TED2007
Erin McKean: The joy of lexicography
Erin McKean omdefinerer ordbogen
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Er den højtelskede papir-ordbog dømt til at uddø? I denne afsmittende og sprudlende tale, ser den ledende leksikograf Erin McKean på de mange måder vor tids printede ordbog er klar til omskabning.
Erin McKean - Dictionary editor
As the co-founder of Reverb Technologies, the maker of the online dictionary Wordnik, Erin McKean is reshaping how we interact with language itself. Full bio
As the co-founder of Reverb Technologies, the maker of the online dictionary Wordnik, Erin McKean is reshaping how we interact with language itself. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:25
Now, have any of y'all ever looked up this word?
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Er der nogle af jer, der har slået det her ord op?
00:29
You know, in a dictionary? (Laughter) Yeah, that's what I thought.
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Altså, i en ordbog? Ja, det tænkte jeg nok.
00:33
How about this word?
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Hvad med dette ord?
00:35
Here, I'll show it to you.
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Se her:
00:36
Lexicography: the practice of compiling dictionaries.
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Leksikografi: det at beskæftige sig med, at udarbejde ordbøger
00:39
Notice -- we're very specific -- that word "compile."
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Vær opmærksom på, at vi er meget specifikke. Ordet „udarbejde“.
00:42
The dictionary is not carved out of a piece of granite,
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Ordbogen er ikke hugget ud af et stykke granit,
00:45
out of a lump of rock. It's made up of lots of little bits.
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ud af en sten. Den er lavet af små bidder.
00:48
It's little discrete --
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Det er små diskrete
00:49
that's spelled D-I-S-C-R-E-T-E -- bits.
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det staves D-I-S-K-R-E-T-E: bidder.
00:53
And those bits are words.
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Og de bidder er ord.
00:55
Now one of the perks of being a lexicographer --
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Se, én af fordelene ved, at være leksikograf er,
00:59
besides getting to come to TED -- is that you get to say really fun words,
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udover at komme til TED, at du får lov til at sige meget sjove ord,
01:02
like lexicographical.
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såsom „leksikografisk“.
01:05
Lexicographical has this great pattern:
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„Leksikografisk“ har dette gode mønster,
01:07
it's called a double dactyl. And just by saying double dactyl,
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det kaldes dobbeltdaktyl. Bare ved, at sige dobbeltdaktyl,
01:09
I've sent the geek needle all the way into the red. (Laughter) (Applause)
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har jeg givet nørderne store øjne.
01:12
But "lexicographical" is the same pattern as "higgledy-piggledy."
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Men „leksikografisk“ har samme mønster som „hultertilbulter“
01:16
Right? It's a fun word to say,
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det er et sjovt ord at sige
01:18
and I get to say it a lot.
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og jeg får lov til at sige det ofte.
01:21
Now, one of the non-perks of being a lexicographer
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En af ulemperne ved, at være leksikograf er,
01:24
is that people don't usually have a kind of warm, fuzzy, snuggly image of the dictionary.
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folk normalt ikke har et varmt, hyggeligt billede af ordbogen.
01:29
Right? Nobody hugs their dictionaries.
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Ikke? Ingen krammer deres ordbøger.
01:32
But what people really often think about the dictionary is, they think more like this.
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Men hvad folk rigtigt ofte tænker om ordbogen er mere sådan her.
01:39
Just to let you know, I do not have a lexicographical whistle.
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Bare så I ved det; jeg har ikke en leksikografisk fløjte.
01:42
But people think that my job is to let the good words
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Men folk tror, at mit job er, at lade de gode ord
01:44
make that difficult left-hand turn into the dictionary,
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komme i ordbogen
01:47
and keep the bad words out.
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og holde de dårlige ord ude.
01:49
But the thing is, I don't want to be a traffic cop.
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Men sagen er den, at jeg ikke vil være en færdselsbetjent.
01:52
For one thing, I just do not do uniforms.
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For det første gør jeg mig bare ikke i uniformer.
01:56
And for another, deciding what words are good
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For det andet -at skulle afgøre hvilke ord der er gode,
02:00
and what words are bad is actually not very easy.
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og hvilke ord der er dårlige, er faktisk ikke ret nemt.
02:02
And it's not very fun. And when parts of your job are not easy or fun,
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Og det er ikke ret sjovt. Og når dele af dit job ikke er nemme eller sjove,
02:06
you kind of look for an excuse not to do them.
