Comments by esperluette

  • John, I'm pretty sure I *completely* buried the Statue of Liberty in the sand.

    November 10, 2009

  • Hey folks! John's up to his eyeballs working on making all the Wordie goodness fit into Wordnik (or actually, more accurately, making Wordnik fit around Wordie goodness), so I thought I'd jump in ... we should be able to edit comments soon (so oroboros, if there's an idiot around here, it's not you ...) and we're working the capitalization thing as well, so that we can distinguish well between Turkey and turkey, Polish and polish, and so forth. That's been a long-term goal.

    More (very) soon!

    November 7, 2009

  • Yes, gangerh, we do. It's a very simple algorithm, to wit:

    "Is it on Wordie? Then COOL = YES."

    September 13, 2009

  • We're *definitely* bringing over all the cool lists, tags, comments, etc. that Wordies have created. It'd be a crime not to!

    (Actually, a couple of us Wordniks were talking the other day about how to make some lists for some editorial tasks we want to do, and after going back and forth for a minute with various inconvenient suggestions, we just looked at each other and said "Make 'em at Wordie!")

    September 13, 2009

  • Aw, thanks you guys!

    September 11, 2009

  • Thanks rolig! I think the short answer is -- if it's of interest to speakers of English, it's of interest to Wordnik; numbers, glyphs, ideograms, nonce- and non-English words definitely & absolutely included.

    Will we go out and try to find all the words of all the other languages deliberately, in the same way that we're trying to map all of English? Not just yet ...

    The general idea behind Wordnik is that there's too much arbitrary gatekeeping in dictionaries as it is, and we certainly don't want to add to it. So here's how it works now (and how it will most likely continue to work): you look something up on Wordnik. We show you what we've got. If that's nothing (insert sad face here), feel free to log in and add something (a tag, a note, make it a favorite, etc.). Ta-da! Whatever you just looked up is now a permanent part of Wordnik (unless you do something completely & egregiously offensive, as we do reserve the right to delete outright asshattery).

    (If you're worried that doing this would make a word in some way "officially English", feel free to add appropriate tags, like "Slovene" or "madeupical" or "number" or "Wordies Having Fun", etc. etc.)

    Hope this helps/is reassuring/makes sense ...

    September 11, 2009

  • rolig, *excellent* question about Wordnik & English ... we've started with English, because that's the language we all know best here at Wordnik HQ. But we've already started some tiny steps towards a French version (and I mean TINY, as in, we have partnered with a research group who is exploring the possibility) and we're definitely open to the idea of Wordnik-style sites for other languages.

    We're also open to showing information for words that might "officially" belong to other languages but are often used alongside English words by English speakers -- there is no strict English-citizenship requirement for a word to be included in Wordnik. As long a word is used in a context where we can show something helpful about it, we'll show it.

    I hope this helps!

    September 11, 2009

  • Now *I'm* all verklempt at being mentioned in the same action-figurable category as Nancy Pearl and Gene Wolfe!

    Thanks!

    September 10, 2009

  • Hey guys! This is Erin, for reals. (Ask John, this is really my Wordie account -- I haven't listed many words although all these are sort of mine ...)

    I want to hasten to reassure y'all (I'm Southern, I can use y'all) that we would not have invited John to join Wordnik if we didn't really, really want the Wordies, too, and neither would we have done so if we didn't really want the Wordies to *keep* being Wordies.

    In fact, we would like you to be as Wordie-ish as possible, please. Go ahead, turn the dial marked "Wordie" allll the way to the right. Bring it on. We, for one, welcome our new Wordie ... you get the idea. :-)

    At this point we feel like all the cool kids have rsvp'd "yes" to our party invitation, and so now we have to stock the coolers, hang the piƱata, and tidy up before you come over ... but while we're doing that, feel free to ask me whatever you like: what I can answer I will and what I can't answer off the top of my head I will think about (and consult John about) and get back to you. You can leave a comment here, on my Wordie profile, or just email me at erin at wordnik dot com.

    Most dictionaries are deadly-dull and only accidentally (and infrequently) entertaining. Wordie's not like that, and with your help Wordnik won't be like that, either. If you love words, wouldn't you want their home to be as welcoming as possible? That's what we want for Wordnik.

    So -- you're all invited. BYOW. (Bring your own Wordie-ness.)

    September 10, 2009

  • I like to verb stuff with no vwls.

    September 10, 2009