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Cultural Meanings and
Social Institutions
Social Organization
Through Language

David R. Heise
Cultural Meanings and Social Institutions
 David R. Heise

Cultural Meanings
and Social Institutions
Social Organization Through Language
David R. Heise
Indiana University Bloomington
Bloomington, IN, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-03738-3 ISBN 978-3-030-03739-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03739-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018963060

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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 To my wife Elsa once again,
and to my father, mother, and stepmother (all deceased),
and to my sister Bertie, my son Stephen, my grandson Joe, and my ex-wife
Margie.
Each was among my muses as I wrote this book.
 Contents

1 Language and Social Institutions 1

Defining “Social Institution” 5
Plan of the Report 7
References 8

2 Analyzing Meanings of Identities 11

Oxford Dictionary 12
Collocates 13
Word Associations 14
References 15

3 Dictionary Meanings of Identities 17

Economy 26
Family 28
Religion 30
Polity 31
Law 33
Education 34
Medicine 35
Sports 35
Arts 36
Females 37
Race 38

vii
viii    Contents

Other Components 38
Science 39
References 40

4 Contextual Meanings of Identities 41

Economy 42
Family 51
Religion 52
Polity 53
Law 54
Education 55
Medicine 56
Sport 57
Arts 58
Travel 59
Quirks 59
Artifacts 60
Science 61
References 61

5 Associative Meanings of Identities 63

Economy 64
Family 71
Religion 72
Polity 72
Law 74
Education 74
Medicine 75
Sport 75
Arts 76
Other Clusters 77
Science 78
References 78

6 Types of Meaning Compared 79

Convergence of Methods 80
Other Issues 92
References 95
 Contents    ix

7 Meanings and Institutional Domains 97

Meaning Analyses—Results, Problems, and Promise 98
Actuating Institutional Domains 109
Epilogue 116
References 116

Index 119
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 27 rotated principal components based on correlations

of definitions of identities in Oxford dictionaries 18
Table 4.1 28 rotated principal components based on correlations
of collocates of identities in COCA (Davies 2008–) 43
Table 5.1 20 rotated principal components based on correlations
of word associations to identity words 65
Table 6.1 Overlapping results from three analyses of identity meanings 81

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Language and Social Institutions

Abstract Classic writings propose that the macro-sociological phe-

nomenon of social institutions operate as individuals apply their cultural
knowledge of social institutions in their daily interactions. This book
focuses on proving that individuals indeed have the requisite knowledge
of social institutions. The research begins with a symbolic interaction-
ist idea, that language carries knowledge related to social interaction.
Then the empirical task is to show that knowledge of social institutions
is carried in language and thereby available to everyone who speaks the
language. As a preface for the empirical work in subsequent chapters,
conceptual clarification is offered regarding the meaning of “social insti-
tution.” To avoid confusion with other uses of “social institution,” this
book uses the term “institutional domain” when referring to a complex,
or multiple complexes, of standardized role integrates activated in stand-
ard contexts and having a strategic significance in the social system.

Keywords Social institution · Culture · Language · Knowledge

Societal functions are performed by people in interconnected roles

accomplishing standard actions within venues that have needed instru-
ments and supplies. Examples include families breakfasting, physicians
examining patients, lawyers conferring with clients, teachers querying
students, and clergy conducting funerals. An enculturated individual

© The Author(s) 2019 1

D. R. Heise, Cultural Meanings and Social Institutions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03739-0_1
2 D. R. HEISE

understands what is going on in each such locale and can participate

when that individual has an operative role-identity in the situation.
Navigating between societal functions involves defining situations
in order to choose interconnected role-identities for self and others. For
instance, an individual entering a building labeled as a hospital is primed
to expect medically related interactions. When encountering someone,
the individual searches among hospital identities—such as doctor, nurse,
patient, visitor, or staffer—while attending to cues such as attire or ver-
balizations like “I’m Doctor Fix” in order to find the interconnected
role-identities best suited for other and self—doctor–patient, nurse–doctor,
or visitor–staffer, etc. Then social interaction is constructed within the
framework of the interrelated roles.
Contemporary civilizations contain thousands of role-identities, and
each person has hundreds of identities for the self (MacKinnon and
Heise 2010), so settling on an immediate set of operative identities, with
agreement across individuals at the scene, can be challenging. The claim
here is that individuals manage to define situations and perform societal
functions through their implicit knowledge of social institutions, which
allows them to recognize the locales, actors, and actions that they
encounter, thereby foregrounding a manageable number of role-identities
for self and others in the given situation. Every institution comprises a
body of knowledge that

defines the institutionalized areas of conduct and designates all situations

falling within them. It defines and constructs the roles to be played in the
context of the institutions in question. Ipso facto, it controls and predicts
all such conduct. Since this knowledge is socially objectivated as knowl-
edge, that is, as a body of generally valid truths about reality, any radical
deviance from the institutional order appears as a departure from reality.
Such deviance may be designated as moral depravity, mental disease, or just
plain ignorance. (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 83)

Individuals enact societal functions by jointly applying their institu-

tional knowledge, settling on an institutional frame, embodying selected
role-identities, and undertaking actions associated with their role
assignments.
This account proposes that individuals’ knowledge of social institu-
tions works as a bridge between individual definitions and societal func-
tioning. Anthropologist Goodenough (1961: 522) formulated these two
 1 LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 3

poles as two cultures: “culture 1, the recurring patterns [social struc-

ture and social process] which characterize a community as a homeo-
static system, and culture 2, people’s standards for perceiving, judging,
and acting. Culture 1, moreover, is an artifact or product of the human
use of culture 2. … Individuals can be said to possess culture 2 but not
culture 1, which is the property of a community as a social ecological
system.” In Goodenough’s framework social institutions correspond to
“disparate public cultures,” where a public culture consists of “percep-
tual and conceptual features embedded in the meanings of the vocabu-
lary of language and other public symbols,” plus shared knowledge and
beliefs, shared conventions, rules, and recipes regarding behavioral activ-
ities, and a shared value system. “The more complex the community or
society, then the greater the number of disparate public cultures which
are likely to obtain and the fewer the number of situations and contexts
for which there is a public culture pertaining to the society as a whole”
(Goodenough 1961: 524).
Berger and Luckmann (1966: 92–93) also considered the duality
of shared knowledge and societal functioning. “Institutions’ linguistic
objectifications, from their simple verbal designations to their incorpo-
ration in highly complex symbolizations of reality, … represent them
(that is, make them present) in experience. And they may be symbolically
represented by physical objects, both natural and artificial. All these rep-
resentations, however, become ‘dead’ (that is, bereft of subjective reality)
unless they are ongoingly ‘brought to life’ in actual human conduct. The
representation of an institution in and by roles is thus the representa-
tion par excellence.” For Berger and Luckmann, shared knowledge is the
quintessence of social life, and language is the means for creating and
maintaining knowledge. “Language objectivates the shared experiences
and makes them available to all within the linguistic community, thus
becoming both the basis and the instrument of the collective stock of
knowledge. Furthermore, language provides the means for objectifying
new experiences, allowing their incorporation into the already existing
stock of knowledge, and it is the most important means by which the
objectivated and objectified sedimentations are transmitted” (Berger
and Luckmann 1966: 85–86). Because “language and the cognitive
apparatus based on language, … orders [the world] into objects to be
apprehended as reality” (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 84), institutional
worlds are experienced as objective realities, even though originating
4 D. R. HEISE

