Thomas Dalton wrote:
I don't
think "notability" has anything to do with it. Is "argue" a
non-notable word? What about "of" or "notable" or "many"
or
"describe"?
The point is, encyclopedias are supposed to be about concepts.
Dictionaries are supposed to be about words.
It's the notability of the word as a concept that is the issue.
Generally a word is only important because of the concept it
represents. Occasionally, it is important in its own right. I think
"thou" is a good example of a notable word, I'm not entirely sure,
though - I fear its notability stems (partially) from the fact that it
is no longer used, which isn't really a good measure of notability,
it's more a measure of interest. Should we be writing articles about
words simply because they are interesting? Maybe, maybe not...
I don't think that notability is the right test here; notability has
become an overused concept in Wikipedia. The encyclopedic interest
remains in the concept behind the word, while the dictionary interest
has to do with the word itself. Only after that has been decided should
the dictionary and encyclopedia look at notability, because these will
be based on different criteria. Where there are synonms the
encyclopedia has no need to repeat the same article for each of these
words; it must choose which best carries the concept. That's not so
much a notability issue. A dictionary, however, must include separate
articles for the synonyms, and the notability issue is more likely to
arise when dealing with obscure spelling variants or neologisms. It is
up to the dictionary to distinguish between the shades of meaning that
differentiate the synonyms.
I think that "thou" is validly included in the encyclopedia, but there
would be no need to include separate articles on its inflected forms,
"thee", "thy", or "thine". It remains important in the
linguistic
development of the English language, and the evolution of the second
person singular in the language.
BTW the use of the second person singular has not completely
disappeared. It's most familiar modern English use is in the Lord's
Prayer. It continues to be found in other religious or poetic
circumstances, and in various dialects.
A dictionary defines words, and sometimes gives their
etymologies.
Not just sometimes; a good dictionary should include the etymology as a
part of the history which defines the word.
It doesn't usually discuss the significance of the
word in the culture of
the people using it, for example. That is more suited to an
encyclopedia. For example, the fact that a group of people use the
same word to refer to two seemingly distinct concepts is something
that would simply result in two sections to the definition in a
dictionary, it could spawn several paragraphs of discussion in an
encyclopedia.
A dictionary is better equipped to deal with the distinctions between
American and British usage An encyclopedia, when explaining the
underlying concept, would do better to choose a word which avoids such
ambiguities.
Ec