Writing for Business - A Whatis.com Blog » historic or historical http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business Is your grammar as good as your code? Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:09:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Watson on Jeopardy! is a historic event — or is it historical? http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/watson-on-jeopardy-is-a-historic-event-or-is-it-historical/ http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/watson-on-jeopardy-is-a-historic-event-or-is-it-historical/#comments Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:58:15 +0000 Ivy Wigmore http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/?p=1458 Which is correct?
I’m watching Watson, an IBM supercomputer, face off against top-ranked human players on Jeopardy! This is a ________ event.
a. historic
b. historical


Answer: a.

Explanation:
A historical event is just something that happened in the past. A historic event is something significant that either happened in the past or that is current but has significance for the future.

Why is the competition between Watson and two top-ranked Jeopardy! players significant? It’s an amazing breakthrough for artificial intelligence.


Although Jeopardy! is essentially a trivia game, the skills required to compete are anything but trivial. To succeed, a contestant needs an unusual breadth of knowledge, a superior knowledge of the English language (and sometimes other ones), facility with puns and other word play — and the ability to synthesize all these, retrieve the answers and hit the buzzer before your opponents get to theirs.

Watson is optimized as a “question answering” system, combining natural language processing and machine learning with deep analytics and the lightning-fast reflexes more typical of your average supercomputer.

In the future, the abilities of Watson and other supercomputers like him could enable much more intelligent search engines and decision support systems. As an IBM rep commented, when applied to Health IT, Watson’s abilities could be — quite literally — life-saving. A historic event, indeed.

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]]> http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/watson-on-jeopardy-is-a-historic-event-or-is-it-historical/feed/ 1 Is that data historic or historical? http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/is-that-data-historic-or-historical/ http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/is-that-data-historic-or-historical/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 16:11:19 +0000 Ivy Wigmore http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/?p=1139 Which is correct?
The majority of stakeholders want access to not only current information but also ________ data.
a. historical
b. historic


Answer: a.

Explanation:
Historical means that something happened in the past; historic means that something was in the past and is also important. Historic events are momentous by definition; a historical event could be anything that happened in the past.

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