from verbalizations about activities that were emergent solutions to joint

problems.
These classic statements linking individual knowledge, subjective cul-
ture, and social institutions imply that individuals have knowledge about
social institutions—an hypothesis that needs to be verified empirically in
order to ground understanding of how individual action becomes soci-
etal functioning. In principle, one might demonstrate that individuals
have knowledge of social institutions by undertaking a testing program
on a probability sample of individuals from a national population in
order to show (or disprove) that most individuals do know the key par-
ticipants, actions, and contexts that are associated with each major social
institution. However, such a survey would be costly and would require a
recondite answer key for grading respondents’ answers regarding social
institutions.
An alternative approach suggested by the symbolic interactionist tra-
dition in sociology (Reynolds and Herman-Kinney 2003) is to show
that institutional knowledge is embedded in the primary language used
by members of a society and therefore individuals implicitly have insti-
tutional knowledge once they learn the language. A provisional study
by MacKinnon and Heise (2010) showed that dictionary definitions of
selected social identities do in fact link institution-related identities and
also link institution identities to some appropriate actions and contexts.
Heise et al. (2015) analyzed word association s of some social identities
and showed that social institution clusters emerge in that kind of mean-
ing data as well.
This study continues work along these lines. First, the provisional dic-
tionary study by MacKinnon and Heise (2010) is supplanted by a new
analysis of dictionary definitions for virtually all social identities in con-
temporary English. The critical question remains the same when con-
sidering thousands of identities rather than the hundreds of identities
considered by MacKinnon and Heise: Do correlations among words
defining identity nouns group identities into social institution clusters?
Showing that social institutions are implicit in dictionary definitions
of the words used to categorize people is a step removed from the men-
tal processes that individuals actually apply in daily life. That is why
the word association study by Heise et al. (2015) contributed to this
approach. It showed that the nexus between identities and social insti-
tutions is present in mental processes as well as in dictionary definitions.
That study is revisited in this report in order to provide more results than
 1 LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 5

could be presented in the original publication and to facilitate compari-

sons among different approaches to discovering social institution clusters
in identity meanings.
Another problem with studying social institutions in dictionary defi-
nitions is that individuals mostly learn the meanings of words through
discourse rather than from dictionary definitions. That leads to the ques-
tion, Are institutional structures manifest in the locutions that are the
source of individuals’ semantic knowledge? For example, if the identity
“Doctor” arises in a text, do identities of complementary roles like Nurse
and Patient also appear nearby? A new study is reported here that exam-
ines the collocates of identity nouns in a large corpus of English texts
in order to answer this question. (Collocates are words immediately sur-
rounding a target word in a corpus of texts.)
Before turning to these empirical tasks, however, it is necessary to
clarify the meaning of “social institution.”

Defining “Social Institution”

Parsons and Shils (1951: 39) defined social institution as: “a complex of
institutionalized role integrates which is of strategic significance in the
social system.” The notion of role integrates relates to who does what to
whom and thereby covers participants and their actions. The Parsons and
Shils definition does not mention contexts, yet social institutions involve
standardized environments that conjoin times and places with assem-
blages of things and of individuals distinguished by uniforms and physi-
ognomies along with timetables scheduling activities within these places.
Institutional contexts are exemplified by the stores of a modern econ-
omy or religious houses of worship. Taking standardized environments
into account expands the definition of social institution to: A complex of
institutionalized role integrates activated in standard contexts and having
a strategic significance in the social system.
Different complexes of participants, actions, and contexts can have
the same strategic significance. For example, a hunting complex and a
gathering complex both serve economic purposes in simple societies, and
a more complicated society can have a multitude of complexes serving
economic purposes, such as extraction workplaces, corporate environ-
ments, and retail establishments. Taking this into account leads to a fur-
ther adjustment of the definition of a social institution: A complex, or
6 D. R. HEISE

multiple complexes, of institutionalized role integrates activated in stand-

ard contexts and having a strategic significance in the social system.
The circular inclusion of the word “institutionalized” in the
definition of institution arises from multiple senses of the word
­
“institution.” According to the Oxford online dictionary of English
­
(Oxforddictionaries.com 2012), an institution might be: (1) a society or
organization devoted to religious, educational, social, or other functions;
(2) a residential organization for people with special needs; (3) an estab-
lished and important organization; (4) a financial company; (5) an estab-
lished law, practice, or custom; or (6) an established and familiar person
or object. Parsons and Shils (1951) used the fifth sense as part of their
definition of the first sense.
The various senses of “institution” support diverse usages in soci-
ology that lack commonality beyond the word itself. Total institutions
(Goffman 1961) relate to sense two. Institutionalism (Meyer and Rowan
1977; Powell and DiMaggio 1991) relates to sense three. The fifth sense
has been applied in varying ways, from Miller’s (2014) observation
that language is a social institution, to institutionalized action schemes
(Fararo and Skvoretz 2006), to Berger and Luckmann’s (1966: 54)
observation that handshake greetings can be viewed as a social institu-
tion. The sixth sense specifies a kind of individual identity. The fourth
sense is used in economics.
Henceforth this report obviates the problem by substituting the word
“standardized” for “institutionalized” within the definition of social
institution. This report also sidesteps confusion from the multiple mean-
ings of “institution” by henceforth following Turner (2010) and substi-
tuting the term “institutional domain” for “social institution” whenever
the focus is on the macro-sociological construct.

An institutional domain is a complex, or multiple complexes, of stand-

ardized role integrates activated in standard contexts and having a strategic
significance in the social system.

Institutional domains are manifest in dispersed standardized contexts

where individuals in complementary roles act in ways that end up being
strategically important for the society as a whole. For example, the econ-
omy is manifest in the multitudes of locales where individuals extract,
refine, fashion, and exchange various kinds of materials; and religion
is manifest in the churches, temples, mosques, and hallowed situations
 1 LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 7

where individuals relate to deities. Domain edifices typically house

instruments and supplies to facilitate domain actions, and the actions
themselves may be standardized on the basis of past experience. In that
sense an institutional domain precedes the individuals who operate it.
However a domain becomes operational only when knowledgeable indi-
viduals inhabit its contexts and activate its productions.
Turner (1997) carefully examined the macro-sociological order of
societies in terms of six major institutional domains—economy, kinship,
religion, polity, law, and education—and the same categories are used
here to organize results of analyses. Turner (2010, Table 4.1) renamed
the institutional domain of law to influence, but the designation of law
is continued here for the sake of continuity and correspondence with dis-
cussions by other writers. Turner’s volume on macro-sociology added
four additional institutional domains (2010, Table 4.1): medicine, sci-
ence, sport, and arts. A domain of medicine also was considered by
Parsons (1951), Charmaz and Olesen (2003).
The full set of institutional domains to be considered here is: econ-
omy, kinship, religion, polity, law, education, medicine, science,
sport, and arts.

