"Technically, that's not true"
Sep. 14th, 2010 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackValid normal English usage that differs from technical vocabulary, a higher form of pedentry
Often the same normal English word has one (or more) specific technical uses. Either because the technical term came first, and was adopted for analogous (but not necessarily identical) lay uses. Or, at least as commonly, because the English (or other vernacular) word came first, and it was adopted for technical use (for instance, in maths the meaning of "circle" is more specific than the English use, but no adult, not even the most proprietary maladjusted mathematician objects to the normal English use).
In the rare specific case where previously the technical term was the only usage, and it had a specific meaning, which is distorted by how some people use it, then I think people used to the technical term are correct to request it be used correctly. Obviously language evolves naturally, and it's normally best to accept how it does so, but it's also correct to participate in the change, and sometimes to make value judgements. For instance, "light-year" means "the distance light travels in a year in a vacuum[1]". Some people use it to mean "a really long time". Even if this is understandable and comprehensible, I think it's fair to say that it's wrong, and language is more useful and more clear if we DON'T do this.
However, in most of the other cases, when the lay use is a normal part of English, and especially where the lay use of the word came first, I don't think people have any justification whatsoever for insisting only the technical definition is correct.
Some people are surprised that I think this. "You're pedantic" they say, "surely you approve of all strict rules[2], correct or not?" Well, no. I don't. Firstly, pedantry is not, actually, the highest calling in my life :) Secondly, denying that circle does (and should) have a normal English usage is incorrect -- and the one thing that death to successful pedantry is being incorrect. Appreciating a complex, intricate and subtle interaction of different and sometimes implicit rules of different meanings, and applying them ALL correctly is a HIGHER form of pedantry.
[1] Although the official definition may vary depending which of the units we have defined fundamentally, I think this is the _core_ meaning, and people care correct to use it that way whichever of time, distance, and speed units are not fundamental.
[2] The lust for rules
I was somewhat glib about people always wanting to find underlying rules. In fact, it's a very human tendency. People -- from all walks of life -- are prone to seizing on some distinction and assuming it's "correct".
This urge is very natural, and very healthy insofar as it lets us form useful generalisations.
However, it has the unfortunate side-effect of making us insist there are rules where there aren't.
People insist that momentous happenings (eg. assassinations) must have complicated causes, not just chance.
People want to believe that there is an international committee that decides how the number of horse's legs touching the ground in a statue relates to the manner of death of the rider. They believe it so strongly they're shocked to see statues that don't follow it.
People want to assume that "E. E. Cummings" should be lowercased because he lowercased many other things but (if I recall my information correctly) he didn't lowercase his name.
People want to assume that you should not split an infinitive. People can become very hostile on this point, because they feel it's the primary bastion in the skirmish for correctness. People have been very very hostile to startrek for saying "to boldly go". I'm sure startrek didn't think it through very far. But as it happens, there is no benefit to society to avoiding splitting infinitives (except a very crude sort of exclusionary test to give people arbitrary hoops to see who learns them best), and while some educated people say not to, the people who know the most about it (copyeditors and linguists) approve it.
I do it myself. When I first learnt that a fox was a "vulpes" and a cube was a "cuboid", I insisted on the technical meaning so hard I effectively denied that "fox" and "cube" were equally correct descriptions. However, in my defence, I was about eight. It's good insofar as it represents learning, but bad insofar as it's taken as a universal truth.
So inferring rules is natural. It's just that sometimes it's wrong even though it's natural.
"Technically, that's not true"
But what really gets me is when someone applies "technically" to a sentence which contains no technical definitions of words. If I use "A or B" in the normal English meaning[1], and someone says "technically that means only A or B, but not both", then they're WRONG because they incorrectly assumed people use logical-or when actually they use normal-English-or. But at least their sentence has specific (even if false) meaning.
But sometimes people prepend "technical" to a sentence to make a distinction that is -- as far as I can tell -- completely non-existent. And it annoys me because I can't see how it can EVER be correct.
[1] which is inclusive or exclusive depending on context
Often the same normal English word has one (or more) specific technical uses. Either because the technical term came first, and was adopted for analogous (but not necessarily identical) lay uses. Or, at least as commonly, because the English (or other vernacular) word came first, and it was adopted for technical use (for instance, in maths the meaning of "circle" is more specific than the English use, but no adult, not even the most proprietary maladjusted mathematician objects to the normal English use).
In the rare specific case where previously the technical term was the only usage, and it had a specific meaning, which is distorted by how some people use it, then I think people used to the technical term are correct to request it be used correctly. Obviously language evolves naturally, and it's normally best to accept how it does so, but it's also correct to participate in the change, and sometimes to make value judgements. For instance, "light-year" means "the distance light travels in a year in a vacuum[1]". Some people use it to mean "a really long time". Even if this is understandable and comprehensible, I think it's fair to say that it's wrong, and language is more useful and more clear if we DON'T do this.
