Derive SV from the IAU Thesaurus : (Was: Re: SV: do we need it?
Brian Thomas
thomas at astro.umd.edu
Wed Sep 19 10:43:22 PDT 2007
On Wednesday 19 September 2007, Frederic V. Hessman wrote:
> The main objection to avid adoption to date has been (at least my
> understanding)
> - not supported so many terms missing or out-of-date
As I wrote earlier, it can't be _that_ many as to make this
a useless work. How fast does Astronomy evolve? If I
time-ported into the past by about 10 years, I'd think I
could still have a conversation with an Astronomer with
little to no problem.
> - explicit ontological organization (this is a boon or a bane,
> depending upon your inclination)
I'd see the existing broad/narrow structure as a boon, as
other people have done the arguing as to what goes where.
> - translations available but not descriptions (it's a thesaurus, not
> a dictionary)
Ah, my fault here then. I tried to scrounge a copy up before
writting, but didn't have time..bad mistake on my part.
There are, however, other publications which are dictionaries,
such as the Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy.
http://www.ianridpath.com/books/oxforddictionary.htm
Which is up-to-date, however, using this work may put off
non-CommonWealth (or former British Empire) countries that
are tired of English sources as being the 'definitive' ones (over here,
of course, a (standard) English accent confers automatic
credibility :). Perhaps there is an alternative which is acceptable;
I haven't looked too hard.
=brian
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