Dictionary Definitions
Today I read an article on a humor website that poked fun at online, contributive encyclopedias by listing a number of bizarre wikipedia clones like “Conservapedia” and “Pagan Wiki.” [Parental Advisory: the article is frequently obscene.] Though the article was tongue-in-cheek, the impetus behind niche encyclopedias is quite fascinating.
Encyclopedias (and their kissing cousins, dictionaries) are odd creatures. Animals and minerals, verbs and nouns, abstractions and applications, all squeezed together alphabetically. I understand that alphabetizing language makes the dictionary accessible, but there is something strange about arranging knowledge by nothing other than the first letter (whether pronounced or not) that just so happens to grace its written form. Perhaps these musings have become dated. I, for one, use online dictionaries almost exclusively. Now I can search instantaneously for xylophone without having to thumb past “weed” to find that I’ve overshot to “zenophobe.”
Even so, encyclopedias are strange because of the implicit presupposition that the definitions of words are rooted in discrete, objective forms. This is true for both encylcopedias and dictionaries. High school English students are instructed to prostrate themselves before the all-knowing DICTIONARY. The basic idea is that the “dictionary definition” of a word is the final say (at least until a later edition). Language is reduced to a gigantic Scrabble game in which the dictionary settles all disputes. Is it a word? What does that mean? Well, look in the dictionary.
Yet how do we determine what words mean? Do words mean the same things to all people in all places? We all would acknowledge that the meanings of words evolve over time. Words are concrete expressions of abstract ideas. As the understanding of an idea changes, so too do the definitions of the words which are used to describe those ideas. Of course, the form of a word does not necessarily have to change for its meaning to.
So words are fluid because ideas, and peoples’ perceptions of those ideas, are constantly in flux. At the same time it should not be surprising that multiple definitions of a word (or the underlying idea) can compete for space simultaneously. Choose a word, any word. I’m going to pick “patriotism.” To one person patriotism means fighting, and if necessary dying, for one’s country. To another, it means pacifism. To a conservative it may be the very definition of “America.” To someone on the left it might be an imperialist, jingoistic phrase which encourages dangerous loyalty to a constructed nation-state. This contested definition embodies the battle between “America” and “Amerika.”
There are a multiplicity of Americas just as there are multiple Christs. He can be the Christ who lived an exemplary, moral life, the imposter who claimed to be Messiah, the son of Holy Mary, or the sinless man who gives hope to a desparate, dying world.
[NOTE: For the purposes of this post, I do not wish to worry about the validity of contested definitions. That belongs in an entirely different entry. What matters is that ideas, words, and definitions are slippery. Perception is as important as reality in language (if true, pure reality can even be said to exist in this world...an assumption I'm leery of).]
The standardized, dictionary definition is a myth born out of the Enlightenment/Modernist impulse to empirically categorize all truth. In fact, the original Encyclopedié was the work of Enlightened philosophes who believed that all knowledge could be summarized in a single series of books. The knowledge contained in its 17 volumes would aid the inevitable progress of humanity. Words, as they described ideas, had real power.
Back to the explosion of wierd online encylcopedias. These niche dictionaries are reactions against the Wikipedia model, an online dictionary that seeks to reach inclusive, shared definitions. In a way, Wikipedia is a 21st century, democratized version of the original Encyclopedié. By allowing anonymous internet users to contribute to an online storehouse of knowledge, Wikipedia seeks to unify mankind around a shared discourse. On the other hand, the contributors to competing encyclopedias, both wierd and wierder, recognize that language is discursive, ever contested and never settled.
In my dictionary, at least, “xenophobia” is spelled with an “x.”
But to engage your post more seriously: I think that encyclopedias have more use than you give them credit for.
First, encyclopedias and dictionaries don’t really present themselves as the be-all and end-all of truth. Perhaps high schoolers (and debaters) treat them as such, but nobody else labors under that misapprehension. Dictionaries in particular are almost exclusively descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and they always include multiple definitions. Encyclopedias also don’t pretend to be final word, but rather an interpretation like any other. Perhaps the made pretensions to finality at one time, but postmodern squeamishness has taken care of that. So, for example, I feel free to accept the article about Jonathan Edwards in “American National Biography” as valuable, but I reject the article about David Brainerd in the same encyclopedia as nearly worthless.
Second, I think that sometimes encyclopedias don’t come at the end of the quest for knowledge, but somewhere near the beginning. For an example close to our own research fields, take the “Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals” by Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll. That work isn’t the final word on evangelicalism; rather it was a tool that leaders in the field created to help others on their way to writing about the history of evangelicalism.
Third, the alphabetical system might be a bit odd, but what else would you use? Encyclopedias and dictionaries are non-linear information sources, forced into the linear mold of the printed book. Electronic encyclopedias have been freed from that particular constraint. Besides, encyclopedias often do what they can to structure the information logically. For example, the “Encyclopedia Britannica” has a taxonomy of knowledge that takes up much of one volume. Most other encyclopedias try to do the same thing for their subject matter. Even Wikipedia tries to structure its knowledge through the use of tags, portals, and the like.
Fourth, encyclopedias are convenient places to store essential factual information that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. So, if I wanted a fairly comprehensive list of all the revivals in the United States, I wouldn’t expect to find it in a monograph or an article or even in a synthetic history. I would look in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America.”
Fifth, I’ll grant that you some niche encyclopedias are weird. (”Encyclopedia of the Future” or “Encyclopedia of UFOs,” anyone?) But the niche encyclopedias do help people in their particular specialization. So, if I were writing about evangelicalism I’d use the “Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals,” but if I were writing about science I’d need the “Dictionary of Scientific Biography.”
True, I haven’t said anything about your particular topic: the online niche encyclopedias. Most of them do fall into the weird category. But let’s give them time. Wikipedia has only gained a bit of academic respectability in the past couple years. It will take some time for these niche wikis to figure out what content is important, to find contributors, to find ways to make sure that the information is valid, and the like–but I’m confident that the niche online encyclopedia is going to be an important feature of academic research eventually. As an example of the type of niche online encyclopedia that could eventually be useful, take the Orthodox Wiki (obviously it’s not there yet): http://orthodoxwiki.org/
Anti-enlightenment qualms aside, I can’t think of a better first anniversary gift than any one volume of the 11th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica.
After all, this is our “paper” anniversary…
Lincoln, obviously I must have been referring to “zenophobia” as defined by that erudite collection, the Urban Dictionary!(-;
Perhaps I muddied my argument by lumping together encyclopedias and dictionaries; I had a bunch of tantalizing tangents bouncing around in my head and I gave in to the urge…
I have every intention of employing encyclopedias for the rest of my life (Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll sits on both our shelves). As you amply argue, they have great utility. Even so, I think it valuable to muse about the ways in which we emplot definitions, the way in which we shape words (and the contexts in which we place them) to fit our presuppositions. Imagine the contrast between reformedwiki and wesleywiki…
Per your final paragraph I believe that we are in fundamental agreement. The internet allows for the contestation of definitions out in the open. Formal definitions were once the reserve of cloistered, educated elites (Miriam Webster and co.), but today the balance has shifted. The contest over definitions has become more open and transparent as a result.
Language and spelling are emergent and changing. Attempts to classify and/or standardize them are thus inherently difficult. I wrote a post on the vagaries of English orthography awhile ago.
http://therulingzeitgeist.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/leengwistiks-ees-guhrate/
You might also get a kick out of this scene from a movie about Wittgenstein, whom you might find interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0cN_bpLrxk