[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia has no policy on word articles

[Ray Saintonge]

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