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leder man ligesom efter en undskyldning for ikke at gøre det.
02:09
So if I had to think of some kind of occupation
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Så hvis jeg skulle tænke på en beskæftigelse
02:14
as a metaphor for my work, I would much rather be a fisherman.
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som metafor for mit arbejder, ville jeg meget hellere være en fisker.
02:20
I want to throw my big net into the deep, blue ocean of English
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Jeg vil kaste mit store net ud i det store, blå hav af engelsk
02:23
and see what marvelous creatures I can drag up from the bottom.
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og se hvilke vidunderlige skabninger jeg kan få op fra bunden.
02:27
But why do people want me to direct traffic, when I would much rather go fishing?
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Men hvorfor vil folk have mig til, at dirigere trafik, når jeg meget hellere vil fiske?
02:32
Well, I blame the Queen.
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Jeg giver Dronningen skylden.
02:34
Why do I blame the Queen?
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Hvorfor giver jeg Dronningen skylden?
02:36
Well, first of all, I blame the Queen because it's funny.
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Faktisk, for det første fordi det er sjovt.
02:38
But secondly, I blame the Queen because
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Og for det andet, giver jeg Dronningen skylden, fordi
02:41
dictionaries have really not changed.
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ordbøger har virkelig ikke ændret sig.
02:43
Our idea of what a dictionary is has not changed since her reign.
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Vores forestilling om hvad en ordbog er, har ikke ændret sig siden hendes regeringstid.
02:45
The only thing that Queen Victoria would not be amused by in modern dictionaries
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Det eneste Dronning Victoria ikke ville synes om i moderne ordbøger er,
02:51
is our inclusion of the F-word, which has happened
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at vi har inkluderet F-ordet, hvilket har været
02:54
in American dictionaries since 1965.
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i amerikanske ordbøger siden 1965.
02:56
So, there's this guy, right? Victorian era.
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Så, der er den her fyr. Den Victorianske Era.
02:59
James Murray, first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.
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James Murray, første udgiver af Oxford English Dictionary.
03:01
I do not have that hat. I wish I had that hat.
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Jeg har ikke den hat. Jeg ville ønske, at jeg havde den hat.
03:04
So he's really responsible for a lot of
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Han er virkelig ansvarlig for meget af det,
03:08
what we consider modern in dictionaries today.
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vi betrager som værende moderne ordbøger i dag.
03:10
When a guy who looks like that, in that hat,
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Når en fyr som ser sådan ud -med den hat-
03:13
is the face of modernity, you have a problem.
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er modernitetens ansigt, har man et problem.
03:20
And so, James Murray could get a job on any dictionary today.
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Og James Murray kunne få et job på en hvilken som helst ordbog i dag.
03:22
There'd be virtually no learning curve.
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Der ville reelt set ikke være nogen læringskurve.
03:25
And of course, a few of us are saying: okay, computers!
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Og selvfølgelig siger nogle af os: computere!
03:27
Computers! What about computers?
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Computere! Hvad med computere?
03:29
The thing about computers is, I love computers.
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Det der er med computere -jeg elsker computere.
03:31
I mean, I'm a huge geek, I love computers.
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Jeg er en kæmpe nørd, jeg elsker computere.
03:33
I would go on a hunger strike before I let them take away Google Book Search from me.
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Jeg ville sultestrejke før jeg ville tillade at Google Book Search blev taget fra mig.
03:37
But computers don't do much else other than
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Men computere gør ikke meget mere end,
03:39
speed up the process of compiling dictionaries.
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at gøre udarbejdelsen af ordbøger hurtigere.
03:43
They don't change the end result.
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De ændrer ikke på det endelige resultat.
03:47
Because what a dictionary is,
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Fordi en ordbog er
03:50
is it's Victorian design merged with a little bit of modern propulsion.
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et victoriansk design med en lille smule moderne drivkraft.
03:53
It's steampunk. What we have is an electric velocipede.
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Det er steampunk. Det vi har, er en elektrisk trehjulet cykel.
03:59
You know, we have Victorian design with an engine on it. That's all!
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Vi har victoriansk design med en motor på. Det er alt.
04:02
The design has not changed.
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Designet har ikke ændret sig.
04:05
And OK, what about online dictionaries, right?
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Men okay, hvad med online ordbøger?
04:07
Online dictionaries must be different.
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Online ordbøger må være anderledes.
