************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** Everything Dictionary: A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary I have discovered a new stomping ground on the net. I thought IRC was to become the final, impermanent resting place for my general ranting. That is until a friend who I'll only refer to as "Jason" passed me the everything.slashdot.org URL. The Everything site is basically just that. Everything. The site's creators hope to create definitions for everything that exists, everything that can exist, and everything that can't exist. It's an undertaking that makes the Human Genome project look like an oil change planned for a Sunday afternoon. The page's authors aren't doing it alone, however. Why that would be crazy! They're allowing netizens to define basically whatever they want and how they want. A simple hypertext system lets users link definitions to related concepts. While the Human Genome project will, arguably, help humanity. The Everything project is really a clever waste of time. The odds something productive will come out of it are slim. But that's okay. I've long held this theory that getting productive work out of a computer is a happy coincidence. The reason personal computers and the net have been so successful is they give middle-class types a chance to play like the big boys. Computers hold out the promise that the average Joe/Josephine can be his/her own publisher, broadcaster, film maker, or international corporation. Now, with Everything, you can be your own lexicographer (err, like a dude that authors a dictionary). Okay that doesn't sound as fun as, say, surfing for Our Lady Peace MP3s but there's enough people wired that nearly 9000 of them have discovered the site and defined over 60,000 terms. The Oxford English Dictionary has 300,000 terms. With a couple hundred definitions being added to Everything each day, the site should pass the OED in a couple years. The OED does not, however, have to worry about losing its status as the recognized authority on the English language. The OED employs teams of editors and committees to agonize over the inclusion of a handful of really important words every year. Facts are checked. Facts are rechecked. Words rejected because they are deemed trendy are forwarded to Microsoft for use in its new Encarta dictionary. The Everything site, on the other hand, has a couple system administrators that delete a smattering of definitions that are far too lame. The OED will never define or even see the need to define "University of Chicago Kicks Yale's Sorry Butt". A user of Everything already has. And God bless him. Accuracy, good taste, and even relevancy are secondary matters. It's the net! Borrowing from a Corky and the Juice Pigs song, I defined "panda" as: A bear native to zoos. Several have been exported to China and introduced into the wild to control the bamboo problem. Known for its black and white fur. The world's only ska animal. See. You can have lots of fun with this site. There in lies Everything's real appeal. It's the net's equivalent of Douglas Adams' fabled Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The site is not only replete with inaccuracies, they're required. Humour emerges in many forms, including definitions that tend to be overly accurate or overly personal and interesting choices in hypertext linking. For example, I linked "software development" to "pyramid schemes" and "bow hunting" to "Ted Nugent". While most users will see an immediate connection to the five book Hitchhiker's trilogy, many might miss its more literary antecedent: The Devil's Dictionary. Written between 1881 and 1906 by Ambrose Bierce as a weekly column, the bound edition he eventually published is a classic, often quoted work of parodic lexicography (hey, I should define that on everything.slashdot.org). The copyright expired long ago and there are a number of hyperlinked versions on the net. A good version can be found at www.alcyone.com/max/lit/devils/. ********************** * Update May 2, 2000 * ********************** A new and improved Everything can be found at wwww.everything2.com.