| A | | | B | | | C | | | D | | | E | | | F | | | G | | | H | | | I | | | J | | | K | | | L | | | M | | | N | | | O | | | P | | | Q | | | R | | | S | | | T | | | U | | | V | | | W | | | X | | | Y | | | Z |
The back button appears as a small yellow triangle pointing to the left. It is on the red horizontal bar between the topic window and the index. The back button is only visible when you are in browse mode. It is identical in appearance to the back button which is sometimes visible in the search window.
Clicking the back button only has any effect if you have looked at more than one entry in the same dictionary. In this case, the back button will take you back to the entry you were last looking at in that dictionary.
screen shot | topThe dictionary panes have two modes: browse and edit. In edit mode you can edit an entry. In browse mode you can browse the dictionary.
screen shot | topSee Linguru Browser.
topThe cancel button appears as a blue trashcan on a yellow dot. It is on the red horizontal bar between the topic window and the index. The cancel button is only visible when you are in edit mode.
If you are in edit mode and you click on the cancel button, you will see a number of red jewels fall into the trashcan, the chest on the save button will close, the save button will become the edit button, and you will leave edit mode without saving any changes. If you do wish to save your changes, you may click on the save button instead.
screen shot | topIf you know an interesting, illustrative, or memorable use of a phrase, you should record this in a citation comment. If the citation comes from a published work, please identify it as well as you are able. Mention the title of the work, its author, and if possible, the date of publication and volume, chapter, or page. Wherever the citation is from, please identify its source. Some examples:
The class field is the field on the dictionary pane below the gloss field and above the forms field. It is labeled on the left by the word class.
For most entries, the class field identifies the grammatical category of the entry's topic. For instance, the class field of the entry for dog would identify dog as a noun; the class field for masticate would identify masticate as a verb; the class field for ugly would identify ugly as an adjective; and so on.
There are two sorts of entries whose class is not a grammatical category: grammar entries and documentation entries. Grammar entries discuss a grammatical point, such as how to use the present tense or the subjunctive mood. Documentation entries discuss the browser itself. Documentation entries are identifiable in the index because their topics are typed in all capital letters.
screen shot | topA comment is a contribution to the comment field of a dictionary entry. Currently, anyone may modify any comment in any entry. Politeness dictates that you should edit only your own comments. In a future release of the Linguru Browser, this will be controlled by the software. You will be able to edit your own comments, but other people's changes to your comments will be treated as suggestions. You will be notified of the suggestions and may accept, reject, or ignore them.
When you enter a comment, please classify it by placing a title in capital letters above it. If possible, use one of the standard comment types. Put your comment with others similar to it.
topThe comment field is the field on the dictionary pane below the definition field and above the status bar. It is labeled on the left by the underlined word cmnt. If you click on this label or you <Alt>-click within the field, the field will expand to cover the forms and definition fields, and these two fields and their labels will disappear.
The comment field is the field in a dictionary entry to which anyone may add comments. It is the catch-all field; the comment field is the field into which information should be put for which there is no specialized field, such as definition, synonyms, gloss, or forms. Information in the comment field should be grouped by comment type.
screen shot | topComments in the dictionary should each have a type: a label identifying roughly what it is a comment on. The standard comment types are,
If you wish to specify more precisely what your comment is about, put a colon after the type name followed a brief description of the topic of your comment in lowercase letters. If you would like another standard type, or if you believe one of the types above is unnecessary, please contact us.
To assign a type to a comment, simply type it above the comment in all capitals. Use of all capital letters makes the types easier to identify. If there is already a comment of the type you wish to create, you may add your comments below this heading. And please sign your comment with your user name. For example,
In a future release of the software, you will be able to sort comments by type. If you are particularly interested in the origin of words, for example, you will be able to have etymological information displayed at the top of the comment field. Until this feature has been implemented, please put your comments with others similar to them.
topA connotation comment concerns a nuance of meaning not mentioned in the definition. In some cases, as with idioms, it is appropriate to include such nuances of meaning as part of the definition. In other cases, it is more appropriate to use the comment field to discuss the connotation. Use your judgment about where the connotation information should go, based on the importance of the connotation in understanding the meaning of the word.
topThe Linguru Browser installed on your computer contains a database of dictionary entries. The contents of this database are automatically updated in the background across the Internet while you use the dictionary. Because the data is on your computer, you can access it quickly, whether or not you are on line. Because it is updated when you are on line, your dictionaries will never be out of date.