04:10
This is the Oxford English Dictionary Online, one of the best online dictionaries.
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Det her Oxford English Dictionary Online, en af de bedste online ordbøger.
04:12
This is my favorite word, by the way.
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Det her er iøvrigt mit yndlingsord:
04:13
Erinaceous: pertaining to the hedgehog family; of the nature of a hedgehog.
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Erinaceous: tilhørende pindsvinefamilien; pindsvinets natur.
04:18
Very useful word. So, look at that.
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Meget nyttigt ord! Så, se der..
04:24
Online dictionaries right now are paper thrown up on a screen.
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Nuværende online ordbøger er papir, som er vist på en skærm.
04:26
This is flat. Look how many links there are in the actual entry: two!
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Det er fladt. Se hvor mange links der er i selve registreringen: to!
04:31
Right? Those little buttons,
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Korrekt? De små knapper-
04:33
I had them all expanded except for the date chart.
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Jeg har udvidet dem alle undtagen datobeskrivelsen.
04:36
So there's not very much going on here.
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Så der sker ikke ret meget her.
04:38
There's not a lot of clickiness.
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Der er ikke en masse klik.
04:40
And in fact, online dictionaries replicate
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Og faktisk, gentager online ordbøger
04:43
almost all the problems of print, except for searchability.
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næsten alle problemerne ved print, bortset fra søgemuligheden.
04:46
And when you improve searchability,
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Og når man tilføjer søgemuliged
04:48
you actually take away the one advantage of print, which is serendipity.
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fratages en af fordelene ved print, hvilket er serendipiti.
04:51
Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for,
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Serendipiti er når du finder ting du ikke ledte efter,
04:54
because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult.
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fordi det du leder efter er så skide svært.
04:57
So -- (Laughter) (Applause) -- now, when you think about this,
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Så, når man tænker over det,
05:06
what we have here is a ham butt problem.
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det vi har her er et „skinkeende-problem“
05:09
Does everyone know the ham butt problem?
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Er der nogle der kender til problemet med skinkens ende?
05:11
Woman's making a ham for a big, family dinner.
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En kvinde laver skinke til en stor familiemiddag
05:13
She goes to cut the butt off the ham and throw it away,
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Hun skal til at skære enden af skinken og smide den væk,
05:15
and she looks at this piece of ham and she's like,
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da hun ser på den og tænker
05:16
"This is a perfectly good piece of ham. Why am I throwing this away?"
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„dette stykke fejler ikke noget -hvorfor smider jeg det væk?“
05:18
She thought, "Well, my mom always did this."
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Hun tænkte „det gjorde min mor jo altid“.
05:20
So she calls up mom, and she says,
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Så hun ringer til sin mor og hun spørger
05:21
"Mom, why'd you cut the butt off the ham, when you're making a ham?"
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„Mor, hvorfor skar du enden af skinken, når du lavede skinke?“
05:23
She says, "I don't know, my mom always did it!"
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Hun svarede „det ved jeg ikke; det gjorde min mor altid“.
05:26
So they call grandma, and grandma says,
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Så de ringede til bedstemoren og bedstemoren siger,
05:28
"My pan was too small!" (Laughter)
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„Min gryde var for lille“
05:32
So, it's not that we have good words and bad words.
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Så det er ikke sådan, at vi har gode ord og dårlige ord -
05:36
We have a pan that's too small!
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vi har en gryde der er for lille!
05:39
You know, that ham butt is delicious! There's no reason to throw it away.
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Og den ende er lækker! Der er ingen grund til, at smide den væk.
05:41
The bad words -- see, when people think about a place
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De dårlige ord -se, når folk tænker på et sted
05:44
and they don't find a place on the map,
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og de ikke kan finde det på et kort,
05:46
they think, "This map sucks!"
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tænker de „dette kort er dårligt!“
05:48
When they find a nightspot or a bar, and it's not in the guidebook,
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Når de finder et bar der ikke er i guidebogen,
05:50
they're like, "Ooh, this place must be cool! It's not in the guidebook."
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tænker de „dette sted må være fedt! Det er ikke i guidebogen!“
05:53
When they find a word that's not in the dictionary, they think,
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Når de finder et ord der ikke er i ordbogen, tænker de
05:56
"This must be a bad word." Why? It's more likely to be a bad dictionary.
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„Det her må være en dårlig ordbog“. Hvorfor? Det er nok nærmere end dårlig ordbog.
