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Why were the first encyclopedias called dictionaries while today they are not?

Title page from the 1st edition.

Why were the first encyclopedias called dictionaries while today they are not?

and 2 --Oliver s. 13:46, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

See Encyclopedia#Characteristics, and the subsequent sections. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Notability

Hi.

I saw This: "Biography articles should only be given for people with some sort of achievement." They do not necessarily need to have some sort of "achievement", then need to be "notable", which does not mean the same thing. See the page WP:N. 170.215.83.4 01:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, so do I really not understand WINAD, then?

I found another entry that, to me, seems to belong in an etymological dictionary: Almighty dollar. It's an entry about a phrase, not a concept. I understand WINAD to be saying that entries should be about concepts (of course including specific people, places, or things), but not words except for relatively rare intstances where the itself is a concept. Just documenting every literary turn of phrase, every clever adjective + noun, combination, is to my understand contrary to WINAD. But if past experience is any indication, AfDing an article like this is useless because people will come out of the woodwork to testify that it's really useful to have the etymology of this phrase in one handy place. I don't doubt it, but I don't see how an article like this is encyclopedic.

See also my comments above about Freeway/Motorway, Mythical National Championship, etc. Plainly my understanding of WINAD isn't like anyone else's. Can someone explain to me what I'm missing? Can we consider modifying WINAD to say, "Wikipedia is not a dictionary unless the dictionary entries are somewhat long" since that seems to be the established consensus? Cheers, PhilipR 05:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Blue chip also looks very dubious -- like someone figured a dictdef needed to be a bit longer so they let the logorrhea take over. - PhilipR 06:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
• That argument is disproven by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Almighty dollar where the consensus was to delete. Uncle G 14:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• • What is interesting is that Almighty dollar was recreated, and seems to still be a dicionary def. to me. Blueboar 21:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This page requires attention

A few month ago an editor (I vaguely recall that it was Mikkalai.) remarked that this page needed serious attention. Coming to re-read it, it is apparent that it does. It's highly confusing, and simply badly written. There's one sentence in the introduction whose subject is a pronoun with no antecedent, for example. I'm going to try improving it, to clarify the policy and its explanation. From the above discussion it appears that further clarification on the difference between an encyclopaedia and a dictionary is in order, for example. Uncle G 14:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Input on article

Would someone please take a look at the article Jahbulon... By my understanding it should be a perfect example of what this guideline says should not be included in Wikipedia... and yet several AfDs have resulted in "keep" votes, so I am confused. I would like to get someone who is familiar with both the language and the intent of the guideline to explain why WINAD does not apply. Note that there already is a related Wiktionary article. Blueboar 22:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Colour bugs me

Where does this article get off claiming that "color" and "colour" have "very different etymologies?" They are spelling variants, identical in meaning and usage; they are not separate words. One has a Latinized version of the suffix, the other a Norman Frenchified version. That is all. - Smerdis of Tlön 03:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Major problem concerning this policy

This policy forbids articles on wikipedia which are dictionary definitions, even extended definitions including examples, usage, etymology. In other words, it forbids articles about words, and says that instead we should have articles about the topics which the words describe.

The problem with this is that we have many, many articles about words, thousands perhaps. See Category:Ethnic slurs, Category:Profanity, Category:Slang, some of the words in Category:Spanish language as well as in all other language categories, amongst other places. Note that we have at least 10 different articles which pretty much mean "poor (white) rural person", White trash, Hick, Hillbilly, Trailer trash, Yokel, Redneck, Peckerwood, Bogan, Cracker (pejorative), and probably many more. If we're supposed to have articles on topics, rather than on words, why would we have 10 articles on virtually the same topic?

Possible solutions:

• 1. Delete all articles on words. Almost no chance this will happen, we'd have to lose Truthiness, and Nigger (offensive yet highly notable word), and Thou which is a featured article.
• 2. Change this policy to insist on very strong notability of the word in question. Only the most notable words in existence would then qualify for articles.
• 3. Change this policy to insist on strong notability of the word in question. Word must have been the subject of at least one substantial or multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable, or something along those lines.
• 4. Change this policy to insist on at least some level of notability. Word must have some sort of reliable source discussing it at least somewhat. This would at least rule out articles on "yellowishness" and "clumsily".
• 5. Delete this policy. Wikipedia duplicates Wiktionary. (Not bloody likely to happen)
• 6. Change this policy to insist that articles on words consist of more than a definition, examples of usage, and etymology. That way, we start exactly where Wiktionary stops. (Added by Amarkov moo! 02:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC))

