full transcript

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

Unscramble the Blue Letters

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 ccetonlilg wdros, because the Internet's full of ccllteoors. 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 garet? 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?

Open Cloze

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 __________ _____, because the Internet's full of __________. 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 _____? 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?

Solution

  1. collecting
  2. great
  3. words
  4. collectors

Original Text

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?

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. book
  2. collecting
  3. collectors
  4. context
  5. enthusiasm
  6. fact
  7. full
  8. good
  9. great
  10. happen
  11. internet
  12. lexicography
  13. lot
  14. newspaper
  15. problem
  16. recipe
  17. scientific
  18. show
  19. sites
  20. technological
  21. word
  22. words