"Hogget" Joins "Nekton"--and More--in New Glossary
and Thesaurus of Agriculture
By
Marcia Wood January 15, 2009
Fans of the hit movie "Babe" will recall that "Hoggett" was the
last name of film's genial farmer. Farm-savvy filmgoers may recognize
"hogget"--a slightly different spelling--as a word for lambs from weaning age
to their first shearing.
Now "hogget" joins the legion of words like "quarg" (a soft, unripened
fresh cheese) and "nekton" (actively-swimming aquatic organisms) included in
the National Agricultural Library's
(NAL) 2009 editions of its classic glossary and thesaurus of the specialized
vocabularies of agriculture.
The four reference works--the "Glossary of Agricultural Terms" and its
Spanish-language counterpart, "Glosario de Términos Agrícolas,"
and the "NAL Agricultural Thesaurus" and Spanish "Tesauro Agrícola," are
now available free of
charge.
These compilations encompass terms that have made their way into the
lexicon of farming, food, nutrition, forestry, and more than a dozen other
ag-related topics, according to
Lori J.
Finch at the library. Each can be downloaded to a personal computer or
laptop, or simply accessed online when needed.
The glossaries, which would each run about 500 pages if printed as
books, provide short, helpful definitions of some 2,500 terms. Each thesaurus,
individually the size of an 8,000-page book, offers synonyms for more than
68,000 terms.
Finch coordinated preparation of these editions, working with
specialists at the library as well as with colleagues at the
Inter-American Institute
for Cooperation on Agriculture.
Though these compilations are primarily intended for indexers,
programmers working with web search engines, and others who gather and organize
information, the glossary and thesaurus are also suitable for students--from
fifth-grade up--as well for teachers, writers, and people who work in
agriculture.
The glossary and thesaurus have an international following and are
regarded as among the most authoritative resources of their kind.
NAL is part of the Agricultural
Research Service, a research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.