The Beginning of the Hierarchical Dictionary… and 2-Word,Crossword Definitions
Minimalist, Two-Word Definitions Typified by Crossword Puzzles, but Representative of the Human Brain’s Codifying of Concepts
It is my thesis that any concept can be defined by as few as two words. Perhaps the better term is “identified,” rather than defined. But either way, two words should generally be able to zero-in on any word that is a concept. In fact, the word ‘concept’ itself is a clue to this phenomenon, I believe. It means “together” — “thought”… or at least that’s my quick slant on the word portion, ‘-cept.’ And in pinpointing the two words that identify any concept, we have a model for envisioning how nerve cells in the brain, neurons, can create a web of meaning… with a neuron representing the essence of a notion, and the 2-way intersections of each neuron pair storing a concept.
Hierarchical Dictionary
If words can be identified by two other words, this leads in turn to the notion of words representing broader or narrower concepts, each related to another. But, the human brain being the miracle that it is, it’s not a rigid, exclusive hierarchy. By this I mean that a given word can be both broader than another word, and narrower than it… that is the power of our language and intellect. There’s more to it than a dictionary… there’s context and circumstance. But ambiguity doesn’t mean hopelessness. We can still define both sets of meaning and intent.
Hierarchical Dictionary App: Wordle for Wordies?
Perhaps some day I’ll complete a phone/web app that lets the public create the dictionary… by cycling through random pairs of words and choosing …
- Broader than
- Narrower than
- Both broader and narrower
- Not related to
Participants would get positive reinforcement as is done in other apps by giving them badges, rubbing their bellies, and so on.
Non-Concepts
I noticed that it’s hard to apply my 2-word notion to natural items, such as ‘rhinoceros.’ And that’s now clear to me, why: they are not concepts… they are not intersections of ideas. They are occurrences outside the brain. We can come up with 2-word definitions for some of them, but only some. Species of flora and fauna quickly escape concise definition.
The List
- Concept = idea combination
Notice that ‘idea’… id-ea is individualized notions… whereas concepts bring them together. - Word = concept label
- Stupid = concept challenged
- Idiocy = concept incapacity
- Poetry = artistic form
- Life= chemical perpetuation
Life is the miracle of the molecule DNA. This molecule figured out the secret of duplicating itself.
Prime Words
A necessary result of the 2-word dictionary idea is the fact that some words can’t be subdivided… can’t be identified by two more basic words. These are what I hereby declare as ‘prime words.’ Good, bad, food, water, yes, no, mommy, daddy??? I stumbled across lists of children’s first 100 words when writing my book Poopy Phonics… and many of those words seem to be candidates for prime words. But the world of the human brain, with all these silly constructs, defies perfect delineation… so feel free to object strenuously.
