Israellycool
reader Andrew has forwarded a mail from a friend of his, who points out
that when you look up the word “annex” in the UK version of
www.ask.com, this
is what you get:
annex
noun1.
an addition that extends a main building
verb
1.
take illegally, as of territory: “The Israelis are annexing more and more territory on the West
Bank “
2. take
(territory) by conquest: “Hitler annexed Lithuania
”
3. attach
to
His friend
continues:
Even more offensive than the
suggestion that Israel has illegally taken territory on the West Bank
and that it is continuing to take more and more is the juxtaposition of
verb 1 next to verb 2. The implicit comparison of Israel with
Nazi Germany is about as repugnant and offensive as it gets.
In fact, if you read it closely, Israel appears in a somewhat worse
light than Nazi Germany i.e. Israel stole territory, Hitler won
it!
Apparently, the “dictionary” employed by Ask.com
(at least in the UK ) is WordNet 2.1 Copyright 2005 by Princeton
University .
Different versions of the same software
seem to give slightly different definitions.
Has
anyone come across this “dictionary” before?
Indeed, has anyone ever seen such perverse use of dictionary
“illustrations”?
No and no.
Andrew’s friend suggests writing to both Ask and
Wordnet/Princeton Uni to complain. I’ll be doing that, and I encourage
you to do the same.