Plan of the Report

This study applies multivariate analyses to various kinds of linguistic data
in order to determine whether words for social identities in a language
codify institutional domains. The first focus of attention, in Chapter 2,
is on describing the three kinds of data that were analyzed, and the pro-
cedures for converting these qualitative linguistic materials into numeric
forms suitable for quantitative study.
The next four chapters present the results of the multivariate analy-
ses. Chapter 3 reveals interdependency clusters among thousands of dic-
tionary definitions and compares the clusters found here with those that
emerged in the smaller similar study by MacKinnon and Heise (2010).
Chapter 4 presents results of analyzing word collocates in a large cor-
pus of texts. Clusters of identities emerge corresponding to institutional
domains with this new method of assessing interdependencies among
social identities, providing empirical support for the notion that insti-
tutional domain knowledge is transmitted interpersonally via discourse.
Chapter 5 presents results from analyzing word associations—the same
study as was described briefly by Heise et al. (2015) but presented
8 D. R. HEISE

here with more details regarding how identities align with institutional
domains at the psychological level. Chapter 6 systematically compares
results from the three different kinds of meaning data, showing that core
identities anchor institutional domain clusters in all three approaches.
Chapter 7 summarizes results and notes some theoretical implications
of the results at the micro-sociological and macro-sociological levels.
Then the discussion turns to the methodology employed here, consid-
ering unique benefits of linguistic analyses in the study of institutional
domains, and some limitations of the methods. The final section of the
chapter views institutional domains from the level of the individuals
who embody them. Individuals distribute themselves in a socially con-
structed ecology, adopt institutionally appropriate identities and roles by
defining their situations, are motivated and guided in the performance
of their roles by the basic human impetus to maintain affective meanings
and apply internalized scripts and habits in order to achieve desired out-
comes. Language is crucial in many of these processes because it implic-
itly carries knowledge about society.

References
Berger, P.L., and T. Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A
Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday.
Charmaz, Kathy, and Virginia Olesen. 2003. Medical Institutions. In Handbook
of Symbolic Interactionism, ed. Larry T. Reynolds and Nancy J. Herman-
Kinney, 637–656. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Fararo, Thomas J., and John Skvoretz. 2006. Institutionalized Social Action:
Control at the Program Level. In Purpose, Meaning, and Action: Control
Systems Theories in Sociology, ed. Kent A. McClelland and Thomas J. Fararo,
113–136. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Goffman, E. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and
Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books.
Goodenough, Ward H. 1961. Comments on Cultural Evolution. Daedalus 90:
521–528.
Heise, D.R., Neil J. MacKinnon, and Wolfgang Scholl. 2015. Identities, Roles,
and Social Institutions: An Affect Control Account of Social Order. In Order
on the Edge of Chaos: Social Psychology and the Problem of Social Order, ed.
Edward J. Lawler, Shane R. Thye, and Jeongkoo Yoon, 165–188. New York:
Palgrave.
MacKinnon, N.J., and D.R. Heise. 2010. Self, Identity, and Social Institutions.
New York: Palgrave.
 1 LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 9

Meyer, John W., and Brian Rowan. 1977. Institutionalized Organizations:

Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology 83:
340–363.
Miller, Seumas. 2014. “Social Institutions”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). http://plato.stan-
ford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/social-institutions/.
Oxforddictionaries.com. 2012. English Dictionary and Language Reference.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parsons, Talcott R., and Edward A. Shils (eds.). 1951. Toward a General Theory
of Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Powell, Walter W., and Paul J. DiMaggio (eds.). 1991. The New Institutionalism
in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Reynolds, L.T., and N.J. Herman-Kinney (eds.). 2003. Handbook of Symbolic
Interactionism. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Turner, Jonathon H. 1997. The Institutional Order: Economy, Kinship, Religion,
Polity, Law, and Education in Evolutionary and Comparative Perspective. New
York: Longman.
Turner, Jonathon H. 2010. Theoretical Principles of Sociology, Volume 1:
Macrodynamics. New York: Springer-Verlag.
 CHAPTER 2

Analyzing Meanings of Identities

Abstract A set of identity words serves as data points for three

approaches to analyzing meanings: (1) dictionary definitions; (2) a
word’s collocates or nearby words; (3) word associations. In each
approach, function words and other words with low semantic content are
removed, and remaining words are converted to root forms to obtain a
list of keywords constituting an identity explication. The lists are turned
into a zero-one matrix with a column for each identity and a row for
each keyword used in any definition. Mathematical manipulations result
in a correlation matrix showing the extent of keyword overlap in the
definitions, and this is the basis of a principal component analysis defin-
ing clusters of identities in terms of similarities in their explications.

Keywords Meaning · Dictionary · Collocates · Word association ·

Principal component analysis

MacKinnon and Heise (2010) defined a set of 9199 human identi-

ties by aggregating sub-types (hyponyms) of “human being,” as given
in the WordNet database (WordNet 2005; Fellbaum 1998). These
WordNet identities were merged with 4706 identities drawn from the
Corpus of Contemporary American English (Davies 2011). The corpus
identities had a frequency of at least 21 in the 425,000,000-word cor-
pus (0.05 occurrences per million), appeared in more than two of the
160,000 + texts in the corpus, included no proper names, and included

© The Author(s) 2019 11

D. R. Heise, Cultural Meanings and Social Institutions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03739-0_2
12 D. R. HEISE

only identities that contemporary individuals can adopt, or that they

might believe they are encountering.
The aggregation of 9314 identities included entries that might be
inappropriate for institutional domain analyses, including multi-word
concoctions like “collector of internal revenue” and names of famous or
mythical characters such as Esau. Such identities were dropped if they
were not found in the Oxford dictionaries described below. Also dropped
were proper names and identities specific to some nations other than the
USA. This resulted in a set of 5748 identities for the current analysis.