I don't offhand even have a particular favorite solution, myself, but I believe we need some sort of policy we can reach consensus on and which matches what we actually do. --Xyzzyplugh 02:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• I would say, as long as a word is the subject of reliable sources (not just quick mentions or blogs/forums) other than just a dictionary, it is acceptable. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 02:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support #5 - I also suspect few will agree with me on this one, but I always felt that Wiktionary and Wikipedia would make for a pretty nifty merge. I often wish we could provide dictionary-esque definitions alongside the etymologies currently found on Wiktionary; of which we often provide a more in-depth history of the etymology here on Wikipedia. Wiktionary just feels like a collection of stubs... So basically, I completely agree with you that WP:NOT#DICT has a lot of violations; but my answer would be to get rid of WP:NOT#DICT; just as whenever I hear someone complain about speeding, my first thought is "raise the speed limit". :) --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 02:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • On the contrary, Wiktionary far more often provides better etymologies than Wikipedia, and is set up to handle separate etymologies for each individual word, which Wikipedia is not. That Wiktionary contains a lot of stub dictionary articles is because the project is huge and (still, even now) barely started. Much of the project is still at the "create a good stub for later expansion" stage. When it has matured, it will dwarf Wikipedia. In the scope of its goals, it is the largest of the Wikimedia Foundation projects. Uncle G 11:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete the policy - Removing stubs that haven't passed the definition stage is akin to "all or nothing reasoning" - "the article isn't done yet so remove it!" That's silly. If we remove stubs, then there's nothing to build onto. So what if they aren't any larger than a dictionary entry. How can they grow if we don't let them? And what kind of message are we sending new users if on one hand we say "the Encyclopedia anyone can edit", and on the other "the encyclopedia anyone can edit as long as you add more material than a definition - small beginnings aren't good enough!". Just my two cents. The Transhumanist   02:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• While I have always thought that it would have been vastly better to have Wikipedia/Wiktionary/Wikisource/Wikibooks/et cetera all in one big wiki which accepts all kinds of content (including the game guides/episode guides/city guides/how to articles and various others which currently get 'shipped off') and has different namespaces and procedures for organizing them... that isn't the case. I also agree that we shouldn't delete stubs which are merely dictionary definitions (which, is the most basic meaning of 'stub' on Wikipedia)... unless there isn't anything notable/encyclopedic about the term and it will never be anything other than dictionary information. I think there is a fairly clear and obvious line between articles which this policy applies to (entries which when fully developed would contain no notable non-dictionary information) and those which it doesn't (entries with extensive cultural/encyclopedic info which would never be found in a dictionary). --CBD 10:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • No, it is not the meaning of stub. The policy explains in detail the difference between a stub encyclopaedia article and a dictionary article, and the fact that we delete dictionary articles (of whatever size) but don't delete stub encyclopaedia articles. Uncle G 11:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Look again. To quote WP:STUB, "To qualify as a stub it must at least define the meaning of the article's title.". So yes, an article which just provides a dictionary definition IS a valid Wikipedia stub... provided that it is on a topic for which more encyclopedic information can (and presumably will) be added. --CBD 15:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
      • You are still confused and still employing the "just a dictionary definition" error of thinking, which this policy clearly explains the error of. You'll understand things better if you rid yourself of the idea of "just dictionary definitions" entirely. It's an entirely wrong way of thinking about things, that leads to erroneous conclusions, such as the "more than a dictionary definition" fallacy that is sometimes erroneously employed. (There are tens of thousands of articles on Wiktionary that are more that dictionary definitions. That doesn't make them encyclopaedia articles.) There are stub encyclopaedia articles and stub dictionary articles, which grow into full encyclopaedia articles and full dictionary articles, respectively. A stub encyclopaedia article is not a dictionary article. Uncle G 17:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• We have a policy that we already have reached consensus on, long since. Your whole argument is based upon an erroneous premise given in your first sentence and which the policy goes to great lengths to explain is erroneous, namely that we delete articles "that are definitions". We don't forbid, and never have forbidden, stub encyclopaedia articles, or articles "that contain just a definition", we forbid dictionary articles. The policy explains the differences between the two.

