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The word "boojum" originates in Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark," an amusing epic poem about the importance of negative testing.

lamename 2y ago
I'm interested. Scanning wikipedia, I'm missing the link with the importance of negative testing. Could you explain?
- dvgrn 2y ago
  Yes, please -- I'd like to hear more about that! I've got the poem memorized, but mostly what I know about it is that Carroll thought of the last line first -- "For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see." and ended up writing the other umpteen dozen verses just so that that would make sense as a punch line.
- sdwr 2y ago
  Positive testing, in this case, is matching a sample to a pre-existing pattern Negative testing is trying to invalidate the sample The hunting of the snark is written in a way that reads like "normal English" from a distance. The sentences flow fine, the words look about right if you squint. So it passes a lot of "positive tests", in that it matches our expectations for what language looks like. You have to "negative test" the story to realize you don't know the definitions for any of the words, and that the plot is uninterpretable. Same idea as Kahneman's system 1 that comes up with instant answers, or ChatGPT hallucinating facts by association that "look right".
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Reminds me of Ted Hughes' Wodwo, playing with the concept of the known, unknown, and unknowable. It challenges the reader to try to model and define a Wodwo, but provides basically no information on what a wodwo is, aside from the fact that it is something that itself is struggles to define it's relation and connection to the world. In my opinion, it highlights how we are all physical perception machines looking for meaning and identity, but meaning and identity can not be physically perceived. https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495307-Wodwo-by-Ted-Hughes https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495307-Wodwo-by-Ted-Hughes
- sevenseventen 2y ago
  Sorry, that was a joke. The Snark is described in detail, with but a single additional caution that some Snarks are Boojums, with no description whatsoever of the difference. And, in the end, only a Boojum is found. The band of snark-hunters are _also_ described in detail, almost always emphasizing the things that they cannot do or the additional risks of having them along, but they're brought along anyway.
bombcar 2y ago
And also is given to a cactus-like tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boojum_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boojum_tree

lamename 2y ago

I'm interested. Scanning wikipedia, I'm missing the link with the importance of negative testing. Could you explain?

dvgrn 2y ago
Yes, please -- I'd like to hear more about that! I've got the poem memorized, but mostly what I know about it is that Carroll thought of the last line first -- "For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see." and ended up writing the other umpteen dozen verses just so that that would make sense as a punch line.
sdwr 2y ago
Positive testing, in this case, is matching a sample to a pre-existing pattern Negative testing is trying to invalidate the sample The hunting of the snark is written in a way that reads like "normal English" from a distance. The sentences flow fine, the words look about right if you squint. So it passes a lot of "positive tests", in that it matches our expectations for what language looks like. You have to "negative test" the story to realize you don't know the definitions for any of the words, and that the plot is uninterpretable. Same idea as Kahneman's system 1 that comes up with instant answers, or ChatGPT hallucinating facts by association that "look right".
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Reminds me of Ted Hughes' Wodwo, playing with the concept of the known, unknown, and unknowable. It challenges the reader to try to model and define a Wodwo, but provides basically no information on what a wodwo is, aside from the fact that it is something that itself is struggles to define it's relation and connection to the world. In my opinion, it highlights how we are all physical perception machines looking for meaning and identity, but meaning and identity can not be physically perceived. https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495307-Wodwo-by-Ted-Hughes https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495307-Wodwo-by-Ted-Hughes
sevenseventen 2y ago
Sorry, that was a joke. The Snark is described in detail, with but a single additional caution that some Snarks are Boojums, with no description whatsoever of the difference. And, in the end, only a Boojum is found. The band of snark-hunters are _also_ described in detail, almost always emphasizing the things that they cannot do or the additional risks of having them along, but they're brought along anyway.

bombcar 2y ago

And also is given to a cactus-like tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boojum_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boojum_tree