"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.
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