  And yes, the fact that we have articles whose titles are separate words for "poor white rural person" is a problem. The same was true of Charva (AfD discussion) and Chav, and the two articles were, correctly, merged. You've identifed more merger candidates. The proliferation of such articles, which quickly fill with original research, is a perennial problem, as are Category:Slang and Category:Profanity, which have long been dictionary article magnets (despite the explanation on the former's category page). (Category:Spanish language is for articles about the Spanish language, however.) But it is a problem with the articles, not with the policy. We deal with it by merger; by reining in any attempts to grow thesauruses (and linking to WikiSaurus instead — c.f. Sexual slang); by reining in any attempts to grow mini-dictionaries (and linking to Wiktionary categories instead — c.f. LOL (Internet slang)); by suppressing original research and insisting upon sources; by interwiki links; by using redirects from alternative names, nicknames, and synonyms; and by listing name variations in the lead sections of articles as per the Wikipedia manual of style.

  Your major problem is with the articles that you have identified, not with this policy. It is one shared by a lot of editors. Witness Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shambag, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bogan, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Westies (people), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Easties (people), and many others. Everyone wants their own article for their own local slang name for the same thing, to differentiate it from the slang name used by "those people across the border". That doesn't mean that it is correct to do so, however.

  The correct thing is to have separate articles (if the sources warrant it) for the different concepts, i.e. the different stereotypes within different cultures. For example: A chav is a concept, a stereotype. Whilst it is not a distinct concept from a charva, it is a distinct concept from a bogan, which is a different stereotype.

  If you want to do something about this problematic area, I suggest working on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) to try to make the point there more forcefully that this doesn't mean that one should always use the slang names for things (Our article about penises is not at any of the slang names for penises, for example.) and working on the articles themselves to rein in their dictionary article qualities and ensure that they address the stereotypes, not the words for those stereotypes (which should be handled by linking to Wiktionary, as chav does). Uncle G 11:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I appreciate your lengthy answer, but there's one important point which I believe you didn't address. How are we to determine which articles about words are acceptable, and which aren't? This policy page, from what I can see, merely defines the difference between a dictionary definition and encylopedia article as being that dicdefs are articles about words, including parts of speech, etymology, etc., while encylopedia articles are about subjects. This seems to rule out all articles on words, but I don't believe the policy is intending to forbid Nigger, a word about which vast amounts have been written. Or is it? If some articles about words are acceptable, while some are not, then this policy really needs to do a far better job of explaining which words fall into which categories, because I'm entirely unable to figure out what the policy says on this. --Xyzzyplugh 13:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Don't think in terms of "dicdefs". It's an error that leads to further errors, as I wrote above. What one finds in Wiktionary are dictionary articles, just as what one finds in Wikipedia are encyclopaedia articles. If one looks at a full Wiktionary article one will find that it also doesn't match what people think of as "just a dicdef". Indeed, it will be "more than just a dicdef", demonstrating the error of thinking that that is what makes something suitable for an encyclopaedia rather than a dictionary.

      The problem here is in part one of bad choices for article titles and scopes. This stems from two causes. The first cause is the perennial drive-by editor who "just wants to look up all of the rude words" that xe knows. The second cause is the editor who employes slang names for concepts, for stereotypes, categories, and suchlike, starts an article with "X is a slang name for Y", which then grows for three years to talk about the slang word X instead of about the actual thing Y. One problem with the latter is that, as can be seen by several Wikisaurus entries, there are a quite a lot of things that have an enormous range of slang names, all of which could potentially have an individual "X is a U.S. slang word for Y. It is considered offensive/pejorative. Here are some quotations from film and television showing it in use: A,B,C. Its etymology (lots of references) is E. Other similar slang words are F, G, and H (all wikilinked). Famous person P once used this word." articles. Everything there, apart from the final piece of who-said-what (which is a datum, not knowledge), is dictionary article content.