Oxford Dictionary
Each identity was looked up in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary,
11th Edition, on CD-ROM (Oxford University Press 2004) or, if neces-
sary, in Oxford Dictionaries Online—English Dictionary and Language
Reference (as of 2012). Definitions of the identities were recorded elec-
tronically and verbatim, as they were obtained. When an identity was
listed as a derivation from a master word (e.g., oncologist from oncol-
ogy), the definition of the master word was recorded.
The set of identities was reduced by 449 because of formulaic defi-
nitions that produced artifactual identity clusters. These comprised
33 identities (e.g., “ass,” “dolt,” and “idiot”) defined only in terms of
the words “foolish,” “stupid,” or “silly,” and 416 geographic identities
(e.g., “Afghan,” “Berliner,” “Hoosier,” and “Uzbek”) whose definitions
always included the words “inhabitant,” “native,” or “member.”
The 5299 definitions were reduced to sets of keywords via a Java
program that eliminated 314 words serving grammatical functions (i.e.,
articles, conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and pronouns),
abstractions that linked identities while contributing little to the con-
tent of their definitions (e.g., “people,” “things,” and “completely”),
and words common in dictionary definitions (e.g., “plural,” “informal,”
and “chiefly”), including geographic directions. Most dropped words
had high frequencies in the British National Corpus (Leech et al. 2001).
Words remaining in each definition were converted to root forms (lem-
mas) where feasible, thereby providing a list of keywords related to each
identity.
The 62 identities with no keywords in common with other identities
were dropped since they could not contribute to patterns of confluence,
leaving 5237 identities for further analysis.
 2 ANALYZING MEANINGS OF IDENTITIES 13

Keywords for the identities were converted to a zero-one matrix with

5237 columns corresponding to the defined identities and 8332 rows
corresponding to the same 5237 identities plus 3095 keywords other
than the identities. Ones in a column indicated which keywords appeared
in the definition of the column identity. This matrix was very sparse with
ones in just 0.06% of its cells, but a mathematical manipulation increased
the density of ones.
The square sub-matrix that related identities to identities was
replaced by its Boolean square (after inserting a diagonal of ones),
thereby expanding an identity’s references to include the identities that
were among the keywords of the immediately referenced identities.
Substantively, this procedure corresponds to a dictionary user look-
ing up the identities that appear in a definition. Squaring increased the
number of ones in the matrix to 0.11%. Higher order Boolean power s
also were computed, and the products stabilized at the sixth power with
1.04% ones. However, scree diagrams of eigenvalues based on each of
the higher power matrices indicated that the Boolean square provided
the largest number of interesting components. For example, the scree
diagram based on eigenvalues of correlations incorporating the sixth
Boolean power showed only nine components rising above the scree line,
whereas the scree diagram based on eigenvalues of correlations incorpo-
rating the square showed 30 components rising above the scree line.
Many coefficients of association have been developed for cross-tabu-
lations (Warrens 2008), and several different ones were tried in this pro-
ject. However, only the product–moment coefficient, or phi, worked well
as a basis for computing principal components. Product–moment corre-
lations were computed among identities across the 5237 column entries,
and principal components were extracted from the 5237-square correla-
tion matrix. A scree graph of the rank-ordered eigenvalues showed mul-
tiple pronounced steps down to the 30th eigenvalue, but only meager
stepping thereafter. Therefore, 30 components were retained for Varimax
rotation.

Collocates
Collocates of the top 60,000 lemmas in the 520-million-word Corpus
of Contemporary American English—COCA (Davies 2008–) were
obtained in 2016 (Davies 2016). Lemmas are the conventional words
representing lexemes, or basic units of meaning, each of which might be
14 D. R. HEISE

expressed in multiple inflections of the lemma word—e.g., the lemma

Doctor has inflection Doctors; the lemma Heal has inflections Healing
and Healed. Collocates are units of meaning appearing within a specific
span around a pivot lexeme—in this case, within four words either side
of it. The Davies (2016) list recorded both pivot lexemes and collocates
as lemmas, with an average of 220 collocates for each pivot lexeme, and
each pivot–collocate pair appeared at least three times in the COCA cor-
pus. Part of speech was indicated for all pivotal lexemes and for all collo-
cates, and the frequency of each collocate was given.
Pivot lexemes tagged as nouns were searched for matches to the
5237 identities analyzed in the study of Oxford definitions. The search
indicated that 3711 identities served as pivot lexemes in the list. When
collocates of these were restricted to nouns and verbs with frequencies
greater than five, the number of pivot lexemes dropped to 2767, and
this was the number of identities considered in this analysis. After pre-
liminary analyses, three of the identities—Person, Woman, and Man—
were removed in order to eliminate excessively general components that
absorbed some domain clusters.
A zero-one matrix with 2767 columns was constructed to register the
noun and verb lexemes appearing within four words on either side of an
identity pivot. The 8104 rows of the matrix consisted of the same 2767
identities, followed by 5337 other nouns or verbs that were collocates
for two or more pivot identities. Ones were inserted in the diagonal of
the square matrix, and additional ones in a column indicated the row lex-
emes that were collocates of the column identity. This matrix was sparse
with 0.7% ones. Boolean squaring of the identity matrix increased the
density of ones to 9.4%, but Boolean squaring blurred results of compo-
nent analyses, so the squaring procedure was foregone here.
Product–moment correlations were computed among identities across
the 8104 row entries, and principal components were extracted from the
2767-square correlation matrix. A scree graph of the rank-ordered eigen-
values showed stepping down to the 28th eigenvalue, but only meager
stepping thereafter. Therefore, 28 components were retained.

Word Associations
The analysis of Word Associations duplicated the one reported by Heise
et al. (2015), and that source should be consulted for all details. In brief,
the procedures were as follows.
 2 ANALYZING MEANINGS OF IDENTITIES 15

Data from Nelson et al. (1998) were written word associations to

5019 stimuli by more than 6000 participants during the 1970s, 1980s,
and 1990s. Obvious spelling errors in the data were corrected, and sin-
gular and plural forms of nouns were pooled, as were variations in tense
and grammatical form in the case of verbs.
Analyses focused on 409 stimuli designating identities. Three of the
identities—Person, Woman, and Man—were removed in order to elimi-
nate excessively general clusters in results.
All responses to a stimulus given by at least two respondents were
included in analyses, with no distinction between the most frequent and
the least frequent responses.
A zero-one matrix was constructed with stimuli as columns and
responses as rows. Ones in a column indicated responses to a stimulus.
The matrix consisted of a square 406 × 406 matrix (Q) showing identi-
ties’ relations to one other, above a 1925 × 406 matrix showing relations
between role-identities and sundry other responses. Ones were inserted
into the diagonal of the 406 × 406 matrix for computational reasons.
The 1925 × 406 matrix was reduced to a 1061 × 406 matrix by remov-
ing responses that had been given to just one role-identity stimulus.
Matrix Q was raised to Boolean powers to simulate spreading activa-
tion of associations from a stimulus word to other role-identities. Results
are based on the Boolean square of Q since higher powers generated no
additional change. The matrix was used to compute correlations of the
identity stimuli with each other, and the correlation matrix was analyzed
into principal components, with Varimax rotation of the top-twenty
components.

