Friends don't waste wine when there's words to sell

[venta]

I 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 :)

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er, not entirely sure; it's W3C's if that helps. I'll let you know if/when I find a word which is definitely spelled Americanly (or not).

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

I has all the hallmarks of a made-up American word.

Surely "clarify" is a perfectly good - and meaningful - option.

[pm215]

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 :-))

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Exactly. "Disambiguate" means that there are two (or more) specific possible meanings to a statement, which have now been reduced to one. "Clarify" means that something was confused and has now been made clear.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... do we seem to be upbraiding Americans about making up words, while
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.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Dreaful was an unfortunate typo, which I didn't notice til after people had started filling the poll in (at which point I could only have changed it by creating an entirely new poll).

Certainly a lot of nasty made-up words get accused of being Americanisms here; I dunno if they actually are or not.