English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:04 AM

> "Adding random padding to hide the length of compressed/encrypted data is like setting your Prius on fire because it doesn't pollute enough," Johns Hopkins University professor Matthew Green said in a Twitter dispatch.

arstechnica.com/security/2012/10/…

user19161

12:15 AM

So who can divine the latest removed user?

Mitch

12:57 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 a hapax legomenon is a rare word that pops up in a work once and is somewhat characteristic of that work or author (that single spectacular usage in that one work or by that author). A nonce word is a made up word.

Note that hapax legomenon refers to a word's appearance in a body of text and to neither its origin nor its prevalence in speech. It thus differs from a nonce word, which may never be recorded, or which may find currency and may be widely recorded, or which may appear several times in the work which coins it, and so on.

@tchrist Have I been pronouncing it wrong all this time? "codswallop /ˈkɒdzwɒləp/. slang. Also cod’s wallop. " I say /ˈkɒdswɒləp/

Cerberus

1:15 AM

Hapax legomenon is one of the best terms ever.

Originally used with Homer.

KitFox

Anybody home?

Journeyman Geek

1:44 AM

Presumably me. ;p

Mitch

@Cerberus the difficulty...I can't think of any. James Joyce and Lewis Carroll...all nonce words. Shakespeare...all HLs. all nonce words too.

Cerberus

2:03 AM

@Mitch Do the two exclude one another, you would say?

Robusto

@Cerberus It's the classical version of Google Whack ...

Mitch

They're pretty close semantically. I think an HL would have to be just a rare word that was used elsewhere before. And a nonce word was never ever used before. So that sort of implies they are mutually exclusive.

Robusto

Googlewhack

A Googlewhack is a type of contest for finding a Google search query consisting of exactly two words without quotation marks, that returns exactly one hit. A Googlewhack must consist of two actual words found in a dictionary. A Googlewhack is considered legitimate if both of the searched-for words appear in the result page. Published googlewhacks are short-lived, since when published to a web site, the new number of hits will become at least two, one to the original hit found, and one to the publishing site. History The term Googlewhack first appeared on the web at UnBlinking on 8 Januar...

Cerberus

Ah, I see.

@Mitch But I would not define a hapax legomenon so.

It just means a word said only once.

Robusto

Single-serving words. Hmm.

Cerberus

2:09 AM

I'm sure many of Homer's hapax legomena he made up for the occasion.

We have no way of finding out, because there is no real literature older than Homer.

Only some shopping lists.

Robusto

Finnegans Wake is chock-a-block with hapax legomena.

Mitch

right. see a word in a book. if it's in the dictionary, it might be an HL, but cannot be a nonce word. If it is -not- in the dictionary, it's a nonce word and cannot be an HL. (assuming a complete dictionary)

@Robusto Lewis Carroll is full of hapax prolegomena

Cerberus

@Mitch Why can't a word that "was never ever used before" be in a dictionary?

Mitch

exactly. that's what makes it a nonce word. it hasn't ever been in a dictionary.

I spent an hour this morning trying to come up with a regular expression that would answer this question:

2

Q: Which is higher? hyper,ultra or super?

According to OED, Prefix hyper has meaning over, beyond, over much, above measure Prefix ultra has meaning beyond Prefix super has meaning over, above, higher than They all have meaning higher than, but what is the order of them? That is, which one is the highest? Which one is m...

meaning

Cerberus

@Mitch I don't get it.

Mitch

2:14 AM

but then it was closed before I could figure it out.

Cerberus

If a word was never used before, how does that prevent it from being in a dictionary?

Mitch

HL = in dictionary, used once in a work.
nonce = not in the dictionary, made up by the author, never expected to be used again.

Cerberus

So your definition of a nonce word includes that it is not in a dictionary?

Mitch

Lewis Carroll's goofy portmanteau words were all nonce creations, but somehow people started repeating them. I expect it to be brillig tomorrow morning.

Cerberus

I still think your distinction depends a bit on ehm transitory factors.

Mitch

2:17 AM

@Cerberus yes. most nonce words never make it to the dictionary. once they make it, it's no longer a nonce word. Cromulent used to be a nonce word.

Cerberus

I would not say the two categories exclude each other.

@Mitch Oh, so that's your criterion, I see.

Mitch

@Cerberus not so ephemeral as transitory, but yes historical factors.

Marthaª

@Cerberus Dictionaries that make up words are generally frowned upon. (Although there was that case of a dictionary adding a made-up word to an electronic version, as a copyright protection measure.)

Mitch

@Cerberus my criteria but shared by the explanations given elsewhere (eg wiki)

Cerberus

@Marthaª Um the dictionary doesn't make up this word, but a certain author.