      Now Wikipedia can have articles about words. numerical prefix is an article about words. It's an article about a whole class of prefixes, which cross-links to the individual dictionary articles on each of the individual prefixes. What it isn't, however, is a dictionary article on an individual numerical prefix. Uncle G 17:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  • One final bit of explanation on this: if someone writes a generally unkeepable article on a topic which turns out to be actually clearly notable, and it gets AfD'd, we don't just delete it, we keep it and clean it up. So if someone writes an article about a word, and all they write is a dicdef, how do we go about determining whether to delete (after transwikiing to wiktionary, perhaps), or whether to keep and clean up? This policy should explain this, and it doesn't.--Xyzzyplugh 14:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Well one thing that it does explain, by pointing out that both Wikipedia and Wiktionary have stages of article development comprising stub articles and full articles, is that we don't use a false "just a dictionary definition/more than a dictionary definition" rule, which is a commonly made error that leads to both the error of keeping articles when they have no content other than dictionary article content but happen to be longer than 1 sentence and the error of deleting articles that are badly written 1 sentence long stub encyclopaedia articles. Another thing that it explains is that deletion isn't the sole tool in the toolbox. Editing, refactoring, and redirecting were the tools that resulted in numerical prefix, for example. Uncle G 17:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• Change the policy to insist on some level of notability. Just simple definitions should not be listed unless they provide some history, usage or information that is otherwise not on Wiktionary. On a side note though, I do agree with CBD that having one big wiki would be better. Think outside the box 12:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Change this policy to insist that articles simply not be dictionary entries. That means there must be more than definition, usage, and etymology. It's hard to meet, but Wiktionary doesn't cover past that. -Amarkov moo! 14:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It also covers quotations, translations, synonyms, antonyms, pronunciations, alternative spellings and orthography, derived and related words, homophones, rhymes, variants, syntax, and inflections. Be careful of not falling into the "just a dictionary definition/more than a dictionary definition" trap. Uncle G 17:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support solution #4. Georgia guy 18:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• As Uncle G said. This page can of course be reworded by people who find it unclear. It is simply not true that any article on a word is automatically a dictionary definition. >Radiant< 13:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

For anyone who might wander along and read this later, I've given up on this issue at the moment, as I think the community overall has no idea what it wants to do about articles on words, and we have no consensus to make any changes to this policy of the sort I was looking for originally. I've written an essay on this, Wikipedia:Articles about words. --Xyzzyplugh 14:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreeing with most, I think this is a confusing issue. At what point does enough etymology and usage examples become a pedia article, if ever? Can someone take a look at Fall guy and Patsy? One's marked for AfD and one is not--this is not a suggestion that both be deleted, but rather, what differences might merit their being kept? I can see a Wikitionary's utility when it comes to using it for quick definitions. A different question is, how do I copy the article to Wiktionary? The full article does not show up? Luckystuff 08:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support #4: I feel that the policy should change to say Wikipedia is more than a dictionary, articles that are small should be stubed. That is generally common practice. I find that people tend to use this policy only on certain articles and ignore it on others. I could write a short/2 sentence article on a specific, un-notable, scientific subject and it would generally be accepted. but if i write the same size article on a non-scientific/mathematic/technical subject, it would be deleted. Basically what i am saying is allow small articles and encourage them to be bigger. [the policy should be changed to wikipedia is more than a dictionary, or something similar]------ If we are to keep this policy, then we have to stop acting like a dictionary [or having non-ecyclopidic articles]. Pronunciations are not for encyclopedias, yet are in many wiki articles. There are other examples of non-encyclopedic inclusions in wikipeida[, such as lists]. All articles need to be interwikied with wiktionary [to fix this, and promote interwikiing]. ZyMOS (talk) 06:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC) [brackted content added 26 November 2007 (UTC)]

Does WP:DICDEF cover this?

I'd appreciate it people would weigh in on whether the following article should exist: List of words removed from the English Dictionary. My feeling is that it should not, because there is not a definitive "English Dictionary". Thank you. Joie de Vivre 13:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right—the page is too problematic. See my views on its talk page. — Lumbercutter 01:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Glossaries!

