Subject: Re: Difference between LISP and C++ From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 01 Nov 2002 01:12:34 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3245101954392150@naggum.no> * Thomas F. Burdick | Weren't you just demonstrating the breadth of your dictionary collection? But I also read the forewords of same and have worked with dictionary makers (one of the few benefits of working with SGML) so know something about how these definitions are both constructed and intended to be read. | Webster's second definition is "villein" : | <http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=villein> When an entry is simply a redirection, the preferred action when writing is not to use the word that was redirected if one means the word to which it was redirected, and when reading, to understand that the main entry word is the historically preferred, so even if there is a sense that only redirects to another, it has much less historical significance than one with its own definition. So in this case, I ignored the redirection when I looked it up because "villein" is a different word with a different history than "villain" even if "villain" has been used where "villein" would be the better choice. As far as I can tell, "villain" is uniformly bad, while the general lack of spelling conventions until recently could have produced texts where what would now be a typo would then have been acceptable. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.