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ventaI have just met the word "disambiguate" in some documentation I'm reading (DOM Level 1, if you care).
[Poll #357609]
Yes, I should be concentrating on DOM rather than posting silly polls. Thank you for asking.
Update: It is, of course, a great word. It covers a concept which (in my opinion) isn't covered by any other word, and is nicely euphonious to boot.
I'd now close this poll if I had any idea how to do so :)
[Poll #357609]
Yes, I should be concentrating on DOM rather than posting silly polls. Thank you for asking.
Update: It is, of course, a great word. It covers a concept which (in my opinion) isn't covered by any other word, and is nicely euphonious to boot.
I'd now close this poll if I had any idea how to do so :)
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Date: 2004-09-28 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 11:31 am (UTC):)
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Date: 2004-09-28 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 11:39 am (UTC)Surely "clarify" is a perfectly good - and meaningful - option.
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Date: 2004-09-28 12:06 pm (UTC)I tend to think that clarifying is something you do to overly vague explanations whereas disambiguation is removing a (usually) specific ambiguity by selecting one or other interpretation. So I'd probably use it in specifications or documentation (which should never need clarification because you should have written them properly in the first place :-))
no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 12:33 pm (UTC)discussing a poll asking if a certain word is "dreaful" or not?
Or, is that indeed the point, and did I just miss a huge part of the joke?
In any case, Americans don't make up words, that would be aparadisiacal.
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Date: 2004-09-29 03:17 am (UTC)Certainly a lot of nasty made-up words get accused of being Americanisms here; I dunno if they actually are or not.
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Date: 2004-09-28 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 11:36 am (UTC)(he he having to read DOM level one)
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Date: 2004-09-29 03:20 am (UTC)Presumably "DOM level one" is somewhat like Ryan?
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Date: 2004-09-28 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-29 03:11 am (UTC)It also doesn't mean the same thing as clarify for example, if I write:
"I like Brown"
...replying "Could you clarify that ?" might be met with a response like "Well, OK, it's not like I want to have his babies or anything, I just think he does his thang pretty damn well."
...which does not necessarily result in disambiguation between Chancellors and soul music legends.
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Date: 2004-09-29 03:15 am (UTC)The question is whether people should be allowed to use "disambiguate", or should stick to the phrase "distinguish unambiguously" :)
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Date: 2004-09-29 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-29 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-29 05:31 am (UTC)"Furthermore, both OMG IDL and ECMAScript have significant limitations in their ability to disambiguate names from different namespaces that makes it difficult to avoid naming conflicts with short, familiar names."
Made my definition seem like a reasonable one. However, yours does demonstrate better why there is no pre-existing word which does the same job so well.
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Date: 2004-09-29 05:44 am (UTC)I liked the idea of an "Oh My God Interface Description Language" and was quite disappointed to discover it was just those Corba chaps again !
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Date: 2004-09-29 08:17 am (UTC)Oh is that what it stands for. I was happily reading it as Oh My God, on the grounds that I didn't need to know what it stood for. Mind you, I didn't know what IDL stood for, either ;)
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Date: 2004-09-29 04:53 am (UTC)Depends on context, I imagine.
> The question is whether people should be allowed to use "disambiguate", or should stick to the phrase "distinguish unambiguously"
People should be allowed to use whatever they like. OTOH, people should probably be _encouraged_ away from such vile constructs like "disambiguate". "Distinguish" seems like a good alternative to "clarify" (again, depending on context). Why should this require the addition of "unambigously" - that is surely implied?
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Date: 2004-09-29 05:11 am (UTC)Yes, I was wondering about that. In my mind, there is a difference, but I was having trouble coming up with an example with the "unambiguously" actually added anything.
If Onebyone is correct (http://www.livejournal.com/users/venta/112628.html?thread=1460468#t1460468), then I hadn't fully understood the implications of disambiguate, though, so may have been barking up the wrong tree.
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Date: 2004-09-29 06:21 am (UTC)Well, I was following "to dispossess" and "to disentangle", but now it occurs to me that "to dissociate" doesn't necessary mean to remove an association, it might mean only to draw a distinction. So I might have to give up on that theory.
In your context it clearly means "to prevent an ambiguity that would otherwise exist" rather than "to remove a pre-existing ambiguity", which is probably fair use figuratively even if the literal meaning were solely the latter, which it might not be.
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Date: 2004-09-29 06:37 am (UTC)Or to remove a tinctionion.
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Date: 2004-09-29 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-29 05:32 am (UTC)See here. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/venta/112628.html?thread=1462004#t1462004)
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Date: 2004-09-29 06:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-29 06:29 am (UTC)Come to think of it, maybe it isn't. Maybe a "disambiguate" ought to be one of the results of a process of "disambiguisation".
Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 03:43 am (UTC)http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/chref/chref.py/main?query=disambiguate&title=21st
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 03:47 am (UTC)It's a question of whether it's a good word.
Dictionaries (even Chambers) often include shite words.
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 03:56 am (UTC)But you're right, there are some shite words there too. I think "disambiguate" is a truly awesome word, and I thought it was marvellous the first time I ever saw it (wikipedia, as mentioned by another correspondent).
Wikipedia also has other interesting phrases like "weasel words" and "peacock words", which describe other key concepts of language.
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 05:21 am (UTC)My take was that it wasn't a real word (or, at least, the link was tenuous) rather it was made up by someone who either (a) wanted to appear pretentious, or (b) had such a poor grasp of the language they couldn't think of a suitable "real" word.
It appears that it real. Mind you, so is "mindset". That particular one is usually my cue to stop reading.
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 05:26 am (UTC)As consolation, I offer you today's word from the Calendar:
pobble
"The noise made by the bubbling of water when commencing to boil."
from Maj. Lowsley's Glossary of Berkshire Words and Phrases, 1888
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 05:28 am (UTC)Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 05:46 am (UTC)"Attitude" is a perfectly good word. But used in the context of "you got an attitude, buddy" [meaning "sir, you have a _bad_ attitude], it has erroneously been given negative connotations.
Consequently, corporate Americana adopted "mindset" lest anyone should be offended or jump to the wrong conclusion, and it's seeping into everyday usage.
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 05:56 am (UTC)I'd certainly use "attitude" and "mindset" to mean something subtly different, though I'm not sure whether I'm correct to do so.
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 06:14 am (UTC)attitude: a feeling or opinion about something or someone, or a way of behaving that is caused by this.
mindset: a person's way of thinking and their opinions.
Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 06:24 am (UTC)Re: Chambers - never wrong
Date: 2004-09-29 06:26 am (UTC)There's nothing wrong with language evolving, of course (although the French seem to disagree), and I'm usually calm and generally Unbothered. For some reason this one is a particular source of irritation!
Random Blast from the Past...
Date: 2004-09-29 07:53 am (UTC)Being quite bored right now, I followed a whole load of random LJ links through people I vaguely know and found... um... you at the end of it. Maybe there are only about 200 real people in the world (although I'm not sure that I am one of them!).
Good to see you are doing fine!
Re: Random Blast from the Past...
Date: 2004-09-29 07:55 am (UTC)Are you still in Oxford ?
Is that a question I could easily answer by looking at your LJ, I wonder...
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Date: 2004-09-29 03:02 pm (UTC)