Apparently lists of dictionary definitions become acceptable if the word 'glossary' is included in the title. And nobody told me. Shouldn't the policy say something about this? - ∅ (∅), 03:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

You're thinking in terms of "dictionary definition" as just being synonymous with "definition". A "dictionary definition" is more specific, it includes such things as pronunciation, how to spell different tenses, entymology, usage quotes, alternate spellings, etc., and the policy is clear about this being what's meant by "wikipedia is not a dictionary". The policy is that you aren't suppose to write an article with the title being a specific word or idiom and the article reflecting what would normally be found in a dictionary or usage guide, ie "its part of speech, its pluralizations, its usage, its etymology, its translations into other languages, and so forth." A glossary isn't normally a collection of "dictionary definitions", and the one you linked to isn't. A way to look at it maybe is that a glossary is more like a collection of related stubs all organized into one article. I agree there should be a clarifying subsection on this policy page about glossaries. They are grouped in their own category, there's an extensive number of them according to List of glossaries, and they are considered acceptable reference lists according to Wikipedia:Contents (same degree of acceptance as "Portals" and "Timelines"). But in looking into this topic, I've clicked through a decent number of glossary discussion pages, and have seen other AfDs that have been initiated by citing this policy (editors ultimately deciding in the AfDs that the policy doesn't apply and the articles are kept). Wazronk 23:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This appears to have been extensively discussed in the archives without consensus. The debate is really about whether glossaries belong in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, or both, not whether we should get rid of them altogether. The policy is effectively mute on glossaries, which means that glossaries are inconsistently kept, deleted, or transwikied depending on who shows up to vote. I do wish we had clear policy on this.--Yannick 18:42, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Infidel

• Talk:Infidel#Request_for_Comment:_Infidel_Dictionary_Terms: Dispute over intepretation of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Should the article cover a dictionary term or be focused on the ecclesiastical term which has encyclopedic value? The editors familiar with this policy please help us out. I do not think we need to go the AfD route over direction for this article.--Tigeroo 16:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

proposal

What do you think about: Articles in the wikipedia describe a subject, but not the word that names the subject.

Refering to the fact that the dictionary deals with words, the encyclopedia with concepts, objects or things. 80.144.108.224 19:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

maybe just a big misunderstanding?

If you ask me, this guideline is a big misunderstanding. As you can see here, it once was introduced to encourage people to write a bit more about a subjekt than just that what u can find in one of those small dictionaries that consist of just one book. Thus it should rather have the title "Wp is a dictionary with enough room for a good definition". In fact an encyclopedia is nothing else but a dictionary; a pretty big and detailed one, yet not as detailed and exhausting to read as f.e. a monography. How else can u explain, that older encyclopedias were explicitely called dictionaries?

Title page from the 1st edition of the Britannica , were it calls itself dictionary

The title page of the Encyclopédie, which calls itself also dictionary

As you can see here an encyclopedia is a dictionary that just includes arts AND sciences (That means: it is just a dictionary that includes potentially every subject). --Oliver s. 15:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You might be taken more seriously if you spell the word as "you"... and not "u". :>) Blueboar 16:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you. Done. sorry for my bad english. Im german. :-)--Oliver s. 23:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Well, the fact that old encyclopedias called themselves dictionaries doesn't necessarily mean it makes sense to call them dictionaries now. Definitions do change over time. (By the way, English has no gender for inanimate objects; everything but a person is referred to with "it"). -Amarkov moo! 23:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you. Well, a dictionary here in WP is described as "a list of words with their definitions" and it does not seem to me, as if this definition of dictionary would ecxlude that, what an encyclopedia is. --Oliver s. 01:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• An encyclopedia describes Concepts, things etc., a dictionary describes words. For the encyclopedia "tree" refers to a definition of what a tree is - a plant in the woods. For the dictionary "tree" is a noun and it refers to a list of its meanings. 80.144.78.4 15:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• hm... I thought a dictionary was "a list of words with their definitions". Is that wrong? And do you think a word is not a thing? --Oliver s. 18:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

How about morphemes?

Are suffixes and other morphemes encyclopedic? -- Hoary 10:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobody interested? (The question seems to have been raised before, too, at the end of this.) -- Hoary 05:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Deletion discussion on an article about a word

NOTE: This is not a request for !votes on this issue; I am not canvassing for votes, merely posting a notice of a discussion that might affect this policy.

I nominated the article Fart for deletion, citing this policy. The AfD discussion is ongoing here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fart. The consensus is building toward keeping the article, and if that is indeed the result, I believe it would have major ramifications for this policy page. Because policy is descriptive, not proscriptive, a consensus for keeping articles on notable words -- even in the absence of encyclopedic information beyond what would be found in a dictionary -- would require changes to this policy page. If you have an interest in the future development of this policy, I encourage you to weigh in on the deletion discussion, or at least read it to see where consensus is leading.

Thank you.

-- Powers ^T 14:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)