06:01
Why are you blaming the ham for being too big for the pan?
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Hvorfor får skinken skylden for, at være for stor til gryden?
06:06
So, you can't get a smaller ham.
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Du kan altså ikke få en mindre skinke.
06:09
The English language is as big as it is.
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Det engelsk sprog er så stort som det er.
06:12
So, if you have a ham butt problem,
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Så hvis man har et skinkeendeproblem
06:14
and you're thinking about the ham butt problem,
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og hvis man tænker på dette problem,
06:16
the conclusion that it leads you to is inexorable and counterintuitive:
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må konklusionen være, at ubarmhjertig og kontraintuitivt:
06:21
paper is the enemy of words.
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papir er ords fjende.
06:24
How can this be? I mean, I love books. I really love books.
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Hvordan kan det være? Jeg elsker bøger. Jeg elsker virkelig bøger.
06:28
Some of my best friends are books.
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Nogle af mine bedste venner er bøger.
06:30
But the book is not the best shape for the dictionary.
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Men bogen er bare ikke den bedste form for ordbogen.
06:35
Now they're going to think "Oh, boy.
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Nu tænker folk „Åh nej,
06:37
People are going to take away my beautiful, paper dictionaries?"
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vil de virkelig tage mine smukke papirsordbøger fra mig?"
06:40
No. There will still be paper dictionaries.
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Nej. Der vil stadig være ordbøger af papir.
06:42
When we had cars -- when cars became the dominant mode of transportation,
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Da vi havde biler -da biler blev det dominerende transportmiddel,
06:46
we didn't round up all the horses and shoot them.
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samlede vi ikke alle heste og skød dem.
06:49
You know, there're still going to be paper dictionaries,
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Så der vil stadig være ordbøger af papir,
06:51
but it's not going to be the dominant dictionary.
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men det vil ikke være den dominerende ordbog.
06:54
The book-shaped dictionary is not going to be the only shape
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Ordbogen i bogform vil ikke være den eneste form
06:57
dictionaries come in. And it's not going to be
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ordbøger kommer i. Og det vil ikke være
06:59
the prototype for the shapes dictionaries come in.
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prototypen for de former ordbøger kommer i.
07:03
So, think about it this way: if you've got an artificial constraint,
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Tænk på det på denne måde: hvis du har en kunstig hæmmethed,
07:07
artificial constraints lead to
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kunstig hæmmethed fører til
07:11
arbitrary distinctions and a skewed worldview.
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arbitrære særheder og et skævt verdenssyn.
07:15
What if biologists could only study animals
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Hvad hvis biologer kun kunne studere dyr
07:18
that made people go, "Aww." Right?
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som fik mennesker til at sige „wow“. Er det ikke rigitgt?
07:20
What if we made aesthetic judgments about animals,
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Hvad hvis vi foretog æstetiske vurderinger om dyr,
07:22
and only the ones we thought were cute were the ones that we could study?
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og de eneste vi syntes var søde, var de eneste vi kunne studere?
07:27
We'd know a whole lot about charismatic megafauna,
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Vi ville vide en hel masse om karismatiske megafauner,
07:31
and not very much about much else.
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og ikke ret meget om meget andet.
07:33
And I think this is a problem.
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Og jeg mener, at dette er et problem.
07:35
I think we should study all the words,
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Jeg synes, at vi burde studere alle ordene,
07:37
because when you think about words, you can make beautiful expressions
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for når det kommer til ord, kan man lave smukke udtryk
07:42
from very humble parts.
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fra meget ydmyge dele.
07:46
Lexicography is really more about material science.
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Leksikografi er faktisk mere material videnskab.
07:50
We are studying the tolerances of the materials
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Vi studerer tolerancen af materialerne
07:53
that you use to build the structure of your expression:
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som bruges til at bygge strukturen af dit udtryk:
07:56
your speeches and your writing. And then, often people say to me,
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din tale og din skrift. Og så siger folk ofte til mig,
08:03
"Well, OK, how do I know that this word is real?"
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„Okay, hvordan ved du, at dette ord er rigtigt?"
08:08
They think, "OK, if we think words are the tools
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De tænker, „Okay, hvis vi tænker på ordene som værktøjer
08:15
that we use to build the expressions of our thoughts,
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vi bruger til, at bygge vores tankers udtryk,
08:17
how can you say that screwdrivers are better than hammers?
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hvordan kan man så sige, at skruetrækkere er bedre end hammere?
