Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!theory.tn.cornell.edu!finn From: finn@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Lee Samuel Finn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Webster entry error. Send to someone who is in charge. Message-ID: <1991May1.160257.19329@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Date: 1 May 91 16:02:57 GMT References: <629@rosie.NeXT.COM> <18873@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> Sender: news@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu Organization: Cornell Theory Center Lines: 21 Nntp-Posting-Host: theory.tn.cornell.edu In article <18873@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> ikoutsel@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Ioannis Koutselas) writes: > >I have found an error in Webster's entries. Someone who knows >how to contact Webster people , do tell them: > . . . > >MOreover, I have heard that quark is not something that Gell_man >has used for the particle, but rather that he has taken the word >from Jame's Joyce books or whatever. I don't think that Joyce is >mentioned if you look at the word quark. > >Thanks. > Ioannis > < ... > Quark, from Finnegans Wake, had no meaning, was used only once, and functioned as a filler word. Without the meaning first given to it by Gell-Mann, it would never have occured in a dictionary. In this context, I'm not sure how the OED, for example, would describe the derivation of the word.