However, in most of the other cases, when the lay use is a normal part of English, and especially where the lay use of the word came first, I don't think people have any justification whatsoever for insisting only the technical definition is correct.
Some people are surprised that I think this. "You're pedantic" they say, "surely you approve of all strict rules[2], correct or not?" Well, no. I don't. Firstly, pedantry is not, actually, the highest calling in my life :) Secondly, denying that circle does (and should) have a normal English usage is incorrect -- and the one thing that death to successful pedantry is being incorrect. Appreciating a complex, intricate and subtle interaction of different and sometimes implicit rules of different meanings, and applying them ALL correctly is a HIGHER form of pedantry.
[1] Although the official definition may vary depending which of the units we have defined fundamentally, I think this is the _core_ meaning, and people care correct to use it that way whichever of time, distance, and speed units are not fundamental.
[2] The lust for rules
I was somewhat glib about people always wanting to find underlying rules. In fact, it's a very human tendency. People -- from all walks of life -- are prone to seizing on some distinction and assuming it's "correct".
This urge is very natural, and very healthy insofar as it lets us form useful generalisations.
However, it has the unfortunate side-effect of making us insist there are rules where there aren't.
People insist that momentous happenings (eg. assassinations) must have complicated causes, not just chance.
People want to believe that there is an international committee that decides how the number of horse's legs touching the ground in a statue relates to the manner of death of the rider. They believe it so strongly they're shocked to see statues that don't follow it.
People want to assume that "E. E. Cummings" should be lowercased because he lowercased many other things but (if I recall my information correctly) he didn't lowercase his name.
People want to assume that you should not split an infinitive. People can become very hostile on this point, because they feel it's the primary bastion in the skirmish for correctness. People have been very very hostile to startrek for saying "to boldly go". I'm sure startrek didn't think it through very far. But as it happens, there is no benefit to society to avoiding splitting infinitives (except a very crude sort of exclusionary test to give people arbitrary hoops to see who learns them best), and while some educated people say not to, the people who know the most about it (copyeditors and linguists) approve it.
I do it myself. When I first learnt that a fox was a "vulpes" and a cube was a "cuboid", I insisted on the technical meaning so hard I effectively denied that "fox" and "cube" were equally correct descriptions. However, in my defence, I was about eight. It's good insofar as it represents learning, but bad insofar as it's taken as a universal truth.
So inferring rules is natural. It's just that sometimes it's wrong even though it's natural.
"Technically, that's not true"
But what really gets me is when someone applies "technically" to a sentence which contains no technical definitions of words. If I use "A or B" in the normal English meaning[1], and someone says "technically that means only A or B, but not both", then they're WRONG because they incorrectly assumed people use logical-or when actually they use normal-English-or. But at least their sentence has specific (even if false) meaning.
But sometimes people prepend "technical" to a sentence to make a distinction that is -- as far as I can tell -- completely non-existent. And it annoys me because I can't see how it can EVER be correct.
[1] which is inclusive or exclusive depending on context
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 04:22 pm (UTC)Although if you are having a Technical Conversation *then* it is correct to insist on the Technical Meaning of the word. Otherwise, well, that would all get very confusing. And if you blunder into someone's Technical Conversation then I think you ought to obey the rules of their Technical Meanings if only to facilitate being able to *have the sodding conversation* rather than arguing over the Technical Meaning ever other minute.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 05:43 pm (UTC)I mean, it is possible to define a term in an unwise way[1], but you ought still to be able to understand each other.
[1] OTOH, it does grate on my soul if someone defines a term in a deliberately unhelpful way. The ontological argument is often expressed starting by defining God to be "a being which is perfect in every possible way" and absolutely just named that for convenience, not in any way aiming to take advantages of all the usual connotations, and then half way through, they do a quick-change act and assume that it has the normal english meaning of god. Or if someone has got some spurious technical distinction into their head, and every time you talk to them they unfortunately can't remember that you may use words in the usual or correct way, not their pet way, and rather than clarifying each time you say it, assuming you mean whatever stupid bizarre thing would be the logical consequence of what you said under their definition, and then not letting you continue until they've given a long diatraibe about how stupid that would be and made you apologise.
Of course, if two people aren't used to the same vocabulary, it's sometimes hard to say whose terminology is unreasonable, or if neither are. And why people can't just work TOGETHER to communicate.
For that matter, it's possible for the same thing to happen by accident, especially in something like philosophy, where it may not be clear, even to the people involved, what's a technical term and what isn't.