The database is completely self-maintaining, and we have worked hard to ensure that you have no particular need to know what it does or how it does it. If you experience a system crash, power failure, or other computer problems, the database will automatically detect any inconsistencies and repair itself by downloading and replacing the damaged sections of the dictionary.
topThe definition field is the field on the dictionary pane below the forms field and above the comment field. It is labeled on the left by the underlined word defin. If you click on this label or you <Alt>-click within the field, the field will expand to cover the forms and comment fields, and these two fields and their labels will disappear.
The definition field is the section of the browser window which contains the main definition or discussion of the topic phrase of an entry. If the entry has a grammatical topic, the definition field will contain a grammatical discussion; if its topic is a word or phrase, it will contain a definition; if it is a documentation entry, it will contain a discussion of the browser itself. For further embellishments, nuances and connotations which the definition field does not cover, one may look in the comment field.
screen shot | topThe Linguru Browser browses two "dictionaries," one Welsh and the other English. Definitions in both dictionaries are in English. Comments in the Welsh dictionary may be in either English or Welsh. We anticipate a time when comments in any Linguru dictionary may be in any language and the user may instruct her browser to ignore comments in any language she does not know. Until that time, unfortunately, English will be the default language of Linguru dictionaries. The exception to this is the gloss field, which provides a short definition of an entry's topic phrase in the other languages of the user's browser.
Dictionary is in scare quotes in the paragraph above because in many ways the Linguru dictionaries are unlike conventional paper dictionaries. Entries in Linguru dictionaries can be more flexible and varied than those found in traditional dictionaries. Ultimately, they will contain whatever information their users find worth including for whatever reason. If the users take an interest in pronunciation, they will include extensive pronunciation notes. If the users take an interest in word history, the dictionaries will have lengthy etymologies. Furthermore, any user can pose a question to the other users and anyone else can answer it. So, while we call the contents of the Linguru Browser a dictionary, they are also similar to a book of word tables, a thesaurus, a language discussion group, and a grammar book. And what it is at any time is not what it has to remain.
topThe dictionary panes are the top panes in the Linguru Browser display. The fields on the dictionary panes show the index of the dictionary and the various fields of an entry in that index. The first dictionary pane, under a tab labeled with a Welsh flag, shows the Welsh-English dictionary. The second, under a U.K. flag, shows the English-Welsh dictionary.
screen shot | topA documentation entry concerns the browser itself rather than the language the dictionary describes. Every documentation entry is identifiable as such by having its topic phrase in all capitals and by having the class documentation in its class field. Every dictionary has a HELP documentation entry, whose principal function is to list the other documentation entries the dictionary contains. General documentation entries can be found in the English dictionary.
topThe edit button appears as a small, padlocked chest on a yellow dot. It is on the red horizontal bar between the topic window and the index. This chest will only appear if you have an Internet connection: you can only edit entries in the dictionaries if your browser is able to send your changes to other users.
If you click on the edit button, the chest will open, becoming the save button, and you will enter edit mode.
screen shot | topUnlike with traditional, printed dictionaries, you may easily suggest improvements and additions to a Linguru dictionary. There are three tasks which constitute editing an entry in a dictionary:
Only the first and second tasks may be performed by users. Deleting entire entries must be done by the moderator.
To add an entry, a user need only type an expression whose entry the dictionary does not contain into the topic field and press the edit button. A blank entry will be displayed for editing. If the user then cancels her changes to this entry, it will be discarded. If she saves it after making changes, the new entry will be added to the dictionary.
One may modify an entry simply by typing in an editable field while in edit mode. In the current version of the software, all fields are editable by all users. In the future, the browser will only allow the user to save changes in fields which they have permission to edit. After typing in changes, the user must save her changes or press the cancel button to discard them.
There is one complication to this description: in order to edit what appears in the forms field, one must edit the irregular forms field. The code one must use in editing the irregular forms field is not difficult, but it is also not completely intuitive. The best explanation of the irregular forms field code can be found in the documentation within the dictionaries themselves. The HELP entry is the best place to begin looking for this information. Or you may request changes to the irregular forms field by making a moderation request.
