full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Erin McKean: The joy of lexicography

Unscramble the Blue Letters

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 sccneie. See, I just gave you a lot of words and a lot of numbers, and this is more of a vaiusl explanation. If we think of the dictionary as being the map of the English lagngaue, 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 aeimrcan 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 cforalniia. We don't even see that there's a gap on the map.

Open Cloze

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 _______. See, I just gave you a lot of words and a lot of numbers, and this is more of a ______ explanation. If we think of the dictionary as being the map of the English ________, 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 ________ 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 __________. We don't even see that there's a gap on the map.

Solution

  1. visual
  2. science
  3. language
  4. american
  5. california

Original Text

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.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
ham butt 5
traffic cop 4
online dictionaries 4
bad words 3
rocket science 3
compiling dictionaries 2
good words 2
oxford english 2
english dictionary 2
love computers 2
victorian design 2
english language 2
love books 2
aesthetic judgments 2
artificial distinction 2
numbered definitions 2
american english 2
missing california 2
mike oates 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
oxford english dictionary 2

Important Words

  1. american
  2. bright
  3. california
  4. dark
  5. dictionary
  6. english
  7. explanation
  8. florida
  9. gap
  10. gave
  11. hard
  12. idea
  13. kind
  14. language
  15. lexicography
  16. lot
  17. lumpy
  18. map
  19. missing
  20. numbers
  21. rocket
  22. science
  23. shape
  24. spots
  25. visual
  26. words