08:20
How can you say that a sledgehammer is better than a ball-peen hammer?"
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Hvordan man sige, at en forhammer er bedre end en kuglehammer?
08:23
They're just the right tools for the job.
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De tjener hver sit formål."
08:26
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?"
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Og så siger folk til mig „Hvordan ved du, at et ord er rigtigt?“
08:29
You know, anybody who's read a children's book
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Alle der læser en børnebog ved,
08:32
knows that love makes things real.
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at kærlighed gør ting virkelige.
08:36
If you love a word, use it. That makes it real.
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Hvis du elsker et ord -brug det! Det gør det rigtigt.
08:41
Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction.
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At være i ordbogen er en kunstig udmærkelse.
08:44
It doesn't make a word any more real than any other way.
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At stå deri, gør på ingen måde et ord mere rigtigt.
08:47
If you love a word, it becomes real.
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Hvis du elsker et ord, bliver det rigtigt.
08:51
So if we're not worrying about directing traffic,
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Så hvis vi ikke bekymrer os om at dirigere trafik,
08:54
if we've transcended paper, if we are worrying less
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Hvis vi ser ud over papir, hvis vi bekymrer os mindre
08:59
about control and more about description,
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om kontrol og mere om forklaring,
09:03
then we can think of the English language
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så kan vi tænke på det engelske sprog
09:05
as being this beautiful mobile.
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som værende en smuk uro.
09:08
And any time one of those little parts of the mobile changes,
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Og hver gang en af de små ting i uroen ændrer sig,
09:10
is touched, any time you touch a word,
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berøres -hver gang du rører ved et ord,
09:13
you use it in a new context, you give it a new connotation,
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du bruger det i en ny kontekst, du giver det en ny konnotation,
09:15
you verb it, you make the mobile move.
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du gør det til verbum - får du uroen til at bevæge sig.
09:18
You didn't break it. It's just in a new position,
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Du ødelagde den ikke; den er bare i en anden position,
09:22
and that new position can be just as beautiful.
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og den nye position kan være præcist ligeså smuk.
09:25
Now, if you're no longer a traffic cop --
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Så hvis du ikke længere er færdselsbetjent,
09:29
the problem with being a traffic cop is
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problemet ved at være en færdselsbetjent er,
09:31
there can only be so many traffic cops in any one intersection,
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at der kun kan være et vist antal færdselsbetjente i hvert vejkryds,
09:34
or the cars get confused. Right?
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for ellers bliver bilerne forvirrede, ikke?
09:37
But if your goal is no longer to direct the traffic,
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Men hvis målet ikke længere er, at dirigere trafik,
09:40
but maybe to count the cars that go by, then more eyeballs are better.
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men måske at tælle bilerne der kører forbi, så er flere øjne jo bedre.
09:44
You can ask for help!
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Du kan bede om hjælp!
09:46
If you ask for help, you get more done. And we really need help.
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Hvis du beder om hjælp, får du gjort mere.
09:50
Library of Congress: 17 million books,
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Kongressens Bibliotek: 17 millioner bøger.
09:53
of which half are in English.
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Hvoraf halvdelen er på engelsk.
09:56
If only one out of every 10 of those books
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Hvis bare én ud af hver tiende af de bøger
10:00
had a word that's not in the dictionary in it,
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havde et ord i sig, som ikke var i ordbogen,
10:02
that would be equivalent to more than two unabridged dictionaries.
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ville det give mere end to uforkortede ordbøger.
10:05
And I find an un-dictionaried word --
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Og jeg finder et ikke-ordbogsord
10:08
a word like "un-dictionaried," for example --
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-som f.eks. ikke-ordbogsord-
10:10
in almost every book I read. What about newspapers?
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i næsten hver eneste bog jeg læser. Hvad med aviser?
10:15
Newspaper archive goes back to 1759,
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Avisarkivet går tilbage til 1759.
10:20
58.1 million newspaper pages. If only one in 100
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58,1 millioner avissider. Hvis bare én ud af hundrede
10:25
of those pages had an un-dictionaried word on it,
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af de sider havde et ikke-ordbogsord
10:28
it would be an entire other OED.
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ville det kunne blive til en helt ny English Oxford Dictionary.
10:31
That's 500,000 more words. So that's a lot.
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Det er 500.000 flere ord. Så det er.. Det er mange.
