Parse

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David Myer
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Parse

Postby David Myer » Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:37 pm

This from today's New York Times:

...the data is too thin to parse because India is performing too little genomic sequencing.

Is this really a minor abuse of English? As I see it, to parse means to break into its component parts ('deconstruct' is a horrid modern way of saying the same thing). Doesn't the author here really mean 'analyse'?

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Slava
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Re: Parse

Postby Slava » Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:01 am

Without more context for the usage, it's hard to say, but dictionary.com does have this as its third definition of parse:

to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning

That would seem to make the quoted NYT bit fit.
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