Re: PEDANTRY: use this word in a sentence...

Andrea Gallagher (drea@alumni.stanford.org)
Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:41:46 -0700


At 11:24 AM 7/27/97 +0000, Damien Broderick wrote:
>I was dazzled by this wonderful term, but my lexicophilic friend John
>Bangsund (of the department of Biblical Accountancy at the University of
>Ard-Knox, where they derive stochastic solutions to such problems as how
>much it profiteth a man if he lose his soul but gain the whole world)
>remarked waspishly that the correct singular is `hapax legomenon'.

Indeed, a friend's dictionary also pointed that out yesterday evening. We
had someone from Oracle, from Informix, and from Verity sitting at the
table. I have high hopes that our term will crop up in some marketing
documents soon...

Even better, if you go to http://www.eb.com:180/hapax/index.htm (after
you've gone to the trouble of signing up for trial membership to
Encyclopedia Brittanica), you can play Hapax Legomena the GAME. I've been
getting chills about running into this phrase twice in one day. I love it.

Do you think E.B. has given up on innovative forms of information retrieval
technology and are trying to train up the new generation of searchers?

Doing my part to spread this meme far and wide,
Drea