10:36
And I'm not even talking about magazines. I'm not talking about blogs --
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Og jeg taler ikke engang om blade, eller blogs på nettet-
10:39
and I find more new words on BoingBoing in a given week
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og jeg finder flere nye ord på BoingBoing på en given uge,
10:41
than I do Newsweek or Time.
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end jeg gør i Newsweek eller Time.
10:43
There's a lot going on there.
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Der sker en masse på nettet.
10:45
And I'm not even talking about polysemy,
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Og jeg taler heller ikke engang om polysemi,
10:47
which is the greedy habit some words have of taking
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som er den grådige vane nogle ord har med,
10:50
more than one meaning for themselves.
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at have mere end én betydning.
10:55
So if you think of the word "set," a set can be a badger's burrow,
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Hvis du ser på ordet „set“ -et „set“ kan være en grævlings hule,
10:59
a set can be one of the pleats in an Elizabethan ruff,
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et „set“ kan være et læg på en elizabethansk krave,
11:02
and there's one numbered definition in the OED.
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og det er en nummereret definition i Oxford English Dictionary.
11:04
The OED has 33 different numbered definitions for set.
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Oxford English Dictionary har 33 forskellige definitioner for ordet „set“.
11:07
Tiny, little word, 33 numbered definitions.
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Lille bitte ord, 33 forskellige definitioner.
11:10
One of them is just labeled "miscellaneous technical senses."
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En af dem er bare beskrevet som „diverse tekniske betydninger“.
11:15
Do you know what that says to me?
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Ved I hvad det siger mig?
11:16
That says to me, it was Friday afternoon and somebody wanted to go down the pub. (Laughter)
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Det fortæller mig, at det var fredag eftermiddag og nogle ville på bar.
11:21
That's a lexicographical cop out,
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Det er leksikografisk undvigen,
11:23
to say, "miscellaneous technical senses."
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at skrive „diverse tekniske betydninger“.
11:25
So, we have all these words, and we really need help!
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Vi har altså alle disse ord, og vi har virkelig brug for hjælp!
11:29
And the thing is, we could ask for help --
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Og sagen er den, at vi kunne bede om hjælp,
11:32
asking for help's not that hard.
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at bede om hjælp er ikke så svært.
11:33
I mean, lexicography is not rocket science.
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Leksikografi er jo ikke ligefrem raketvidenskab.
11:36
See, I just gave you a lot of words and a lot of numbers,
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Se, jeg gav jer lige en masse ord og tal,
11:39
and this is more of a visual explanation.
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og det er egentlig mere end visuel forklaring.
11:41
If we think of the dictionary as being the map of the English language,
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Hvis vi ser ordbogen som værende kortet over det engelske sprog,
11:44
these bright spots are what we know about,
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disse lyse områder er hvad vi kender til
11:46
and the dark spots are where we are in the dark.
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og de mørke områder er hvor vi intet ved.
11:49
If that was the map of all the words in American English, we don't know very much.
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Hvis det var kortet over alle ord i amerikansk-engelsk, ville vi ikke vide ret meget.
11:54
And we don't even know the shape of the language.
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Og vil kender ikke engang sprogets form.
11:57
If this was the dictionary -- if this was the map of American English --
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Hvis dette var ordbogen -hvis dette var kortet over amerikansk-engelsk,
12:00
look, we have a kind of lumpy idea of Florida,
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ville vi jo egentlig bare have en klumpet idé om Florida,
12:03
but there's no California!
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men der er ikke noget Californien.
12:06
We're missing California from American English.
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Vi mangler Californien fra amerikansk-engelsk.
12:09
We just don't know enough, and we don't even know that we're missing California.
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Vi ved simpelthen ikke nok -og vi ved ikke engang at vi mangler Californien.
12:14
We don't even see that there's a gap on the map.
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Vi ser ikke engang at der er et hul i kortet.
12:16
So again, lexicography is not rocket science.
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Så igen, leksikografi er altså ikke raketvidenskab.
12:19
But even if it were, rocket science is being done
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Men selvom det var, udarbejdes raketvidenskab af
12:22
by dedicated amateurs these days. You know?
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dedikerede amatører i disse dage.
12:26
It can't be that hard to find some words!
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Det kan ikke være så svært at finde nogle ord!
12:30
So, enough scientists in other disciplines
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Nok videnskabsmænd i andre fag,
12:33
are really asking people to help, and they're doing a good job of it.
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spørger virkelig folk om hjælp, og de laver et godt stykke arbejde.
