King James Searching Problems

I like to study with the King James. While Logos does a great job appending word forms to searches (a search for 'idol' renders idol, idolatry, idols, etc.) it doesn't seem to work with old English endings.

A search for 'believe" has a different report list than 'believe OR believeth'

It would be REALLY helpful for logos to pick up the old English.

It would be even more helpful for them to include old English spellings also. So looking for 'public' would render verses with 'publick' and 'show' would render verses with 'shew'.

I know some that study differently might find this distracting. Would Logos consider a user defined table in the setup tools somewhere where a user could define word associations? I'd be willing to key in a table of associated words to satisfy my old English search desires. The table might be a really good option, since even among King James people some way want 'ye' to be rendered from a search for 'you' and others not.

Any better ideas?

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Allan Fletchall

Try a wildcard search.

Type;" believ* " (without quotes)

This will find believ with any letters that come after including believeth, believe, believed, etc.

Shawn Nichols

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200650#Comment_200650

Thanks Allan. I forgot to mention that I've been incorporating the wildcard for searching. But it would be great if Logos incorporated the old English endings. I'm not clear on their reasons for limiting. Thanks for the reply.

fgh

It would be REALLY helpful for logos to pick up the old English.

It would be even more helpful for them to include old English spellings also. So looking for 'public' would render verses with 'publick' and 'show' would render verses with 'shew'.

While not denying the usefulness of your request, I would prioritize teaching Logos that have should also find has and had; go should find went and gone; and so on. Let's have it 'fluent' in modern English before taking on the old. [;)]

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200654#Comment_200654

I'm not clear on their reasons for limiting

I don't think they are choosing to limit it intentionally; it probably just hasn't yet occurred to them to add that capability. They mentioned something about getting the search algorithm for word forms from somewhere else. There is a linguistic science for doing this; it isn't just a simple mapping of words to possible variants. I can't remember where I saw the link to the website that describes the analysis behind it. Anyway, apparently the source of their algorithm had not felt the need to include older Engish endings, since they aren't using it for biblical searching. Logos borrowed it for their own uses and evidently did not yet add that capability. It is a sensible request, though.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200722#Comment_200722

I would prioritize teaching Logos that have should also find has and had; go should find went and gone; and so on. Let's have it 'fluent' in modern English before taking on the old.

Logos uses an algorithm that's explained in this thread; and it doesn't cater for old English.

John Brumett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200726#Comment_200726

In the KJV 1900 Cambridge edition try right clicking on the word believe in any verse and search on the lemma using the Bible Word Study. Then look at the translation ring for the various english words in the KJV translated believe then click on the individual words to find where for example believeth in used in the KJV.

John Brumett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200813#Comment_200813

Four helpful books you might want to try when searching for the Kings James English is the American Dictionary of the English Language 1828 edition by Noah Webster. He uses allot of the KJV English words and scriptural definitions. Also try the King James Bible Wordbook by Ronald Bridges and Luther A. Weigle; the New Strongs dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words and the New Strong's Guide to Bible Words. Put all these in a collection and use the Basic Search.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200812#Comment_200812

Logos uses an algorithm

I know, but that doesn't solve the problem that you never quite know what you're searching for. If you want a complete search you end up having to figure out every single grammatical form that didn't turn up in the first search, and then searching for each one of them separately. Not fun.

It also doesn't solve the problem that new users will automatically assume that Match All Word Forms actually does match all word forms, and hence end up with completely false results. Match Some Word Forms would be more correct...

it doesn't cater for old English

If has and had, went and gone are old English, I must have missed something in my English classes... [:P]

Shawn Nichols

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/201367#Comment_201367

Thanks for all the feedback. And I appreciate all the workarounds offered,
the rules around searching based on stems, and the suggested priority this
should take with other desired Logos functionality. Let me make just a couple
of observations that I think will help clarify the issue.

1. I don't think we can assume in any search that the user is going to know
the stems that should return in the displayed report. That's the WOW of having
Logos return those stems while looking for the root word. The advantage of a
user-defined table approach is that through a community of consortium,
collections of word variations could be assembled. It's not the best approach.
But something is needed. Wildcards appear to be the best option as of now, although
it really doesn't address the totality of my concern.

2. It is my impression that a number of users find an entry point with Logos
software because they discover a trusted resource in electronic form, which
happens to require the Logos platform, not because they watched a sales demo on
how cool Logos would be. (OK, that's my story at least ... and I still use
AMG's Word Study books.) But my point is that there are many that use Logos (regrettably)
as an electronic concordance only. And I think the software really has to work
there. It's capability to do the basic/assumed functionality well is going to build
confidence for users to seek out training, forums, etc. to grow their knowledge
in using it to its fullest.

3. There are a large number of King James fanatics (I use the term
endearingly). And they are more passionate about their Bible version than most
others. Asking them to swap over to another version for Bible lookup isn't an
option.

4. There are a number of oddities with the King James. I'm not sure most
KJV-only students would even be aware that a search for "public"
wouldn't return a result, or that thoroughly and throughly are often
interchanged among different publishers of the King James Bible (Psalm 51:2).
That's where the serving of the search results would be useful in educating
them about their/our own text.

I really wish someone from Logos would get behind this. I don't think it
matters to the typical users whether they bought or built the logic. But I
think it would go a long way to expand the ease of use among a group that is
generally overlooked.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/201743#Comment_201743

1. I don't think we can assume in any search that the user is going to know
the stems that should return in the displayed report. That's the WOW of having
Logos return those stems while looking for the root word. The advantage of a
user-defined table approach is that through a community of consortium,
collections of word variations could be assembled. It's not the best approach.
But something is needed. Wildcards appear to be the best option as of now, although
it really doesn't address the totality of my concern

Consider Word Lists due to be implemented soon. One thing not realised in Libronix was their use as input to a Search. I don't know that Logos plan on this for L4 but you might take a look at User Voice and suggest/vote for it. Also search for "Word List" in the forum.

Shawn Nichols

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/201758#Comment_201758

Thanks Dave.