Linguru does not allow users to delete entries from the dictionary at will; it would be too easy to accidentally delete valid entries. If the moderator discovers spurious entries, however, or they are brought to his attention, he will delete them. To ask the moderator to delete an unneeded or mistakenly created entry, add a moderation comment requesting this to the entry's comment field.
If you click on the edit button, you will leave browse mode and enter edit mode. In this mode, you can edit any field of the entry you are currently viewing. The chest on the edit button will open and the edit button will become the save button. The cancel button will appear. The words Edit mode will appear in small, brown italic letters above the synonyms field. The forms field will appear to split in two vertically, revealing the irregular forms field on the left. The index and the topic window will be greyed out and the index search, forward, and back buttons will disappear, indicating that you can no longer view other entries in that dictionary. And the properties of the mouse and cursor will change: clicking on a word will no longer cause the browser to attempt to find that word in one of the dictionaries; highlighting a phrase or part of a word will no longer sender the browser off in search of that; and you will be able to type, cut, and paste in all of the fields except the forms field.
If you wish to leave edit mode, press either the save button or the cancel button. The first will cause your changes to be saved: remember, you will be changing the dictionary for everyone. The second will cause your changes to be discarded. There is currently no undo action in edit mode. If you have no Internet connection, you cannot enter edit mode. If you lose your connection while in edit mode, you will be ejected from edit mode and your changes will be discarded. Sorry.
screen shot | topAn entry in a Linguru dictionary consists of a topic phrase and all the information associated with that phrase. To look at an entry in the browser, one types the topic phrase into the topic window above the index, selects the topic phrase from the index, types a phrase cross-linked to the entry into the topic window, clicks on a cross-linked word or phrase in some other entry (while not in edit mode), or types in or clicks on a word that the browser's parser associates with the entry. The information associated with the topic phrase is divided into fields which are displayed in the browser window to the right of the index.
topAn etymological comment discusses the origin of the topic phrase of an entry or cognate words -- words with the same origin -- in other languages. For example,
A field is any one of the small "windows" in the browser display containing a particular sort of information.
The following fields appear on the dictionary panes:
a lists of the topics in the dictionary
the word, expression, or grammatical topic discussed in the entry currently displayed
a list of same-language synonyms; words or expressions in the language of the current dictionary which have nearly the same meaning as the current topic
a list of words in the language of the other dictionary which have nearly the same meaning as the current topic phrase
the grammatical category of the topic expression: noun, verb, adjective, etc.
The class field also may contain the words grammar or documentation if the entry concerns a grammatical point or describes the browser itself.
the automatically generated list of forms in which the word can occur
instructions for modifying the forms displayed in the forms field
a definition or discussion of the topic, including example phrases or sentences
observations about the topic going beyond the scope of a simple definition of the word
The find field, also referred to as the topic field, contains the topic of the currently displayed dictionary entry. To look something up, simply type the word, phrase, idiom, or grammatical topic into the find field. You do not need to press <enter>; if the dictionary contains an entry with a topic phrase matching what you have typed, it will be displayed.
If you have typed a topic into the find window and no entry is displayed, press <enter>. The Linguru Browser will then search for the most appropriate entry for the word you typed. It will first try different capitalizations of the phrase -- an initial capitals, all capitals, and all lowercase. It will then search for cross-links explicitly typed into the irregular forms field of another entry. If it finds no explicit links, it uses the morphological parser to find a word in the dictionary of which the word you typed is a form. If the browser cannot find your phrase by any of these methods, it will suggest that you start an entry for it.
screen shot | topThere are four small flags in the browser window, two Welsh and two British. The flags represent the languages Welsh and English, respectively. Two of the flags are on vertical tabs. These represent the two dictionaries. If you click on the tab marked with a Welsh flag, the Welsh-English dictionary will become visible. If you click on the British tab, the English-Welsh dictionary will become visible. The flags to the left of the first two text fields on the right in the browser window mark the language of the words in the field they are adjacent to. The first field is the synonyms field. In the Welsh-English dictionary, there is a Welsh flag next to it; in the English-Welsh dictionary, a British flag. The second field is the gloss field. In the Welsh-English dictionary, there is a British flag next to it; in the English-Welsh dictionary, a Welsh flag.
