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

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

> Indeed. To my mind it's completely different from clarify.

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?

[venta.livejournal.com]

"Distinguish" seems like a good alternative to "clarify" (again, depending on context). Why should this require the addition of "unambigously" - that is surely implied?

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.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

If Onebyone is correct

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.

[venta.livejournal.com]

distinction

Or to remove a tinctionion.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Or any other kind of onion.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Depends on context, I imagine.

See here. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/venta/112628.html?thread=1462004#t1462004)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Why is "disambiguate" as a verb any worse than "unambiguously" as an adverb? Both are perfectly ordinary constructions from the adjective "ambiguous".

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

perfectly ordinary constructions

Come to think of it, maybe it isn't. Maybe a "disambiguate" ought to be one of the results of a process of "disambiguisation".