References
Davies, Mark. 2008–. The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 520
Million Words, 1990–Present. Available online at http://corpus.byu.edu/
coca/.
Davies, Mark. 2011. Word Frequency Data from the Corpus of Contemporary
American English (COCA). Downloaded from http://www.wordfrequency.
info on June 9, 2011.
Davies, Mark. 2016. Collocates of the Top 60,000 Lemmas in the Corpus of
Contemporary American English. Electronic file purchased from corpus.byu.
edu in 2016.
16 D. R. HEISE

Fellbaum, Christiane (ed.). 1998. WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Heise, D.R., Neil J. MacKinnon, and Wolfgang Scholl. 2015. Identities, Roles,
and Social Institutions: An Affect Control Account of Social Order. In Order
on the Edge of Chaos: Social Psychology and the Problem of Social Order, ed.
Edward J. Lawler, Shane R. Thye, and Jeongkoo Yoon, 165–188. New York:
Palgrave.
Leech, Geoffrey, Paul Rayson, and Andrew Wilson. 2001. Word Frequencies in
Written and Spoken English: Based on the British National Corpus. London:
Longman.
MacKinnon, N.J., and D.R. Heise. 2010. Self, Identity, and Social Institutions.
New York: Palgrave.
Nelson, D.L., C.L. McEvoy, and T.A. Schreiber. 1998. The University of South
Florida Word Association, Rhyme, and Word Fragment Norms. http://www.
usf.edu/FreeAssociation/.
Oxforddictionaries.com. 2012. English Dictionary and Language Reference.
Oxford University Press.
Oxford University Press. 2004. Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., on
CD-ROM.
Warrens, Matthijs J. 2008. On Association Coefficients for 2×2 Tables
and Properties That Do Not Depend on the Marginal Distributions.
Psychometrika 73: 777–789.
WordNet. 2005. A Lexical Database for the English Language. Retrieved April 5,
2005, from www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/.
 CHAPTER 3

Dictionary Meanings of Identities

Abstract Thirty principal components represent convergences in dictionary

definitions of identities. Three—Employees, Workers, and Organization
Members—are aspects of economy. Four components—Family Relations,
Partners, Children, and Sexuality—name facets of family. Three—Religious
Ideologues, Christians, and Ceremonialists—are aspects of religion. Four
components represent polity: Public Officials, Political Ideologues, Agents,
and Martial Identities. Law is represented by a component named Law.
Education is represented by a component named Education. A compo-
nent named Medical Specialists represents medicine. The domain of sport
is represented by components named Sports and Players. A component
named Performing Arts represents arts. No component in this study rep-
resents an institutional domain of science. Results of this large-scale analysis
generally parallel a previous analysis of different dictionary data. However,
two unexpected domain-like areas appear in the results here: females
(based on components named Women and Girls) and race.

Keywords Institutional domains · Dictionary definitions · Sex · Race ·

Principal components

Analyses of Oxford definitions for 5237 identities produced 30 princi-

pal components of substantial size. Table 3.1 shows the content of each
rotated component in terms of identities with highest loadings and also