I think some livejournal/usenet flameups can be attributed to something like that, where two people use a term in subtle different ways
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:38 pm (UTC)Not that that I was that successfully glib at the time: I was talking to someone and still trying to parse their argument as if it was coherent and in good faith, and assumed that the flaws I saw were SO OBVIOUS that they must have meant something more subtle and I misunderstood. And in retrospect I don't think it could have been both.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 06:46 pm (UTC)I was explaining to an older marketing person in 1998 why saying you want "pop ups" isn't going to go over well to the dev team--- marketing wanted a dialog box, dev team was hearing, "We're going to plaster everything with annoying ads."
It also worked when I was meeting a then boyfriend's mother and she was angry about her doctor not understanding what she wanted. She teaches music. I said, "You know how you hate it when they call everything 'Classical' music when that's a specific era different from Baroque or Romantic? Your doctor uses his specific words too even though regular people might not know the difference. Ask for what you want by describing it and don't get hung up on the word. Remember that about 90% of people call Bach 'classical music'. "
_______
What bothers me about the whole rules-by-observation thing is that a lot of it would be a lot easier if someone would just quantify the rules that actually exist. Like when someone says, "We should do this again!" or "We should do lunch!" or "I had a wonderful time." it's always a polite lie. This is universally true, but no one has officially designated it as a lie. I can't tell you how many years I spent trying to meet up with people who thought I was appallingly uncouth when I didn't take, "Let's have lunch next week on Wednesday! Noon. At the garden bistro place." as a brush-off.
I found it very interesting when I tried to come up with some sort of method to determine in advance whether handshakes would occur at a meeting. It's regional, of course, but in California, 6 visible buttons causes a handshake, 5 makes it optional. Cufflinks count for about 1.5 buttons each. So high-up bankers either have meetings in suitcoats (buttons) or if it's a "casual" meeting, they have shirts and ties (ties hide buttons) but in those cases they always have cufflinks. If they're mid-range bankers and are familiar enough to skip the suitcoats, they don't always have cufflinks and those are the times they don't shake. Programming managers wear button-front shirts without ties and will usually shake with someone wearing a polo but not someone in a t-shirt. It's astonishing how helpful this was. All I had to do was extrapolate what the comparative dress code would be if I were a man, then I knew whether I should put out my hand first or whether I was going to surprise the other person by doing so.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 09:59 pm (UTC)Oh, ouch :( I'm sorry. It's definitely really awkward, I get it both ways from people who are naturally more literal than me, and people who are naturally less literal. It's awkward because I might say much the same thing to someone who I genuinely DO want to see, but aren't sufficiently a priority to find time in the next 10 days, and people who are nice enough, but are not enough of a priority to arrange anything with at any point -- but that last is very rude to SAY to most people :(
I always try and be truthful and tactful if there's any way I can find to do so: I know it's not sufficient, but I'll always try to at least indicate the direction of my preference on whatever we were talking about, even if I'm too shy to say so deliberately.
Did someone actually arrange a specific time and place when they didn't want to meet? :(
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:30 pm (UTC)But in the faster pace of the 90s, the Let's Do person would say, "I'd love to get together again next week." Or say, "Next month let's get Chinese!" It would be something specific but leave room for the person to adjust to their own commitments without being rude. And that anyone who said, "Let's do" without specifying was just being polite and didn't really want to bother finding the time.
This actually jives with the original meaning, because the Let's Do person is still responsible for the initiative, they're just leaving the ball there flaccid on their side of the court.
And yes, I've been stood up by other women who have arranged a time and place and been really insistent that I make space for them in my life even when it was inconvenient. It happens a lot. And usually if I call them on it, the person will hedge for a while and then say, "It was only because you're so annoying."
It helped to have someone actually explain what the rule was, but I was the one who added the bit about keeping initiative.
Now I just politely demure when someone suggests something and the problem is solved.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 10:51 pm (UTC)I think I do subconsciously do the "alternating responsibility" thing, although I hadn't thought about it in those terms.
I really love one of my friends because we are on exactly the same wavelength. If we say "I'm free on wednesday, let's meet up then and email to say where" then that's what we do. There's no "oh, they've probably forgotten". But with other people there's more give-and-take in the planning. And for that matter some friends are more planny than others: sometimes I say something and mean "I'd love to see you but I don't know when I'm free, email me in a month and we'll arrange something" and sometimes I mean "I don't really want to but don't want to admit it".
no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 11:12 pm (UTC)Ah, hm. That's interesting. I wonder how _much_ of a connotation. I mean, outside my very close circle, it has a rather negative connotation -- someone who picks at irrelevant details for the sake of it, rather than for any good reason. It's just people I know, who fetishise correctness, who have reclaimed a positive version of the word :)
And I certainly distinguish good pedantry (being correct when it's helpful or funny) from bad pedantry (when it's obstructionist or hurtful) :)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 11:13 pm (UTC)Now I'm thinking of the bit in Narbonic, where Dave exclaims "No! She's evil, bad evil!" :)