover, they make the writing of effective indexing rules challenging. Taking care in the crafting of those rules becomes all the more important, because of the need for disambiguation.
Every once in awhile we discover an interesting read that we think you might find interesting.
Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? The book, Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice, would be very relevant to the development of cultural and historical taxonomies and thesauri. The way the terms are chosen and organized can have a strong effect on people's perception of cultures and historical events. So for the history buff or word geek on your shopping list, this might just be what you, or they, need.
If you are like me, words intrigue and inspire you. I could be called a thesaurus nerd, reading and researching words synonymous with one another to add impact to my writing and tell my stories with more emotion, detail, and energy.
In a series that features various resources with specific interests, this particular one caught our interest and irony. It provides the tables of contents of a selection of Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and Religion journals, both in text format and through a Web search program.