Date:    Tue, 19 May 1998 11:32:31 -0400
<br>From:    Thomas Paikeday <paikedtm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECHO-ON.NET>
<br>Subject: Single Swallow Summers
<br>
<br>19 May 1998
<br>        I'm barely Net-literate; I hope this message gets through.
<br>        It refers to Yongwei Gao's comment (Neologisms, No. 3 on May 18) about
<br>"cyberize" a la "Among the New Words" of AMERICAN SPEECH.
<br>        First off, what I'm doing may not be the done thing among friends and
<br>colleagues, but I've a lexicographic axe to grind and grind it I must. So
<br>with all due respect to John and Adele Algeo and their worthy successors,
<br>plus apologies, I differ with ANW on whether one quotation is sufficient
<br>evidence of a neologism.
<br>        To me it seems like announcing summer on the basis of one swallow or
<br>(pardon the hyperbole) making a study on the basis of a random sample of
<br>one. It may be that more than one citation has been collected, but that
<br>with single-cite definitions you can have "multum in parvo" and thus save
<br>space in these hard-pressed times.
<br>        However, when you are adducing evidence (implying that the neologism in
<br>question is current among a considerable number of English users) I feel we
<br>should present at least three cites from different sources, different in
<br>regard to author and souce - this after a sufficient number have been
<br>studied for abstracting a definition.
<br>        Why the "cyberize" definition apparently based on a 1994 cite doesn't
<br> fit
<br>Gao's 1997 citation may be because of change of meaning, diversification,
<br>etc. But three citations (sorry I don't have any - I stopped collecting
<br>five years ago when I started full-time work on my latest dictionary),
<br>would have justified the entry in its own right for 1994. Some of these
<br>words seem changeable, especially when they are first sighted. Now it would
<br>seem that "cyberize" has become levelled to mean "computerize."
<br>        Thomas Paikeday (paikedtm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]echo-on.net)
<br>