lmjones@watsol.waterloo.edu (08/28/89)
``dearpat'' - An on-line data service
The Centre for the New OED and Text Research has created an
on-line service to provide information from our database.
Our data files include:
The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition
The bibliography for the OED
The Bible - King James Version including Old and New
Testaments and Apocrypha
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary,3rd edition
William Shakespeare: The Complete Works (on order)
Queries can be sent by electronic mail to dearpat@watmath.
We will try to answer queries as quickly and accurately as
possible although sometimes the amount of data or research
may be prohibitive.
Some sample queries and responses follow:
dearpat
I would like to know how many times the word
``hound'' and ``dog'' are used in the Sherlock Holmes
story ``The Hound of the Baskervilles''.
response
The word `hound' appears in the ``Hound of Basker-
villes'' 74 times while `dog' occurs only 31 times. A
further interesting point is that of the 31
occcurrences of `dog', 6 are the verb `to dog' as
``he had dogged us so long'', 2 are in the compound
`dog-cart' and many others do not refer to the
`hound'.
***
dearpat
I am interested in millennial vocabulary and would
like to know of the occurrrences of such words as
``apocalypse'', ``armageddon'' and ``doomsday'' in
the Bible.
response
The ``millennial'' vocabulary, as you refer to it, is
not very common in the Bible. The words `apocalypse'
and `doomsday' do not occur in the Bible at all
whereas `armageddon' is found only once, in Revela-
tions: 16:16. In general, the hellfire and brimstone
vocabulary is very limited in the Bible: for example,
compare the following frequencies of patterns: heaven
853, hell 64; saved 126, damn (including damned and
damnation) 16; good 1148, evil 748; lord 8794, devil
122.
***
dearpat
Can you please tell me all of the words in English
that begin with the sound ``fa'' as in ``fat''
whether they begin with a `f' or a `ph'?
response
On referring to the Oxford Advanced Learner's
Dictionay,3rd edition, a dictionary that includes
everyday official and informal language as well as
literary language of the 19th and 20th centuries, I
find that there are 73 words that begin with the
sound ``fa'' as in ``fat''. I will send you a com-
plete list of these words. A partial one follows
here: factual, famine, fancy, fascinate, phantasm,
Pharisee, pharynx.
***
dearpat
I would like a list of all the words that have
entered the English language from Malay. Can you
compile such a list from the Oxford English Diction-
ary?
response
The pattern ``Malay...'' (i.e. any word that begins
with the sequence Malay) occurs in the OED2 1660
times. Of these occurrences, 256 are in the etymol-
ogy: the section of the dictionary that deals with
the origin and history of a word. Even if a language
is mentioned in the etymology, it does not neces-
sarily mean that it is the language of origin. If
however, the language is mentioned at the beginning
of the etymology, it is more likely to be so. In the
case of Malay, 235 of the 256 occurrences of Malay
are in the first line of the etymology. Thus, I am
sending you two lists: one with the all the words
that have Malay in the etymology and one with the
words that do not have Malay in the first line (a
subset of the first). For scholarly purposes, I
recommend a thorough analysis of the words and etymo-
logies in order to determine the actual origin. A
partial list is included here: amok, bamboo, Cajan,
dugong, godown, junk, ketchup, lingo, mango, orang-
outang, palanquin, rattan, sago, teak,zamorin.
***
dearpat
I am studying the works of William Makepeace Thack-
eray and have noticed that he seems to invent words.
I am wondering if any of the words that appear in the
OED have been used only be him?
response
I have checked the ``Hapax Legomena'' file which
includes all the words with only one citation in the
OED2 and find that there are 69 from Thackeray. I am
sending you a complete list and the following is a
sample only: airwards, birdikin, crucificial,
lordkin, portify, unadroitly, whipping-snapping.
Please note, although there is only one citation,
this is not conclusive proof that the forms were
`invented' by Thackeray. In fact, one might say that
Thackeray did not so much invent words as played with
linguistic conventions to create new forms of old
words.
***
dearpat
I would like some information from the Canada-US Free
Trade Agreement. Could you please tell me if the
Canadian General Electric is mentioned in the docu-
ment.
response
Although many companies are named in this document,
the Canadian General Electric (CGE, GE, General Elec-
tric) is not referred to. This does not mean that it
is not included in more general terms but only that
it is not specifically named.
***
dearpat
Can you please make a list of all the words that
relate to clothing?
response
This query is not as simple as it appears. Articles
of clothing are not labelled as such in the diction-
ary and might be defined without the use of the word
`clothing': descriptions such as `garment',
`apparel', `headgear', and `outerwear' may indicate
`clothing' in the definition. For example, the
Japanese word yukata is described as a `light kimono'
or a `housecoat'. Because of the time that would be
involved in defining and carrying out such a search,
``dearpat'' is unable to give you a response.
***daford@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Daniel Ford) (08/29/89)
Can we use this service for solving cross-word puzzles? Such as: "What 10 letter words have a 'z' as the fourth letter and end with 'ious'?" Dan
tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) (08/29/89)
Lindsay Patten writes: >Is there any online access to the NOED for the general unix community? In general, the OED database is available to UW personnel for purposes of research and teaching. Right now, you have to get an account on the computer 'watsol'. However, DCS is planning to extend that availability via some big Sun meat-grinder they are buying. >Even >if were something as simple as a mail server which answered queries like > >mail noed@sol >entry pedantic >. > >and sent back mail giving the dictionary entry for pedantic. Well, yes and and no. We were originally thinking about doing just that, but if you just want to look up the entry, OED may not be the dictionary for you. Since it has *everything* about *everything* back to 1150 A.D., a simple request can have an unreasonably-huge answer. Also, the entries are densely populated with structural codes that are not immediately self-evident in their import. To illustrate my point without unduly cluttering up the net, I will mail the entry for 'pedantic' to anybody who requests it of me (tbray@watsol). One of the reasons for the recently-announced 'dearpat' service is to try to figure out what kinds of questions people would ask if they could ask. >Of course, >a fancy window based browser system would be even nicer. Yes, in fact the only sane thing. We have such an interface, and for those with X screens, it will probably be available via the DCS service I mentioned above. Daniel Ford writes: >Can we use this service for solving cross-word puzzles? >Such as: "What 10 letter words have a 'z' as the fourth letter and end with >'ious'?" Well, the existing query tools aren't optimized for this kind of question, which means you'd have to write a lex program or something and wait a couple hours for the answer. Who knows, maybe there's some interesting research in devising and implementing an efficient interface to support the needs of crossword puzzlers? Cheers, Tim Bray, New OED Project