12:36
For instance, there's eBird, where amateur birdwatchers
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For eksempel: eBird, som er hvor amatørornitologer
12:38
can upload information about their bird sightings.
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kan uploade information om de fugle de har set.
12:40
And then, ornithologists can go
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Og så kan ornitologer gå ind
12:42
and help track populations, migrations, etc.
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og hjælpe med at beregne antal, migreringer osv.
12:45
And there's this guy, Mike Oates. Mike Oates lives in the U.K.
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Og der er den her fyr, Mike Oates. Han bor i Storbritannien.
12:48
He's a director of an electroplating company.
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Han er chef for et galvaniseringsfirma.
12:52
He's found more than 140 comets.
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Han fandt mere end 140 kometer.
12:55
He's found so many comets, they named a comet after him.
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Han fandt så mange kometer, at man opkaldte én efter ham.
12:58
It's kind of out past Mars. It's a hike.
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Den er lidt væk fra Mars -en vandretur derfra.
12:59
I don't think he's getting his picture taken there anytime soon.
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Jeg tror dog ikke han får taget sit billede deroppe i nærmeste fremtid.
13:01
But he found 140 comets without a telescope.
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Men han fandt 140 kometer uden et teleskop.
13:05
He downloaded data from the NASA SOHO satellite,
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Han downloadede data fra NASA SOHO-satellitterne
13:08
and that's how he found them.
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og sådan fandt han dem.
13:10
If we can find comets without a telescope,
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Hvis vi kan finde kometer uden et teleskop,
13:14
shouldn't we be able to find words?
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burde vi så ikke være i stand til, at finde ord?
13:16
Now, y'all know where I'm going with this.
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I er ved hvor jeg vil hen med det her..
13:18
Because I'm going to the Internet, which is where everybody goes.
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Fordi jeg går på internettet, hvor alle går hen.
13:21
And the Internet is great for collecting words,
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Og internettet er ideelt til, at samle ord,
13:23
because the Internet's full of collectors.
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fordi internettet er fuld af samlere.
13:24
And this is a little-known technological fact about the Internet,
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Og det her er et lille teknologisk faktum om internettet:
13:27
but the Internet is actually made up of words and enthusiasm.
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internettet er faktisk lavet af ord og entusiasme.
13:30
And words and enthusiasm actually happen to be
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Og det forholder sig faktisk sådan, at ord og entusiasme
13:35
the recipe for lexicography. Isn't that great?
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er opskriften på leksikografi. Er det ikke fantastisk?
13:38
So there are a lot of really good word-collecting sites out there right now,
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Så der er mange rigtigt gode ord-samlings-sider på nettet,
13:42
but the problem with some of them is that they're not scientific enough.
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men problemet er, at de ikke er systematiske nok.
13:44
They show the word, but they don't show any context.
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Ordet vises, men uden kontekst:
13:47
Where did it come from? Who said it?
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hvor kom ordet fra? Hvem sagde det?
13:49
What newspaper was it in? What book?
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Hvilken avis var det i? Hvilken bog?
13:51
Because a word is like an archaeological artifact.
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For et ord er faktisk som et arkæologisk artefakt.
13:55
If you don't know the provenance or the source of the artifact,
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Hvis du ikke kender artefaktets oprindelse eller kilde,
13:58
it's not science, it's a pretty thing to look at.
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er det ikke videnskab -det er bare en smuk ting, at kigge på.
14:01
So a word without its source is like a cut flower.
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Så et ord uden en kilde er som en beskåret blomst;
14:04
You know, it's pretty to look at for a while, but then it dies.
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den er pæn at kigge på et stykke tid -men så dør den.
14:08
It dies too fast.
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Den dør for hurtigt.
14:09
So, this whole time I've been saying,
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Læg mærke til, at jeg hele tiden har sagt
14:13
"The dictionary, the dictionary, the dictionary, the dictionary."
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„Ordbogen, ordbogen, ordbogen, ordbogen"
14:15
Not "a dictionary," or "dictionaries." And that's because,
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Ikke „en ordbog“ eller „ordbøger“ -og det er fordi,
14:18
well, people use the dictionary to stand for the whole language.
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at folk bruger ordbogen som værende grundlag for hele sproget.
14:21
They use it synecdochically.
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De bruger den synekdoktisk
14:24
And one of the problems of knowing a word like "synecdochically"
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-og et af problemer ved at kende et ord som „synekdoktisk“ er,
14:27
is that you really want an excuse to say "synecdochically."
