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by livrem
697 days ago
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But Google Translate is correct about Dutch. It was just not one of the languages I tried before. I do not think it is a particularly difficult case for translation. The reason I checked was in my native Swedish there is only one word (labyrint). Was it really always two different things even in English? I looked the words up in Gutenberg's public domain Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1890?) a labyrinth there was "an ornamental maze" ... "Labyrinth, originally; the name of an edifice or excavation, carries the idea of design, and construction in a
permanent form, while maze is used of anything confused or confusing,
whether fixed or shifting. We speak of the labyrinth of the ear, or of the
mind, and of a labyrinth of difficulties; but of the mazes of the
dance, the mazes of political intrigue, or of the mind being in a
maze." And from the definition of maze: "A confusing and baffling network, as of paths or passages; an intricacy; a labyrinth". Did the meaning drift a bit since then or was it only in mathematics that the words began to be used in the way that they are often used now for branching vs non-branching mazes? https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29765 |
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