1S1’s Master Dictionary Aids Scientific Etymology And Reflects Changes in Science.pdf

1S1’s Master Dictionary Aids Scientific Etymology And Reflects Changes in Science v///II////I///////////////A N“’nb” 4, Jan”a’y 23. 1978 Between 1973 and 1976 happi- ness, ethics, and selfimage in- creased. Violence doubled; terror- ism and soldiers more than tripled. Apollo went down. Famine and cannibalism increased. But we had morebee~ chocolate, yogurt, horse- radish—and, naturally, more gar- bage. Has happiness really increased? Only in an abstract sense. The fact is that from 1973 to 1976 occur- rences of the word happiness more than doubled in article titles cover- ed by IS1° ‘s data base. One of the ways changes in the activities of scientists are reflected is by the words usedin journal arti- cles. Since 1S1 uses title words—as well as other bibliographic descrip- tors—to index each article added to our data base, we are able sys- tematically to observe and quantify these changes. It is becoming in- creasingly clear that this data has practical applications in lexico- graphy. 1 The vocabulary of science, like that of all living languages, is con- stantly changing. New words are coined to describe new substances, improved processes, and previously undiscovered phenomena.2 Extant words fall into disuse as interest wanes in the areas they describe. In our quality-control procedures we use several manual and com- puter routines to verify each title word before it becomes a part of the data base.314 One of these routines makes use of a machine-readable file dubbed the Unique Word Dic- tionary (UWD). Actually, the choice of this name illustrates the process by which new words are coined. No one at 1S1remembers who first used the phrase $‘Unique Word Diction- ary” to describe this particular word list. But apparently someone who worked with the list coined the name, someone else began using it, and before long “Unique Word Dic- tionary” had become a part of 1S1’s in-house jargon. The Unique Word Dictionary can be considered a kind of subject heading authority list