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at du virkelig gerne vil have en undskyldning for at sige „synekdoktisk“.
14:30
This whole talk has just been an excuse to get me to the point
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Hele denne tale har egentlig bare været en undskyldning for,
14:32
where I could say "synecdochically" to all of you.
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at jeg kunne sige „synekdoktisk“ til jer alle.
14:34
So I'm really sorry. But when you use a part of something --
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Jeg beklager meget, men når du bruger en del af noget
14:37
like the dictionary is a part of the language,
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-som ordbogen er en del af sproget-
14:39
or a flag stands for the United States, it's a symbol of the country --
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eller at flag symboliserer USA, et symbol på landet-
14:44
then you're using it synecdochically.
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så bruger du det synekdoktisk.
14:48
But the thing is, we could make the dictionary the whole language.
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Men sagen er den, at vi kunne gøre ordbogen til hele sproget.
14:52
If we get a bigger pan, then we can put all the words in.
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Hvis vi får en større gryde, kan vi putte alle ordene deri.
14:56
We can put in all the meanings.
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Vi kan putte alle meningerne deri.
15:00
Doesn't everyone want more meaning in their lives?
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Ønsker alle ikke mere mening i livet?
15:04
And we can make the dictionary not just be a symbol of the language --
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Og vi kan gøre ordbogen til mere end bare et symbol på sproget-
15:08
we can make it be the whole language.
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vi kan gøre den til hele sproget.
15:11
You see, what I'm really hoping for is that my son,
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Hvad jeg virkelig håber på for min søn,
15:13
who turns seven this month -- I want him to barely remember
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som fylder 7 i denne måned -jeg vil gerne have at han dårligt nok
15:16
that this is the form factor that dictionaries used to come in.
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husker at dette er hvordan ordbogen hovedsageligt ser ud.
15:21
This is what dictionaries used to look like.
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Dette er hvordan ordbøger plejede at se ud.
15:23
I want him to think of this kind of dictionary as an eight-track tape.
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Jeg vil have ham til at se denne type ordbøger som et kassettebånd.
15:25
It's a format that died because it wasn't useful enough.
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Det var et format der døde, fordi det ikke var brugbart nok.
15:29
It wasn't really what people needed.
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Det var ikke hvad folk havde brug for.
15:32
And the thing is, if we can put in all the words,
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Og sagen er den, at hvis vi kan putte alle ordene deri,
15:35
no longer have that artificial distinction between good and bad,
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og ikke længere har den kunstige skelnen mellem godt og dårligt,
15:39
we can really describe the language like scientists.
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kan vi virkelig beskrive sproget som videnskabsmænd.
15:42
We can leave the aesthetic judgments to the writers and the speakers.
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Vi kan lade skribenterne og talere om at dømme æstetisk.
15:44
If we can do that, then I can spend all my time fishing,
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Hvis vi kan gøre det, kan jeg bruge al min tid på at fiske
15:48
and I don't have to be a traffic cop anymore.
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og jeg behøver ikke at være færdselsbetjent mere.
15:53
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
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Mange tak for jeres venlige opmærksomhed.
Reviewed by Niels Justus
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Erin McKean - Dictionary editorAs the co-founder of Reverb Technologies, the maker of the online dictionary Wordnik, Erin McKean is reshaping how we interact with language itself.
Why you should listen
Erin McKean's job as a lexicographer involves living in a constant state of research. She searches high and low -- from books to blogs, newspapers to cocktail parties -- for new words, new meanings for old words, or signs that old words have fallen out of use. In June of this year, she involved us all in the search by launching Wordnik, an online dictionary that houses all the traditionally accepted words and definitions, but also asks users to contribute new words and new uses for old words. Wordnik pulls real-time examples of word usage from Twitter, image representations from Flickr along with many more non-traditional, and highly useful, features.
Before Wordnik, McKean was one of the youngest editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary. She continues to serve as the editor of the language quarterly Verbatim ("language and linguistics for the layperson since 1974") and is the author of multiple books, including That's Amore and the entire Weird and Wonderful Words series. All that, and she maintains multiple blogs, too: McKean is the keen observationalist behind A Dress a Day and Dictionary Evangelist. Is there anything she can't do? Surprisingly, she is notoriously bad at Scrabble.
Erin McKean | Speaker | TED.com