--- "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> Michael Everson wrote:
> >
> > At 19:05 -0400 2004-08-01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > > > It may be annoying that meanings get changed,
> > > > and thus in the interim wind up with two
> > > > conflicting meanings for the same word used
> > > > by different groups, but that's life, and
> > > > that's language for you.
> > >
> > > It would be nice if change had occurred because
> > > the terms came into general use, but AFAIK they
> > > didn't, and there isn't a body of evidence
> > > behind the changed (as opposed to revised)
> > > definitions.
> >
> > Check the Wikipedia. Alphabet, abjad, and abugida
> > are all there.
>
> They were quoted to me on sci.lang, and they turned
> out to be crap, and several people offered to
> correct them for me. (It was thought that me
> editing an entry in which I was mentioned would
> ruffle some editorial feathers, which apparently
> don't care about content but are very picky about
> attributions.)

I'd say it's an unfortunate side-effect of Wikipedia's
principle of being strictly a secondary source and
never a primary source. An encyclopedia is for
collecting what is already known. Not for publishing
one's own findings. Saying Wikipedia doesn't care
about content is a pretty ignorant view.

Andrew Dunbar.

> --
> Peter T. Daniels
> grammatim@...
>

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