Not all speakers of English are British (and, to a lesser extent, not all speakers of Welsh are Welsh). We have chosen a British flag to represent the English language for several reasons. For one thing, everyone interested in learning Welsh will understand the symbolism. This would not be the case were we to choose a Jamaican or South African flag, say. Most people would understand an American flag as a symbol of English as well, but since most people who wish to study Welsh are British -- they are in fact Welsh -- the British flag seems to be a more appropriate symbol. Usages, spellings, and pronunciations belonging to a particular dialect of English (e.g., British, English, Scots, American, Mississippian, Jamaican, etc.) should be distinguished as such by contributors.
screen shot | topThe forms field is the field on the dictionary pane below the class field and above the definition field. It is labeled on the left by the underlined word forms. If you click on this label or you <Alt>-click within the field, the field will expand to cover the definition and comment fields, and these two fields and their labels will disappear.
The forms field of a dictionary entry provides all the morphological forms in which the topic word or phrase can occur. The Linguru Browser generates all of these forms from knowledge about the language, the word's root or roots, and the contents of the entry's class and irregular forms fields.
The browser's morphological generator is fairly sophisticated, but it cannot predict irregular word forms. For instance, the generator knows to generate sweets from sweet, but it doesn't know to generate men from man or was from be. If the forms field displays incorrect forms, the problem can most often be solved by editing the irregular forms field. Sometimes the problem is simply that the word has been assigned the wrong class.
screen shot | topThe forward button appears as a small yellow triangle pointing to the right. It is on the red horizontal bar between the topic window and the index. The forward button is only visible when you are in browse mode. It is identical in appearance to the forward button which is sometimes visible in the search window.
Clicking the forward button only has any effect if the last thing you did in the dictionary was click on the back button. In this case, the forward button will take you back to the entry you were last looking at in that dictionary.
screen shot | topA generator, as Linguru uses the term, is a piece of software produces the many forms of words or phrases in a human language. If told that can is a verb, it will produce the form canning, among others, and tell you that canning is the present participle of can. The Linguru Welsh-English dictionary has a generator for Welsh; the English-Welsh dictionary has a generator for English. These generators generate forms for an entry from the topic phrase, the information in the class field, and anything typed in the irregular forms field. Currently, the Linguru generator can only generate the forms of words and a few simple phrases.
topThe gloss field contains a list of glosses of the topic expression of the entry in the second language of the dictionary. The gloss field is below the synonyms field and above the class field on the right side of the browser window. The gloss field is labeled by a flag to its left. If you are looking at the English-Welsh dictionary, the gloss field will be preceded by the Welsh flag. If you are looking at the Welsh-English dictionary, the gloss field will be preceded by the U.K. flag.
A gloss, as the term is used in the Linguru dictionaries, is a short definition, usually a single word. For instance, dyn means "man," so the gloss field of the Welsh entry for dyn in the Welsh-English dictionary contains the English word man. Clicking on one of the items in the list of glosses will take you to the corresponding entry in the dictionary. In this example, clicking on man in the gloss field will take you to the entry for man in the English-Welsh dictionary.
screen shot | topAn idiom is a conventional phrase whose meaning is not derived straightforwardly from the meaning of the words and constructions of which it is composed. For instance, to kick the bucket is to expire, something which has nothing to do with bucket-kicking as we ordinarily conceive of it.
Idioms may be entered and looked up in the dictionary just as ordinary words are. When creating an entry for an idiom, you should list the word class as "idiom," even if the idiom is a verb, noun, or adjective. Otherwise, the Browser will generate forms for the idiom, and many idioms can only be used in one form.
topThe index field contains a list of all of the topics currently in the dictionary. To study an entry, you can simply select its topic phrase from the index. Alternatively, you can type its topic into the topic window. As you type, the index will scroll to show those topics beginning with the letters you have already typed in. As soon as the letters you have typed in match a topic in the index, its entry will be displayed in the fields to the right.