Mitch

2:19 AM

@Marthaª steganography by ...what was it...

"esquivalience—n. the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities . . . late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, “dodge, slink away.” "

Marthaª

@Cerberus It's the order that matters. If the author just made it up, then, ipso facto, it's not in any dictionary, yet. Thus, it's a nonce word. Once it makes it into the dictionary, it's not a nonce word in anything except its origin.

Mitch

not a word.

That worked both as a response to Martha and to summarize my statement

Cerberus

@Marthaª Well, the OED has entries that it calls nonce words...

Mitch

@Cerberus !! really? examples?

Cerberus

@Mitch Right, I remember that one.

Mitch

2:22 AM

Half of OED is made up.

Cerberus

@Mitch I don't remember, alas. But I have seen it.

Mitch

sorry, no, just obscure to the point that it might as well be made up.

Cerberus

Yes.

Marthaª

@Cerberus Perhaps as a form of metonymy? Identifying a word with its origin?

Cerberus

@Marthaª Umm that's not metonymy: it just describes the word as a nonce word.

That merely means that the OED thinks it never gained currency and that the author didn't mean it very seriously, I would say.

Marthaª

2:24 AM

@Cerberus I mean, they're using "nonce word" as a kind of shorthand to mean "this is a word that started out as a nonce word".

Robusto

@Marthaª Not it at all, really. metonym a word, name, or expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated. For example, Washington is a metonym for the federal government of the US.

Cerberus

Robusto

"Open the door in the name of the Crown!" Another example of metonymy.

Cerberus

@Marthaª Hmm not exactly: they mean it is still not and was never used, and it was not meant to be.

Marthaª

@Cerberus If a word never gained currency, it shouldn't be in a dictionary, don't you think?

Cerberus

2:26 AM

@Marthaª Well, I don't know.

If it is old, and in the work of a well-known author...

But I agree that the OED partly means by nonce word to describe its original usage.

Marthaª

@Cerberus That looks to me like exactly what I was saying: the origin of the word is as a nonce word. That's what the stuff in square brackets usually is, innit?

Cerberus

I don't feel it is right to try and pin down the precise meanings of these terms. A hapax legomenon can also mean different things in different contexts.

@Marthaª Well, what if it was never ever used except in the quotation given? That is possible. Or at least not used in any available sources. And meant to be used once.

Marthaª

I don't know if I've encountered "hapax legomenon" before.

Mitch

@Cerberus Yes, that's probably it. I just searched the OED and it has 4K instance of nonce-wd, so it is essentially recording that a string of letters occurred and gives only one quote (because that's all it could ever find).

now a mahnax legomenon

Cerberus

There you have several quotations.

@Mitch Haha yes!

Mitch

2:32 AM

OK.

Mahnax

@Mitch ears perk up

Cerberus

In summary, I don't think most people would use the term with such a sharply defined meaning.

Mitch

Then don't quarrel with me about it, just check what the OED says for 'nonce' and 'hapax'. They're not my words.

Cerberus

And I don't think hapax legomenon and nonce word can't overlap. I think they can, and/but that we often simply don't know.

@Mitch gasp Look at a reputable reference work before spewing my own theories?? What are you, mad?

6

Mitch

@Cerberus I agree with that because they are both wordy obscure words about words that word-mongers would have played with. We have just done so, so now it is our duty to continue the tradition and pedantically point out improper usage of 'nonce' or 'HL' next time.

Cerberus

2:34 AM

@Mahnax Hi!

Mahnax

@Cerberus Hi!

Mitch

@Cerberus That was my strategy. Like twins!

Cerberus

@Mitch Hmm somehow this obligation doesn't feel very pressing...

@Mitch You cheated by looking at Wikipedia and the OED! Oops, so did I. Let's forget about it, shall we?

Mitch

@Cerberus Oh, don't shirk your duties so flippantly. It'll come back to haunt you. You'll be on a some game show and hundreds of thousands of dollars will depend on you knowing which is which. Also, you will have to have already jumped into a cesspool to retrieve an autograph of a celebrity. I should write a movie about this.

@Cerberus I looked at WikiOEDia.

What were we trying to forget again?

Now a hapax simchona

I don't know what I'll be able to do if someone else shows up.

Cerberus

@Mitch That sounds like a lovely game show. Now where is that glue so that I may repair the cable I cut...

@Mitch Haha. The next person had better be Nortonn!

Mitch

2:41 AM

so he could be a NoncetonS?

that's too cute.

Cerberus

He may be cute, who knows?

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…