On Thursday 03 March 2011 16:05:56 Rodney Baker wrote:
On Thu, 3 Mar 2011 09:06:18 Stan Goodman wrote:
In my private view, it is reasonable to expect that names of invented entities in a complex system be somehow related to their function. [...]
<off-topic> That is a very Hebrew way of looking at the world, Stan (and that is not intended to be a negative or derogatory comment, btw, merely an observation). Hebrew thought/language tends to be oriented around function (given that all Hebrew words have a verbal root) whereas Greco-Roman thought (which has heavily influenced most of the Western world particularly in the sciences)is concerned first with form.
<still OT, but right-of-reply> Thank you for offering me your take in a civil and relevant manner. In the same spirit, however, I'm afraid I don't buy it. I cannot believe for a minute that anybody can defend the use of beautiful (for want of a better word at the moment) term for a complex and unfamiliar entity, in a context in which the declared object is to inform and educate the potential users of the new and unfamiliar entity. Read Roger's very reasonable remarks about terminology; Roger, as far as I can guess is untrammelled by Hebrew semantics, and is a product of European culture with an Indo-European language; yet he quotes for us the quite culture-free rules for inventing terms in GUI design. The same is true of David Rankin, who started this thread. My own guess is that the terminology at issue is the product of egoism back at Rancho KDE (no names, please).
Not that I want to start a philosophical argument here, but it was just an interesting comment that caused me to reflect.
Nor am I anxious for confrontation.
What is interesting to observe on mailing lists such as this is the diversity of cultural paradigms that contributors bring, which can result in people having slightly (or sometimes wildly) different interpretations for certain words. This in turn means that even though we use the same terms, we run into miscommunications and misundersrtanding because the same words don't mean the same thing to every reader.
It's well known that intercultural communication is a difficult, and that words often change meanings across cultural boundaries. What semantic shadings do you reckon are undergone by "Nepomuk", for example, or "Akonadi". as they wend their way to Bolivia, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nepal, Zaire, and Fiji? I think people in all those places would scratch their heads in similar incomprehension. And is it really necessary to load "Plasma" with a new and novel meaning with no detectable connection to those already known to most educated people (with the exception of the journalists who enquired of a particle physicist about where he was getting the blood from for use in his experiments -- that's a true story). The difficulty of intercultural communication is n challenge; it is not an excuse for making things more difficult than they already are. Those working (free, of course) for KDE ought really to consider the users, who bear the brunt of their exercises in obscure terminology.
Many of our expectations (and uses of language) are paradigmatic, even though we aren't necessarily conscious of it.
I hope this thread will soon die. Anyway, I have no expectation that it will change anything.
</off-topic>
-- Stan Goodman Qiryat Tiv'on Israel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org