If you are not interested in a particular entry but wish only to browse the dictionary, you can select a topic in the index and use the arrow keys or the "Page Up" and "Page Down" keys to move from topic to topic.
screen shot | topThe information in the irregular forms field tells the browser how to modify the information displayed in the forms field. The irregular forms field differs from the other fields in the browser window in two ways. 1) It is only visible in edit mode -- it appears to the left of the forms field, below the class field, and above the definition field. 2) The information put into it must be written in a specialized code. For most purposes, this code is simple: most lines consist of a form, a colon, a description of the place in the forms field where the form belongs, a hyphen, and an instruction for what to do with the form. For example,
In a later release of the software, there will no longer be an
irregular forms field. Instead, the forms field will be edited
graphically. When we are able, we will put a tutorial up on this
site explaining how to edit the irregular forms field. In the
meantime, one can get information either from the FORMS
entries in the dictionaries or by finding an entry with irregular
forms (search for ir(*)), going into edit mode, and
studying how its irregular forms field was modified. In the Welsh
dictionary, bod is an entry whose irregular forms field has
been thoroughly modified. In the English dictionary, try
be.
A very cool company which happens to employ the writer of this description ;-). Linguru was founded in the year 2000 to foment a revolution in the teaching of language. Our means to this end is the Linguru Browser.
The name, pronounced "ling-GOO-roo," is derived from the phrase "Linguistic guru." You are the guru, the master of language. We provide the tools for you to teach yourself and others.
topThe software provided by Linguru for browsing a Linguru dictionary, obtaining automatic updates to the dictionary from the Web, and submitting suggested changes to the dictionary. A more detailed description is available in the products section of the web site.
topSee dictionary.
A Linguru Server is a piece of software running on a computer to which a Linguru Browser automatically connects to receive and send updates to a Linguru dictionary.
There may be more than one Linguru Server. The master servers are maintained by Linguru. Below these there may be other servers in a hierarchy of indeterminate depth. The main servers send updates to and receive them from servers subordinate to them. These servers in turn send updates to and receive them from still more subordinate servers, and so on, down to whichever server serves a particular user's browser. Because the entire hierarchy of servers is subordinate to the master servers at Linguru, every user will ultimately receive a piece of information submitted to the dictionary by any other user. Because communication between the browsers and the servers is fast and efficient, it is possible to create a network of servers for a very large number of users to simultaneously work in the same Linguru dictionary.
Organizations may purchase a license for a server to handle a certain number of clients. These clients -- students in a school, say, or employees in a company -- can then obtain Linguru's services paying a subscription fee. Their browsers will connect to the organization's server, which will in turn connect to Linguru's main server. For more information, contact us.
topIf you wish to add a comment to an entry but none of the established comment types is appropriate, the appropriate type is probably 'MISCELLANEOUS'. Type 'MISCELLANEOUS' above your comment and comment away. Still better, type 'MISCELLANEOUS', a colon, and then in lowercase characters type a brief description of the topic of your comment. For example,
MISCELLANEOUS: observation
Just as those who are truly beautiful can wear a potato sack and
make it look classy, those who are truly nasty can take a lovely
bit of language and turn it like last year's milk. I once heard a
woman use this fresh, sweet, delicious phrase in a tone of voice
that made it into moldy cottage cheese. -PJM
Any user that has heard or thought of a good way to remember information about a word can share it with other users by typing it in the entry's comment field under the heading 'MNEMONIC'. For example,
MNEMONIC: spelling
'Separate' is commonly misspelled with an 'e' in place of the
first 'a'. Remember: spell 'separate' with two 'a's SEPARATED by an
'r'. - HMS
Though to our knowledge all who have contributed to our dictionaries have done so with the best intentions, they do not always do so with the best attention to detail. In some cases they are unclear. In others they are simply mistaken. If another user finds such a flawed entry, she can create a comment noting the flaw in the entry's comment field under the heading 'MODERATION'. The moderator will search for such comments and respond to them as appropriate. Among the things that require the moderator's attention are: spurious entries that should be deleted, undocumented features of the software, unreported bugs, and modifications to an entry which the user does not have the expertise to perform. Some examples:
MODERATION: delete
- DFH
MODERATION: suggestion
I don't understand sense 3. It would be great if someone provided
examples illustrating this use.
