neologism of the day

Apr 15, 2004 02:37

MESONYMY:
The relation denoting that one thing is "the same kind of thing as" another.
E.g. "apple, orange", "red, blue", "mesonym, synonym."
Mesonyms are variously referred to as "coordinate terms" or "taxonomic sisters".

Now you [i.e. I] will no longer have to say things like ( Read more... )

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palegreenwhite April 15 2004, 10:33:53 UTC
Happy Birthday Taxonomic brother

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always NEW always OLD palegreenwhite April 15 2004, 19:06:59 UTC
born on tax day, eek

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radium April 22 2004, 00:53:25 UTC
o ye of stealth birthdays!

you remember that time? i've been trying to remember that little french dessert place we went to, on girard or something? i mean, where WAS that?

that was good times.

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palegreenwhite April 22 2004, 08:46:25 UTC
Oh yeah..that was a very unique birthday! I'll never forget that expression on your face when you found out..when your mother found out, actually..

I don't remember where that place is either. It seems like a dream sort of, where the memory is indistinct and surreal.

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Mesonymonity odditory April 15 2004, 10:40:55 UTC
Usage question: Lets say someone is using a mesonym in a conversation, and they want to refer to a relation between two things, is it kosher to say phrases such as...

"Excuse me Mr Bus Driver, can you help me out? I need a term mesonyminous with Cheeze Whiz (tm)!"

-or-

"I feel apples are more mesonynimous to oranges than dogs are to cats. Let's establish procedures to quantify the mesonymity of two concepts so we can attempt to verify or disprove my belief."

Because I really like saying "mesonyminous," and I want to make sure I am obeying the Laws Of Grammananatical Activity. Any Grammar Nazis out there on the web today???

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Re: Mesonymonity radium April 16 2004, 12:15:57 UTC
it's neologistilicious!

i will accept "mesonyminous" as a word describing the property of "possessing the property of mesonymy", although the simpler "mesonymous" might be indicated by previous usage patterns such as "synonymous".

it is my firm belief that quantifying mesonymy (or if we get really good, even mesonymonity!) is an important, if not necessary step towards the long-awaited development of mesonymy-quantifiers. i believe that the future will bear me out on this one.

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Re: Mesonymonity odditory April 16 2004, 13:13:40 UTC
I agree that the emergence of our new mesonymifing overlords will be initiated by the mass quantification of mesonymity and other mesononymous concepts.

The important question, in my mind, is whether quantifiable mesonymity will instigate a qualitative categorization of mesononymous concepts by quantitative entities? Or is the qualitative/quantitative antonymy a false dichotomy, where qualitativity is really a non-sensical imposition of imprecise terminology by fallible entities? Therefore it may be that qualitativity need be excluded from the semantic network of quantitativity. The greater philosophical question is, does the advancement of quantification increase the precision of contextualization to the point qualitative categorization is no longer necessary? If not, will we find Baby Jesus waiting at the end?

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Re: Mesonymonity radium April 18 2004, 01:53:10 UTC
> will we find Baby Jesus waiting at the end?

Yes. And he'll be crying.

But, I mean, it's only some dumb arrangement of water and carbon molecules, and there's not much to do with *molecules* except, like, counting them, recording their locations, and whatnot, which is all just tremendously boring, so who cares!

--*r
"if Occam's Razor had a theme song, it would have to be the Imperial March."

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what's a meta for? anonymous April 15 2004, 19:11:10 UTC
what might be an antoynm for mesonymy? ~jess

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Re: what's a meta for? radium April 16 2004, 12:09:54 UTC
interestingly, antonymy is a *subset* relation of mesonymy. as far as I know, there is no existing term for "unrelated" or "on a separate component of the hypernym ontology", so we'd have to make one up!

let me know if you have any suggestions for this crucially important scientific task of making up new words.

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toponymy anonymous April 21 2004, 17:58:38 UTC
amesonymy, peronymy, or perhaps ... amultonymy?

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Re: toponymy radium April 22 2004, 00:19:46 UTC
toponymy is nice, but taken: http://www.phatnav.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Toponym.

there's also a pretty valid claim that "mesonym" should instead be reserved for the one-word description of a person's 'middle name'. For prior work, see: http://www.shunn.net/time/just/goldenlinks.shtml.

in response, the International Committee for the Naming of the So-Called "Coordinate" Relation is considering generalizing slightly from the whole 'meson' idea and just calling it hadronymy, in which case i think all parties will be happy.

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