Genus, Species
| From: | David McCann <david@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, January 11, 2009, 18:12 |
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On Sat, 2009-01-10 at 16:40 -0800, Rebecca Bettencourt wrote:
> verb2: generalize, specialize
> verb1: ?, specify
>
> What goes in the ? slot? Why is there no "genify" or "generify" or
> some such word?
Roget's Thesaurus (1987 edition) just contrasts
79 Vb be general, cover all cases
80 Vb specify, be specific
On reflection, the missing verb is one that wouldn't have much use. We
often need to ask people to be more precise — "Could you be more
specific?", "Could you specify which ones you mean?" — but we don't
often ask people to be less precise, because that's what they usually do
anyway.