- DFH
The moderator of a Linguru dictionary is an employee or a group of employees of Linguru whose job it is to make sure everything is running smoothly in that dictionary. They delete spurious entries. They add comments to help learners absorb information. They are the arbiters of last resort should an argument arise among the users. The moderators may also impose restrictions on users who persistently act in such a way as to threaten the quality of the dictionary or its enjoyment by other users. Everyone is happiest if the moderators have nothing to do.
Currently, the moderator of the Welsh-English and English-Welsh dictionaries is David Houghton. Many of his additions to the dictionary are tagged with his user name, 'DFH'.
topThe morphological generator is the generator in the browser that generates forms for a word. In its current release, the browser's only generators are morphological generators. In future releases, we plan to add generators for phrases as well. The forms generated by the morphological generator are displayed in the forms field.
topThe morphological parser understands Welsh morphology so the user of the dictionary doesn't have to. The parser will tell the dictionary to look up prynu if the user types in or clicks on phrynodd; gwastraff if she types or clicks on wastraff. The parser itself doesn't know that prynu and gwastraff are words in Welsh, but it knows that these might be where to look in a Welsh dictionary for the meaning of phrynodd and wastraff.
If the dictionary doesn't contain a word in any of its forms, you can still see what might be the citation form of the word. All of the parser's educated guesses are displayed on the morphology pane.
The Welsh morphological parser is not perfect, and the Browser has no English parser. Both of these situations should improve. We are in the process of redesigning our parsers and generators.
topAs linguists use the term, morphology is, in essence, the study of the meaningful parts of words and how they are put together. The word running contains two morphemes, a root {run} and a suffix {-ing} ('{x}' is standard linguistic notation for "morpheme x"). These two morphemes are put together to create a word like this:
In order to speak a language, you must know the morphology of its words. When you learn the verb obfuscate, you must know how to form obfuscated to use this verb in the past tense. When you learn the noun wart hog you must know how to form the plural wart hogs by adding the morpheme {-s}. For conventional dictionaries, you have to know the morphology of the language they describe simply to look words up. If you wish to find the meaning of obfuscated you must know to look up obfuscate. This is not too great a stumbling block if the language is English. It is much more difficult for languages such as Welsh. To look up nhad, "my father" or "Dad," one must look under tad, "father". Tad is in the t's, nowhere near where one would look for nhad. To simplify the search, the Linguru Browser has a parser which knows the morphology of Welsh. If you type the word into the find field and press <return>, if there is an entry for the word the parser will almost always find it (the current parser has trouble with verbs whose root ends in a vowel, such as parhau and caniatáu).
topThe morphology pane of the browser appears if you click on the tab labeled 'morphology'. On it are displayed the results of the morphological parser's attempt to understand the word it was most recently asked to analyze. You can study this information to learn how Welsh words are put together.
The parser currently being used is due to be replaced, so its output has not been fully debugged. It is fairly good at finding the right entry given a word, but its description for the relationship between the word entered and the entry returned is not always accurate.
screen shot | topThe information displayed by the Linguru Browser consists of several panes on each of which there may be a number of fields. Each pane appears as an index card with a labeled tab attached to its top left corner. The browser display has four panes:
A parser, as Linguru uses the term, is a piece of software that analyzes human language. It can take a phrase and tell you what other phrases it is related to and how. Currently, Linguru's parser can only parse the morphology of Welsh words. The next edition of the parser will be able to parse the morphology of any word Linguru's generator will be able to generate: the parser and the generator will be different aspects of the same piece of software. Eventually, the parser will be able to understand the structure of phrases, not just that of words.
See 'morphological parser'.
topA pronunciation comment describes how to pronounce the topic phrase of the entry. Something to bear in mind when discussing the pronunciation of words is that not all users of the dictionary will have, or even know, your accent. Words such as beer, out, and right are pronounced very differently in different parts of the English-speaking world, so it isn't as enlightening as one would wish to say reit is pronounced like right.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a standard notation for pronunciation used by many dictionaries. A future version of the Linguru Browser will provide facilities for the user to describe the pronunciation of words using the IPA. One may also use miscellaneous comparisons -- "cwn sounds roughly like the Scots pronunciation of cow with an 'n' tagging along at the end." The more specific one is in one's description, the better.
topIf you have a question regarding an entry, type it in the comment field under the heading QUESTION. If you
see a question someone else has asked and you know the answer, you
can type the answer in under the original question. Better still,
you can edit the entry's definition and other
non-commentary fields so that
others will not think to ask this question.
