implicate/explicate vs. implicit/explicit

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bbeeton
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implicate/explicate vs. implicit/explicit

Postby bbeeton » Thu Feb 02, 2023 11:48 pm

I'm editing an article in which "implicate" and "explicate" are used as adjectives or in a nominal sense where I would expect "implicit" and "explicit". The author is an artist and a PhD philosopher, native to the Netherlands. The spelling and other aspects of the article are very proper British, with a decidedly academic flavor. (The journal I'm editing it for is a user-group publication, not a refereed academic journal, but with many academic readers.)

Is this usage accepted in academic works, particularly in philosophy? In freely-available online dictionaries, the "*ate" form is shown only as a transitive verb. (Since my own education stops short of a PhD, and neither mathematics nor linguistics helps me to resolve this, I'm hoping for advice from the audience here.)

bnjtokyo
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Re: implicate/explicate vs. implicit/explicit

Postby bnjtokyo » Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:28 am

May I recommend the Ngram Viewer to you?
https://books.google.com/ngrams/info

If you just enter the word you are interested in, the application returns a graph showing how frequently the word has been used over time, and below there are links to various time periods. At the following link you will find what was returned for "explicate" in the time period 2015 to 2019. (Sometimes this function returns some odd results. One common reason is the example returned was quoted or referred to in a later publication. Also, when exploring earlier historical publications old-style punctuation and type faces lead to incorrect matches.)
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22expl ... lr=lang_en

One of the advanced search functions allows you to use grammatical tags. The following link shows the result of a search on explicate_ADJ.
Unfortunate, it does not provide links to examples of this use (here, adjectival) over time; we merely see how frequently the word was used this way over time.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3


If you look at some of the examples returned for the first search (explicate 2015 to 2019) "explicate order" and "explicate realm" are attested to.

Examine the examples at the first link and you will see you can work with a short phrase such as "explicit order" and find examples of that phrase over time. You can enter two phrases, e.g. "explicit order" and "implicit order" and see how frequently the phrases have been used relative to each other over time.

So I would suggest you open the Ngram Viewer and enter some of the precise phrases you find in the text you are editing and see how they have been used in the literature and then make your determination on how you wish to edit the material at hand.

I hope you will find this information useful

bbeeton
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Re: implicate/explicate vs. implicit/explicit

Postby bbeeton » Fri Feb 03, 2023 11:35 am

Thank you, bnjtokyo, for the suggestion. In fact, the example you cite, "explicate order" is one of the phrases that I found unfamiliar, but it also happens to be explicitly cited in the article, so it is appropriate in context.

You have saved me a possible embarrassment.

Audiendus
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Re: implicate/explicate vs. implicit/explicit

Postby Audiendus » Fri Feb 03, 2023 12:09 pm

The terms 'implicate order' and 'explicate order' were coined by the physicist David Bohm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_ ... cate_order

bbeeton
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Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2020 11:34 am
Location: Providence, RI

Re: implicate/explicate vs. implicit/explicit

Postby bbeeton » Fri Feb 03, 2023 1:23 pm

Thanks to you too, Audiendus.

I now understand that I am only a figment of my own imagination.

However, it isn't mentioned in any freely available online dictionary. The OED requires a subscription; I have a friend at the organization from which I retired, and I'll ask her to look it up.


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