© The Author(s) 2019 17

D. R. Heise, Cultural Meanings and Social Institutions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03739-0_3
Table 3.1 27 rotated principal components based on correlations of definitions of identities in Oxford dictionaries
Label and rank-order Top 30 identities with loadings above 0.20 (number of addi-
of principal component tional identities loading above 0.20)
Employees (PC23) Domestic, Help, Menial, Manservant, Handyman,
Retainer, Servant, Employee, Public-Servant, Maidservant,
Temporary, Footman, Greenskeeper, Tanner, Gatekeeper,
Maid, Lackey, Laundress, Hireling, Stevedore, Typist,
Attendant, Chauffeur, Factotum, Housekeeper, Companion,
Porter, Watchman, Warehouseman, Houseboy (118 More)
Workers (PC25) Worker, Hand, Artisan, Farm-Worker, Mill-Hand,
Autoworker, Salaryman, Millworker, Craftsman, Slave-
Driver, Mechanic, Journeyman, Freelance, Smith,
Gandy-Dancer, Freelancer, Roughneck, Brakeman, Dental-
Hygienist, Rigger, Foreman, Co-Worker, Grunt, Workhorse,
Shifter, Temp, Workaholic, Eager-Beaver, Scab, Nurseryman
(63 More)
Organization members Member, Non-Member, Insider, Employer, Servicer, Ally,
(PC3) Secessionist, Top-Banana, Charter-Member, Troubleshooter,
Mouthpiece, Creature, Administrator, Rapporteur, Affiliate,
Paramilitary, Guarantor, Leading-Light, Sandinista,
Social-Secretary, Financier, Co-Chair, Mascot, Infiltrator,
Renegade, Big-Brother, Penetrator, Fund-Raiser,
Organization-Man, Anarchist (86 More)
Family relations (PC9) Mother-In-Law, Husband, Wife, Father-In-Law, Old-Man,
Hubby, Missus, Old-Lady, Stepson, Son-In-Law, Daughter-
In-Law, Old-Woman, Stepdaughter, Spouse, Stepfather,
Stepmother, Uncle, Widower, Catch, Great-Uncle, Ex,
Parent, Grass-Widow, Polygamist, Great-Aunt, Aunt,
Stepbrother, Adult, Ex-Husband, Ex-Wife (131 More)
18
Top 30 associated words (or words with compo-
nent scores above 2.00)
Employed, Task, Carry, Domestic, Service,
D. R. HEISE
Job, Attendant, Servant, Employee, Action,
House, Old, Perform, Supporter, Follower,
Duty, Ship, Wage, Salary, Important, Help,
Personal, Entertainment, Load, Assist, Travel,
Form, Government, Helpful, Function
Work, Worker, Hard, Ship, Make, Farm,
Manual, Factory, Skilled, Board, Hand,
Employing, Law, Charge, Company, Repair,
Rank, Aircraft, Qualified, Own, Boy, Crew,
Machine, Boat, Operate, University, Visitor,
Care, Mill, Army
Body, Society, Legislative, Formally,
Organization, Electing, Team, Business,
Social, Study, Governing, Competitor, Activity,
Meeting, Fellow, Work, Take, Engaging,
Boy, Associating, Report, Armed-Force,
Information, Head, Council, Original,
Employing, Admit, Employee, Ritual
Relation, Married, Considering, Wife,
Husband, Father, Mother, Children, Parent,
Male, Form, Child, Sexual, Address, Partner,
Protection, Care, Title, Provide, Relative,
Female, Community, Friend, Business, Boy,
Head, Religious, Take, Doing, Profit
(continued)
Table 3.1 (continued)
Label and rank-order Top 30 identities with loadings above 0.20 (number of addi-
of principal component tional identities loading above 0.20)
Partners (PC27) Partner, Spouse, Catch, Handmaid, Silent-Partner, Ex,
Maneater, Swinger, Helpmate, Stud, Butch, Pardner,
Co-Partner, Taxi-Dancer, House-Husband, Leaver,
Associate, Customer, Travelling-Salesman, Raiser, Rep,
Churchwarden, Drummer, Emissary, Congressperson,
Batterer, Shoplifter, Icon, Delegate, Prospect (45 More)
Children (PC2) Newborn, Kiddie, Man-Child, Munchkin, Nipper, Papoose,
Tot, Kid, Preteen, Imp, Monkey, Scamp, Rug-Rat,
Preadolescent, Crybaby, Offspring, Tyke, Scaredy-Cat, Brat,
Toddler, Urchin, Schoolchild, Hellion, Suckling, Youngster,
Begetter, Adoptee, Adopter, Preschooler, Rascal (59 More)
Sexual identities Prostitute, Chippy, Doxy, Hooker, Tart, Whore, Working-
(PC12) Girl, Cocotte, Procurer, Pro, John, Streetwalker, Seductress,
Courtesan, Puta, Hustler, Pimp, Seducer, Strumpet, Voyeur,
Don-Juan, Homosexual, Peeping-Tom, Ace, Fairy, Fag,
Faggot, Lesbian, Gay, Homo (145 More)
Religious ideologues Religious, Convert, Unbeliever, Monk, Missionary,
(PC6) Religionist, Secularist, Assassin, Hermit, Pilgrim, Novice,
Monastic, Latitudinarian, Extremist, Novitiate, Disbeliever,
Preacher, Superior, Pagan, Taoist, Scholastic, Nun,
Crusader, Vegetarian, Missioner, Postulant, Believer,
Celibate, Fire-Walker, Caroler (98 More)
Top 30 associated words (or words with compo-
nent scores above 2.00)
Business, Sell, Take, Good, Married, Firm,
Service, Act, Young, Partner, Considering,
Travel, Agent, Buy, Profit, Establishing,
Unmarried, Risk, Doing, Undertaking,
Couple, Sharing, Pair, Product, Wife,
Husband, Client, Engaging, Potential,
Representative
Age, Physical, Full, Development,
Irresponsible, Immature, Son, Daughter,
3
Young, Child, Mischievous, Old, Legal,
Responsibility, Parent
Activity, Sexual, Engage, Payment, Prostitute,
Involving, Professional, Engaging, Male,
Task, Sex, Attraction, Homosexual, Feeling,
Relationship, Skillful, Relating, Amateur,
Belonging, Natural, Competent, Paid, Worthy,
Gift, Talent, Innate, Affection, Family,
Profession, Practice
Religious, Vow, Monastic, Bound, Order,
Belief, Community, Living, Job, Head,
Political, Monk, Faith, Obedience, Poverty,
Chastity, Social, Rank, Institution, Superior,
Nun, Reason, Changing, Convert, Female,
DICTIONARY MEANINGS OF IDENTITIES
Novice, Monastery, Situation, Philosophy,
Address
19
(continued)
Table 3.1 (continued)
Label and rank-order Top 30 identities with loadings above 0.20 (number of addi-
of principal component tional identities loading above 0.20)
Christians (PC13) Churchman, Evangelical, Copt, Non-Christian, Protestant,
Clergyman, Catechumen, Churchwoman, Regular,
Hutterite, Catechist, Restorationist, Methodist, Saint,
Pastor, Born-Again-Christian, Cleric, Christian, Holy-
Roller, Satanist, Unitarian, Evangelist, Congregationalist,
Communicant, Primate, Antinomian, Adventist, Pentecostal,
Heretic, Eremite (90 More)
Ceremonialists (PC26) Hierarch, High-Priest, Altar-Boy, Archpriest, Jesuit,
Celebrant, Committeeman, Ecclesiastic, Penitent,
Seminarian, Seminarist, Curate, Priest, Soprano, Ordinand,
Theocrat, Priestess, Countertenor, Acolyte, Rector,
Bacchanal, Bacchant, Confessor, Vocalist, Sacristan,
Bandmate, Male, Bro, Honcho, Cabinet-Minister (94 More)
Public officials (PC16) Official, Functionary, Harbormaster, Diplomat, Malfeasant,
Prosecutor, Incumbent, Dissident, Signee, Stationmaster,
Bureaucrat, Coroner, Executioner, Dissenter, Huntsman,
Promulgator, Collector, Paymaster, Toastmaster, District-
Attorney, Apparatchik, Whip, Dogcatcher, Censor, Guest,
Governor, Toast-Mistress, Consul, Cultural-Attache, Vice-
President (91 More)
Political ideologues Radical, Dove, Masculinist, Redistributionist, Hawk,
(PC17) Revolutionary, Reformist, Proponent, Supremacist, Agrarian,
Modern, Advocate, Assimilationist, Privateer, Marketeer,
Urbanist, Minimalist, Maximalist, Firebrand, Votary, Apostle,
Prophet, Socialist, Protagonist, Universalist, Militant,
Presbyterian, Globalist, Partisan, Judge-Advocate (92 More)
20
Top 30 associated words (or words with compo-
nent scores above 2.00)
Religion, Church, Christian, Receiving,
Christ, Christianity, Baptism, Teaching,
D. R. HEISE
Believer, Roman-Catholic, Clergy, Minister,
Priest, Orthodox, Anglican, Non-Christian,
Follower, Authorizing, Ceremony, Administer,
Ordaining, Sacrament, Rite, Perform, Belief,
Order, Faith, Holy, Service, Bishop
Male, Perform, Church, Boy, Music, Leader,
Organization, Roman-Catholic, Musical, Set,
Minister, Order, Priest, Youth, Anglican, Lead,
Principal, Authorizing, Administer, Sexual,
Ceremony, Orthodox, Ordaining, Sacrament,
Command, Rite, Non-Christian, Head,
Sound, Player
Public, Duty, Office, Holding, Official,
Appointing, Social, Political, Large,
Responsible, Party, Characteristic, House,
Law, Charge, Leader, Care, Broadcast,
Electing, Kind, Music, Idea, Town, Attendant,
Indistinctly, Legal, Responsibility
Support, Cause, Policy, Advocate, Case,
Behalf, Publicly, Recommend, Political, Social,
Idea, Party, Supporter, Characteristic, Rank,
Set, Theory, Sport, Team, Reform, View,
Army, Follower, System, Private, Philosophy,
Adherent, Property, Value, Practice
(continued)
Table 3.1 (continued)
Label and rank-order Top 30 identities with loadings above 0.20 (number of addi-
of principal component tional identities loading above 0.20)
Agents (PC7) Factor, G-Man, Flack, Realtor, Ruler, Free-Agent,
Land-Agent, Bioterrorist, Insurance-Broker, Travel-
Agent, Distributor, Shipping-Agent, Narc, Secret-Agent,
Fing, Claims-Adjuster, Real-Estate-Agent, Fieldsman,
Existentialist, Representative, Double-Agent, Agent,
Bagman, Actors-Agent, Press-Agent, Runner, Principal,
Dealer, Minister, Source (17 More)
Martial roles (PC1) Enlisted-Man, Warrant-Officer, Master-Sergeant, Police-
Officer, Noncom, First-Sergeant, Chief-Petty-Officer,
General-Officer, Colonel, Brigadier-General, Commandant,
Corporal, Major-General, Petty-Officer, Lieutenant-
Commander, Boatswain, Technical-Sergeant, Vice-Admiral,
Judge-Advocate-General, Ensign, Field-Officer, Sheriff, Co,
Lieutenant-Colonel, Seaman, Sergeant-Major, Staff-Officer,
Adjutant-General, Rear-Admiral, Lieutenant-General (96
More)
Law (PC21) Prosecuting-Attorney, Attorney, Lawyer, Rep, Incompetent,
Juvenile-Delinquent, Emissary, Drummer, Duffer, Slouch,
Spastic, Congressperson, Envoy, Assignee, Delegator,
Delegate, Icon, Constituent, Travelling-Salesman, Scofflaw,
Re-Enactor, Adjudicator, Poet-Laureate, Churchwarden,
Charge-Daffaire, Statistician, Appellant, Arsonist,
Ambassador, Jurist (128 More)
Top 30 associated words (or words with compo-
nent scores above 2.00)
Service, Government, Provide, Information,
Take, Party, Agent, Work, Performer, Obtain,
Financial, Secret, Effect, Manage, Produce,
Role, Matter, Organizing, Writer, Active,
Actor, Transaction, Contractual, Form,
Action, Characteristic, Carry, Competitor,
Good, Performing
Police, Officer, Force, Position, Armed-Force,
Authority, Hold, Holder, Civil, Ecclesiastical,
3
Post, Bailiff, Commission, Rank, Office, Army,
Holding, Public, Police-Officer, Air-Force,
Navy, Lieutenant, Naval, Captain, Ship,
Charge, Non-Commissioned, Policeman,
Military, Ranking
Law, Act, Crime, Appointing, Sell, Criminal,
Order, Travel, Speak, Committing, Court,
Representative, Make, Action, Product,
Qualified, Agent, Client, Potential, Chosen,
Commit, Case, Firm, Carry, Study, Legal,
Practise, Gain, Form, Individual
DICTIONARY MEANINGS OF IDENTITIES
(continued)
21
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 Lawn Benches Made from Old Bedsteads

