IRL reverse dictionary
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… or maybe I should say "associative memory"? Or whatever we should call the emerging modes of interaction with Meta Ray-Bans? Anyhow, here's a recently re-published Girls With Slingshots comic (original in 2008):
The comments include a number of old reference-librarian anecdotes. Of course, web search algorithms have been evolving towards the capabilities illustrated in the comic, as well as towards the heroic feats attributed to reference librarians.
This also reminds me of Michael Ramscar's ideas about the asymmetry between human word-to-concept and concept-to-word memory, which I featured in the discussion of an earlier comic ("Too much information", 1/14/2014), summarizing it like this:
[I]f you probe word knowledge by asking people to go from words to meanings (as in typical vocabulary tests), average performance increases up to age 80, in the absence of dementia; but if you ask people to go from meanings to words (as in picture naming or category listing), average performance declines from the mid-30s on, with the decline accelerating through the 50s, 60s and 70s.
For a properly scientific version of Michael's ideas, see his Oxford Research Encyclopedia article "Psycholinguistics and aging".
[In looking up the term "reverse dictionary", I just learned that it's standard meaning is apparently "a dictionary alphabetized by the reversal of each entry", and what I've always meant by the term should be called a "conceptual dictionary".]
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2024 @ 6:32 am
I don’t understand frame six ("I f***ed up" — "Any of these, but they have to be white or yellow") — can anyone help me out, please ?
Jenny Chu said,
July 13, 2024 @ 6:46 am
@Philip Taylor The customer has offended his spouse or partner in some way and wants to buy flowers for them but doesn't know which ones. The florist, an expert, instantly divines his intentions and makes a suitable recommendation.
Philip Taylor said,
July 13, 2024 @ 8:22 am
Ah, I see, thank you Jenny. So in the language of flowers, white or yellow are the colours of apology ?
Mark Liberman said,
July 13, 2024 @ 9:15 am
@Philip Taylor: "So in the language of flowers, white or yellow are the colours of apology ?"
So says FTD, more or less…
ROBERT Q PARKS said,
July 13, 2024 @ 11:49 am
I'm a bit skeptical of Wikipedia's assertion that "reverse dictionary" should be used exclusively to refer to works that list words spelled backwards. As the bibliography in the article on "Conceptual Dictionary" shows, most works refer to themselves as "reverses dictionaries. I welcome the suggestion that "conceptual dictionary" may add some clarity. But perhaps actual usage should be respected.
Philip Hand said,
July 13, 2024 @ 2:18 pm
"Performance declines…"
I can believe it. I do much less professional translating than I used to, and when I do a job now, it's amazing how much vocabulary I've forgotten. Usually it's when there's a domain-specific way of saying a particular thing, and I haven't worked in that domain for a while, so it's just been overwritten by other words for the same concept.
Viseguy said,
July 13, 2024 @ 7:23 pm
@Philip Taylor: Your question reminded me how, years ago, I was getting home from work at 8 or 9 in the evening and suddenly remembered that it was Valentine's Day. Luckily, there was a nearby Key Food that was open until 10, so I popped in and picked up a bunch of roses for, like, ten bucks. On my way home, a group of guys razzed me about the flowers I was holding, but I had a ready retort: "These flowers are going to save my a**."
Viseguy said,
July 13, 2024 @ 8:28 pm
I also remember the days when you could use your rotary phone to call the reference desk at the New York Public Library and ask just about any factual question and get an answer in short order. I assume that Google et al. killed this service long ago but don't really know.
Jenny Chu said,
July 13, 2024 @ 8:59 pm
@Viseguy – I remember being at the office one evening of February 14, chatting with colleagues about what we were going to do for Valentine's Day. One young man who was passing by our work area turned pale, said, "It's Valentine's Day?" grabbed his things, and dashed out of the office. I'm pretty sure he was on his way to our local equivalent of Key Food to buy the $10 roses.
From a linguistics point of view, that is making me think about a "dictionary of equivalent shops" – if I look in the thesaurus for equivalents of "Key Food" what names might I find? Acme? Food Lion? Kroger? What's the equivalent in Iowa or Florida of a Sheetz in Pennsylvania – and in France, do they shrug their shoulders and say, "We have no word for that!"
JPL said,
July 14, 2024 @ 2:12 am
@Jenny Chu:
With respect to what are the words in a thesaurus entry equivalent? You can't answer that question with another word; you have to say what it is. (Or describe what it is; it can't be a definition.) (It's probably a much easier question with the shops. Likewise with the differences among them (e.g., between a supermarket and a flower shop; what does the one you're looking for have that the other one doesn't?).) It's funny that we can't even know what our own thoughts are unless we use a category from the common language. Now I have to go and read Wittgenstein again.
KevinM said,
July 14, 2024 @ 11:00 am
There is a thriving "uh-oh, forgot" trade in flowers on 2/14. Experience teaches that supermarket flowers seem to be recognizable somehow. They are, however, marginally preferable to gas station flowers.
mg said,
July 14, 2024 @ 12:01 pm
That skill is called word finding and I've definitely noticed more problems with it now that I'm in my mid-60s. Very frustrating at times, especially when I'm in a work meeting and struggling to recall a very common technical term.
Viseguy said,
July 14, 2024 @ 7:07 pm
@KevinM: "Experience teaches that supermarket flowers seem to be recognizable somehow."
Not by candlelight, though. When you're in the know, you make a point of setting the mood before proffering the bouquet. (Never heard of gas station flowers, but will investigate. If the price is right, one can always douse a candle or two.)
stephen said,
July 14, 2024 @ 9:35 pm
Sometimes I can't think of a term, and as soon as I ask somebody, "what's the word for…" then *that* is when I suddenly remember the word.
Julian said,
July 15, 2024 @ 12:52 am
Scene: a blackboard concert under a marquee at a small folk festival.
An old guy is strumming his guitar and singing quite sweetly.
He also has a good recognition humour patter.
He describes a conversation with his wife.
Wife: "where do we keep the… Where do we keep the …. You know – the things we put letters in?"
Old guy: "You mean the envelopes, silly!"
"Yes, the envelopes! Where do we keep the envelopes?"
"You know where we keep the envelopes! They're in the …. They're in the …. That piece of furniture with the drawers in the hall!"