Re: Bomb Incubators

(no name) ((no email))
Fri, 03 Dec 1999 09:40:14 -0600


Eugene Leitl wrote:
>
> Gregory Alan Bolcer writes:
>
> > Talk about a clever use of technology.
>
> Thanks for providing me the proper hapax legomenon.
>

I don't understand the referent here. A hapax legomenon, meaning 'once
spoken', the bane and prize of interpreters, is a word found but once, and thus
has no other examples, helpful or otherwise. Which makes for a great number of
words to explain the single occurrence.

Lemma: The number of words required to explain a term is inversely
proportional to the number of times the term appears in the primary material.

Corollary: The 'alegomenon', a word never used at all, will take the entire
population of monkeys in academia forever to explain.

Cheers,
Wayne

http://www-oss.fnal.gov/~baisley