If you want to make sure your question is answered soon, labeled
it MODERATION instead. The moderator will answer it.
RELATED WORDS is a classification of comment which includes a list of words related to
the topic of an entry. Included with the list are
comments on how these words or idioms relate to the entry.
Note that related words comments are just one of four methods of indicating a relationship between the topic phrase of an entry and other words. If the word to be related is a synonym of the topic phrase, it should be typed into the synonyms field. The forms field is capable of displaying words otherwise related to the topic word. For instance, if you type
into the irregular forms field of the apple entry, when you save your change the words
will appear in the forms field at the top. Using this method to associate related words to a topic is preferable to using a related words comment because it creates a link between the related words and the topic phrase. In the example above, you could type braeburn into the find field of the browser and it would send you to the entry for apple. Putting related words in the forms field also puts them in a place where they are likely to be seen when someone visits the entry. Related words comments may be used when the related word is related in an odd way or the commenter does not wish to tinker with the irregular forms. The following relations may be entered into the irregular forms field:
:sub-add. This means
"add the form xxx as a subordinate category of the topic
phrase." See above for an example.:sup-add. This means
"add the form xxx as a superordinate category of the topic
phrase." For example,
:ant-add. This means
"add the form xxx as an antonym of the topic phrase." For
example,
:hom-add. This means
"add the form xxx as a homonym of the topic phrase." For
example,
:sam-add. This means
"add the form xxx as a word in the same conceptual category
as the topic phrase." For example,
:der-add. This means
"add the form xxx as a word derivationally related to the
topic phrase." For example,
Words related to the topic historically or in another language should be provided in an etymological comment.
topA user may reply to another user's comment. To mark her comment as a reply, the second user should put it under the heading 'REPLY'. For example,
REPLY
'Haulm' is in fact an English word, so I have not deleted this
entry. - the moderator
The save button appears as a small, open chest on a yellow dot. It is on the red horizontal bar between the topic window and the index. This chest will only appear if you have an Internet connection: you can only edit entries in the dictionaries if your browser is able to send your changes to other users.
If you click on the save button, your changes to the entry will be saved and sent to every other user of the Linguru Browser, a number of red jewels will appear to be thrown into the chest, and the chest will close, becoming the edit button, the cancel button will disappear, the search, forward, and back buttons will reappear, and you will leave edit mode.
screen shot | topThe search button appears as a magnifying glass on a yellow dot. It is on the red horizontal bar between the topic window and the index. The search button disappears when you enter edit mode: you cannot visit other entries in the dictionary until you have saved or discarded any changes to the one you have begun to edit.
If you click on the search button, the search window will appear.
screen shot | topThe Linguru Browser uses a search engine to search for entries in its dictionaries. The user types a search request into the search field of the search window and presses return or the button labeled search, and the search engine searches the dictionaries and displays in the search window the topic expressions of the entries which match the search request.
Search requests submitted to the Linguru Browser's search engine can have essentially the same form as search requests submitted to a search engine for the web. If you type in 'apple orange', the search engine will look for entries that contain either the word apple or the word orange. If you type in 'apple AND orange', it will look for entries that contain both words. If you type in '"apple orange"', it will look for entries containing the phrase apple orange. If you type in 'apple -orange', it will look for entries which contain apple but which do not contain orange. The search engine also understands parentheses, so it will understand 'apple AND (orange pomegranate)' as a request for entries containing apple and either orange or pomegranate or both. The engine understands '*' and '?' to be wildcard symbols. The first stands for zero or more of any character: 'a*b' matches ab, arab, ahab, aplomb, and so forth. '?' stands for a single character of any sort: 'a??b' matches arab and ahab, but not ab or aplomb.
