John | 19 November 2007

WeSay now lets the user edit the semantic domains of a sense from the Dictionary Browse and Edit tab, as an alternative to gathering words using the Gather by Semantic Domain task.

To see how this works, let’s add some of the domains that would apply to a Papua New Guinean bilum.

To look for a domain, we click in a box and start typing. First, we start typing “crafts” and see a domain matching that word:

Next, since bilums are used to transport firewood, we type that in. A promising domain appears, fuel. But is that right? We don’t want to say that bilums are something you burn. Happily, when we point to the word Fuel, WeSay displays a description confirming that domain is also for things you use in collecting fuel.

Finally, since at least one of my kids has slept in a bilum, we should find a domain for that. Here we’ll pretend we know the domain number, and just start typing that until we see Bed:

I had fun finding domains for a few words. I hope you do too.