Painted Green, These Rebuilt Bedsteads Served as Lawn Benches

Old bedsteads were converted into serviceable lawn, or porch,

benches, as shown in the photograph reproduced, by the addition of
a suitable seat, properly supported. The transformation was a simple
one. Only the foot and headpieces of the bedsteads were used. The
front legs and other pieces were made from other wood. The front
legs are of square stock, about 2¹⁄₂ by 2¹⁄₂ in. The crosspieces,
supporting the wide board seats, are mortised into the legs and
fastened with glue and screws. The seat is fastened from the under
side by cleats. The lumber was carefully planed and sandpapered so
that the benches presented a smooth finish when painted green, to
match other outdoor furniture.—F. E. Tuck, Nevada City, Calif.
 Repairing Wood-Wind Instruments
Wood-wind instruments sometimes “leak” at the joints or keys and
make playing of the instrument difficult. Many such instruments are
made in sections, with ends that telescope to form a tight fit. This fit
is maintained by the use of a cork band cemented around the tenon
end of the telescoping joint. The renewal of these cork joints, and the
addition of new pads on the keys, will make an old instrument nearly
as good as it was when new, so far as playing is concerned,
provided the work is correctly done and the wood of the sections
themselves has not cracked. Many musicians have spare time and
can do this work themselves. The outlay for materials for the job is
from 75 cents to $1.00. A small alcohol, or even a kerosene, lamp
and an old knife, or old file, are required.

The Cork is Fitted Carefully into Place, and Glued

All traces of the old cork on the joint can be removed with
sandpaper, leaving it as shown at the left. The cork comes in strips
of about the proper thickness, and wide and long enough to allow for
trimming. The ends of the strip should be beveled to make a ¹⁄₄-in.
lap joint.
A small quantity of the cement is heated over the lamp and six
drops poured on the joint; then with the end of the file, which should
be heated also, it is spread to give an even, thin coating. The
beveled ends of the strip are similarly treated. By working quickly
and carefully, the coating on the joint and strip are brought to a
plastic state by holding in the flame, and the strip is quickly laid in
place. Before the cement has time to harden, press the cork in,
forming a neat joint. Bind a rag around the cork, leaving it until the
cement is thoroughly set.
The corked joint will be too large to go into the joining section of
the instrument. File and sandpaper it to a twisting fit. Though the
cork should be truly cylindrical, it may be tapered a trifle smaller at
the forward end. A coating of tallow applied to the joint will make it
easy-fitting, but air-tight and moisture-proof.
The pads are disks of felt incased in thin sheepskin. After long
usage, they become too hard to make an air-tight fit. Repadding
should, therefore, be anticipated. Shellac will give good results in
putting on pads. It is heated until liquid and poured into the key
recess. The new pad is pressed into the liquid shellac, care being
taken to have it well centered. For different keys, it will be necessary
to use varying quantities of shellac to make the pad sit higher or
lower, as required.—Donald A. Hampson, Middletown, N. Y.

¶A simple method of bracing a screen door is to stretch a stout wire

diagonally across the lower portion of it.
Rustic Trellis to Shade Door or Window
Rustic Trellises are Easily Constructed and When Covered with Vines Add
to the Attractiveness of the Home
 Proper preparation in the early spring will make it possible for the
householder to shade doors and windows from the hot summer’s
sun by means of inexpensive rustic trellises that add not a little to the
beauty of the home. A suggestion for a trellis at a doorway and one
for a window are shown in the illustration. They are made of straight
tree trunks and small limbs, having the bark on them. The curved
portions of the window trellis may be made easily by using twigs that
are somewhat green. Morning-glories, or other suitable climbing
plants, may be trained over the trellises.—J. G. Allshouse,
Avonmore, Pa.
 Making Scale Enlargements with a Rubber Band
For reducing or enlarging maps, and similar drawings of irregular
design, the device shown in the illustration will replace the ordinary
instruments, and enable the draftsman to turn out a given amount of
work in much less time than required when proportional dividers are
used. The materials needed are an eraser, a rubber band, two pins,
two thumb tacks, and a few drops of rubber cement. From the eraser
two pieces are cut, as shown in the sketch, about ¹⁄₄ by ¹⁄₂ by 1¹⁄₄ in.
Cut deep slits in each end of these pieces. Insert the end of the
rubber band, cut at the splice, in one of these slits and place a thumb
tack in the other. A pin is thrust through the eraser and trimmed
close, to prevent the thumb tack from tearing the eraser. Cement the
slits with rubber cement, and place the assembled device under a
book weight, until the cement has set.
 This Simple Device Is Useful in Enlarging or Reducing Drawings and Maps