The browser's search engine also has certain enhancements to facilitate looking for particular words in any form or for particular subclasses of words. The most important of these is that the engine understands so-called "regular expressions" written in the regular expression syntax of the programming language Perl. If told to search for '/^a.*b$/', it will recognize by the first and last characters that this is meant to be a regular expression. From the rest it will know to search for entries with fields beginning with the letter a and ending with the letter b. For instance, this pattern would match the topic field of the entries for arab and aplomb. Regular expression searches can be combined with other searches: '/^a.*b$/ +orange' would match entries having a field beginning with a and ending with b and containing somewhere within them the word orange. Regular expression searches and the other devices understood by the search engine (and how to use them to find what you want) are described in greater detail in the tutorial on searching the Linguru dictionaries.
topThe search window gives a user of the Linguru Browser access to its search engine. The user can open the search window when the browser is in edit mode by clicking on the search button or selecting the search option from the view menu.
The search window is a separate item on the user's desktop. It can be iconified, minimized, and maximized independently of the browser. More importantly, it will stay open to the same search results while the user switches back and forth between the different panes of the browser and from entry to entry in a dictionary.
screen shot | topAt the bottom of the Linguru Browser's display is a dark brown horizontal space. This space contains a field in which white words sometimes appear. At the left end of this space is a spindle-shaped icon. Next to these is a yellow legal pad icon. At the end of the horizontal space, a blue can sometimes appears, which is then crushed by a green foot.
This horizontal space is called the status bar. The white, italicized words are status messages. They describe the status of one of the dictionaries -- what the browser is doing with it or what it has just done. A running list of these messages is kept on the status pane. The spindle indicates the status of the browser's connection to the Linguru Server. If the central dot in the spindle is bright, the browser has a connection. If the triangle pointing upward is bright, the browser is currently uploading information to the server. If the triangle pointing down is bright, the dictionary is downloading information from the server. The yellow legal pad indicates whether the dictionaries are currently being scanned for errors. If they are, a small red pencil will appear and begin to write corrections on the pad. The blue can and green foot appear when the Browser is compressing the dictionaries.
screen shot | topThe status pane is the pane under the 'Status' tab. It holds a list of all the messages displayed on the status bar at the bottom of the browser window. There is one button, labeled 'Update history', on the status pane and one field. On this pane you will find all the status messages listed on the status bar up to the last time you pressed the button. If you press the button, more recent messages will be added to the list.
screen shot | topSee Linguru Server.
topThe synonyms field is the field on the dictionary pane to the right of the topic field and above the gloss field. It is labeled on the left by a flag: the Welsh flag in the Welsh-English dictionary; the British flag in the English-Welsh dictionary.
The synonyms field is like a thesaurus. It displays other words or phrases in the language of the topic phrase which have the same meaning as the topic. One may click on phrases in the synonyms field to go to the entries for those phrases.
The synonyms, gloss, and class fields together provide a quick, concise definition of the topic phrase. For more detailed information, one can consult the forms, definition, and comment fields.
screen shot | topEvery pane in the Linguru Browser display has what appears to be a small rectangular tab attached to its top edge on the left side. You can click on a pane's tab to make that pane visible and obscure the other panes.
topThe topic of an entry is the word the entry defines or the grammatical construction or concept which the entry discusses. For instance, an entry might have dog as its topic, and in the other fields it would define what in English is referred to as a dog; or it might have the present perfect as its topic -- the "tense" of have eaten as opposed to ate, say, or eat -- and in the other fields it would define when one uses the present perfect verb form and what meaning this form conveys.
All the topics in a dictionary are listed in its index.
topAny comment which is notable principally because it is of only specialist interest may be given the label TRIVIA. Most trivia comments currently in the dictionaries contain information principally of interest to linguists.
topUSAGE, or USAGE NOTE is one of the comment types an author may attach to his comment. A usage comment
discusses the context in which a word is used. For instance, a
usage comment on the English word grody might say,
A user of a Linguru dictionary is anyone browsing the dictionary with a Linguru Browser.
All users must first register with Linguru to get a user name. Users can comment on entries and edit the contents of the dictionary. Linguru keeps internal logs to track which user has made each change to the dictionary, and can undo inappropriate additions.
topA user name is the name with which a user tags her comments and changes to the dictionary. The user may choose her own user name, but it must be unique.
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