Logos Controlled Vocabulary (LCV) problem - Slave/Servant

I notice that LCV treats slave/servant as equivalent, presumably because that's what one of the included dictionaries (ISBE) does. I appreciate there is overlap between the two terms, but they're not equivalent. Hence there are separate entries in EDB, TBD and others. Is the LCV set in stone, or can Logos make changes to it?

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Terry Poperszky

[Y]

Todd Phillips

Actually, since δοῦλος is translated by both "servant" and "slave" in most modern translations, I think that having them together in the LCV is a good thing. It enables Logos to point the user at all appropriate entries in the dictionaries.

Mark Barnes

since δοῦλος is translated by both "servant" and "slave" in most modern translations

Yes, but it shouldn't be (or at least should rarely be), as the articles and lexicons make clear. Even if they are right, just because it's the same Greek word doesn't mean it's one English concept. Take tongues and languages for example. One word in the Greek (γλῶσσα), but two concepts in English, hence two entries in LCV.

There are other topics with significant overlap which are correctly treated differently:

prophecy and gift of prophecy
zion and Jerusalem
law and Ten Commandments

Sean Boisen

Is the LCV set in stone, or can Logos make changes to it?

Yes, in fact we have been constantly changing it since the beginning, and we're not done yet (by a long shot).

For technical and practical reasons, those changes don't get released immediately: in fact, the 4.1 release will provide the first changes to the LCV since the initial release of Logos 4 last November (and many people will be glad to find we've added 7 more dictionaries). I hope that future updates will happen more frequently.

(topics.logos.com is different: this also changes regularly, probably daily, based on user contributions, but we haven't finalized a strategy yet for updating it based on our internal editorial processes.)

I appreciate there is overlap between the two terms, but they're not equivalent.

We started from the organizational schemes of various dictionaries and we pay close attention to them (since a primary purpose of the LCV is to organize that kind of content). For that reason, if the dictionaries tend to treat two concepts together, it's often not useful for us to tease them apart. At the same time, however, we exercise our own judgment about when things are the same and different.

In this case, i'm inclined to agree with you that these concepts are different enough to deserve separate treatment. I'll pass that suggestion along to our Liz, our LCV Editor, and see what she thinks.

If you think we've gotten something wrong, you can always submit suggested problems and/or corrections to our editorial team at data@logos.com.

Mark Barnes

Sean (and Liz), thanks for the helpful answer, and the continued work on the LCV. It is appreciated.

Todd Phillips

Actually, since δοῦλος is translated by both "servant" and "slave" in most modern translations, I think that having them together in the LCV is a good thing. It enables Logos to point the user at all appropriate entries in the dictionaries.

I guess my point was that if I had the ESV open to Matthew 10:24, and you had the NASB open to the same verse, then when we searched on the word used to translate δοῦλος (servant in ESV and slave in NASB), Logos would suggest the same set of dictionaries.

Liz Licata

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I agree that slave and servant are two distinctive things. I have separated them out into two topics. This will be reflected in the next update of the LCV

toughski

Welcome to the forums, Elizabeth, and thank you for your work on this amazing feature of Logos4.

Mark Barnes

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I agree that slave and servant are two distinctive things. I have separated them out into two topics. This will be reflected in the next update of the LCV

Yes, thank you Liz.