Assuming that a contour map is to be enlarged, the rectangular

divisions of the original map, ordinarily section lines or the
boundaries of quarter sections, are drawn on the larger sheet as a
base for the reproduction. Place the device on the original map, as
indicated, the edge of the rubber band touching a “horizontal” section
line between two “vertical” ones, the rubber band under slight
tension. On the black surface of the band, dot white points, with
water color, along the section line at which the contour lines intersect
it. Also place a dot at each end of the band to indicate the position of
the two “vertical” section lines between which the band is set.
Transfer the device to the same relative position on the
enlargement, stretching the rubber band. Make dots at each end,
denoting the “vertical” section lines, for the corresponding lines on
the enlargement. The series of intermediate points along the band
will be in the same relative position on the enlargement as they were
on the original. They can be connected on the enlargement with as
accurate a result as obtained by the use of proportional dividers, and
more rapidly.
After the points are indicated upon the enlargement, the
reproducing device is removed and the surface of the rubber band
cleaned instantly by touching it with a moist cloth. The exposed part
of the rubber band is a variable, and the device can be made with
this dimension adapted to the work. It is capable of enlarging or
reducing at a ratio not greater than six to one, above which the
rubber band approaches its elastic limit.—H. L. Wiley, Seattle, Wash.
 Signal Telegraph with Green and Red Lights

By arranging a circuit with batteries, lights, and keys, as shown in

the diagram, a signal telegraph may be made that will afford much
pleasure to boys and may be used for practical purposes. The keys
A and B are wired into the circuit with a battery C and a red and a
green incandescent lamp. A simple set of signals may be devised
easily so that messages may be sent in the code.—James R.
Townsend, Itasca, Texas.
 A Circular Swing
By DAVIS FOSS GETCHELL

W hile on the farm I constructed a circular swing which proved very

attractive to my boys and their friends. By its side, and
suspended from the same tree branch, was an ordinary swing.
During the eight weeks of our stay the latter was seldom in use. The
circular swing was a far greater favorite with all the young people,
boys and girls alike.
Around a branch of a large elm and 18 or 20 ft. from the tree trunk
was looped a 10-ft. length of chain and to the hanging end of this
was made fast a 1-in. rope nearly 10 ft. longer than was needed to
reach the ground. Directly beneath the point where the chain went
around the limb, as determined by a plumb bob, was set a 6-in.
piece of cedar post 3¹⁄₂ ft. into the ground. This was sawed off
square 2¹⁄₂ ft. above the ground. Into the top of this post was set a
¹⁄₂-in. rod, to serve as a pivot for the swing. It was set in firmly about
6 in. and projected about 3 in. from the top of the post.
 The Circular Swing will be Found Very Safe and Pleasurable, but, as is the
Case of an Ordinary Swing, Anyone Careless Enough to Get in the Way of It
will Get Badly Bumped

A straight-grained piece of pine board, 15 ft. long, 8 in. wide, and 1

in. thick, was procured and a hole bored in one end large enough to
make it turn freely on the pin in the upper end of the post. Two holes
were bored in the other end of the board large enough to admit the
rope. The first hole was 6 in. from the end, and the second hole, 3 ft.
The hanging end of the rope was passed down through one of these
holes and back up through the other and then made fast to itself
about 3 ft. above the board after the board had been adjusted so that
it would swing throughout its length at the height of the post, or 2¹⁄₂
ft. from the ground. The swing was then complete except for a
swivel, which was put in the rope within easy reach of one standing
on the board, so that it could be oiled.
One good push would send the board with a boy on the end three
or four times about the 90-ft. circle. The little fellows would like to get
hold of the board in near the post and shove it around. Once started,
it could be kept going with very little effort.
In putting up such a swing, make sure to have the post set solidly
in the ground, as it has a tendency to work loose. Tie all the knots
tightly. Do not look upon the swivel as unnecessary. The first swing I
put up was without one, and the rope twisted off in a few days.
It is not necessary to climb a tree; just throw a stout cord over the
limb by means of a stone or nut tied to the end, then haul the rope
and chain up over the limb with the cord. Before the chain leaves the
ground loop the end of it and pass the cord through the loop. The
higher the limb from the ground the better the swing will work, but 25
ft. will be about right.
 Hand-Operated Motorboat Whistle

Bellows Operated by Hand for Blowing a Whistle on a Power Boat

Anyone with a power boat can construct a blower for the whistle
very cheaply. The whistle is attached to a suitable length of pipe,
threaded on each end. The blower is made of two white-pine boards,
1 in. thick, cut as shown at A; a thin piece of leather is cut like the
pattern B, to form the bellows part, and after it is shaped, the edges
of the boards are glued and the leather placed in position, where it is
fastened with tacks driven in about 1 in. apart. The bellows are
fastened to the under side of a seat with screws, and a tension
spring is attached to the bottom of the bellows and the floor of the
boat. A cord is fastened to the lower board of the bellows and run up
through to the cabin roof over suitable pulleys to a handle within
convenient reach of the operator.—Contributed by John I. Somers,
Pleasantville, N. J.
 Filling In Broken Places on Enamel
Ordinary putty will not do to fill in cracks or broken spots on an
enameled surface, such as a clockface. Fine sealing wax is much
better, as it hardens at once, takes color without absorbing the oil,
and does not shrink like putty. Use a wax of the proper color to
match the surface as closely as possible. Fit it in and smooth with a
warm, flexible piece of metal, such as a palette knife. Give it one or
two coats of thin color to exactly match the other surface, and
varnish. If the article has not a high polish, the gloss of the varnish
can be cut a little with pumice stone.
 A Twisting Thriller Merry-Go-Round
By R. E. EDWARDS

“Stepdime!”
right up; three twisting thrillers for a penny—a tenth of a
was the familiar invitation which attracted customers to
the delights of a homemade merry-go-round of novel design. The
patrons were not disappointed, but came back for more. The power
for the whirling thriller is produced by the heavy, twisted rope,
suspended from the limb of a tree, or other suitable support. The
rope is cranked up by means of the notched disk A, grasped at the
handle B, the car being lifted off. The thriller is stopped when the
brakeplate I rests on the weighted box L.
 The Supporting Ropes are Wound Up at the Disk A, the Car is Hooked into
Place, and the Passengers Take Their Seats for a Thrilling Ride, Until the
Brakeplate I Rests on the Box

Manila rope, ³⁄₄ in. or more in diameter, is used for the support,
and is rigged with a spreader, about 2 ft. long, at the top, as shown.
The disk is built up of wood, as detailed, and notches, C, provided
for the ropes. The rope is wound up and the car is suspended from it
by the hook, which should be strong, and deep enough so that it
cannot slip out, as indicated at H.
The car is made of a section of 2 by 4-in stuff, D, 10 ft. long, to
which braces, E, of 1 by 4-in. stuff are fastened with nails or screws.
The upper ends of the pieces E are blocked up with the centerpiece
F, nailed securely, and the wire link G is fastened through the joint.
The seats J are suspended at the ends of the 2 by 4-in. bar, with
their inner ends lower, as shown, to give a better seating when the
thriller is in action. The seats are supported by rope or strap-iron
brackets, K, set 15 in. apart. The box should be high enough so that
the seats do not strike the ground.