Re: vocabularies was: Re: Can everyone be happy?

On Thu, 22 Jun 2000, Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> At 02:15 PM 6/22/00 -0400, Jonathan Borden wrote:
> >John Cowan wrote:
> >
> >>... The trouble is that a single namespace may have
> >> many associated schemas: in the terminology I introduced yesterday, a
> >> namespace is a vocabulary rather than a language.  TimBL prefers to say
> >> that it is a super-language, but a language without a syntax seems to be
> >> a self-contradictory notion.
> >>
> >
> >Vocabulary is a terrific way to describe namespaces, and missed it yesterday
> 
> For all my opposition to the use of the word 'language' in this forum, I
> have no such complaints about 'vocabulary'.  A set of words is fine with
> me, and doesn't preclude mixing and matching or create odd complications
> with multiple or non-existent schemas.
> 
> It's a much less loaded word, one I'm much happier to work with.

Agreed with one caveat: at least a couple years ago, a lot of articles in
the trade press used "XML vocabulary" to mean something parallel to "SGML
application"; IOW, a language in the sense that you *don't* consider
applicable to namespaces.  If I wanted to be pedantically precise, I'd say
"collection of terminology" or even just "terminology"; I kind of hate to
be pedantic, but this discussion has seen plenty of people who are using
"resource" to mean "an abstract entity about which one can make
statements" talking over the heads of those who are using it to mean "a
collection of bits that can be retrieved via TCP/IP," and
vice-versa.  Sometimes you really do need language so precise it verges on
legalese.  In another forum, I recently observed an absurd flamewar caused
by the fact that the phrase "learning disabilities" has one meaning in the
US and another, completely mutually exclusive, meaning in the UK.  I
thought I was watching a real-life enactment of the Monty Python sketch
about the English/Hungarian phrasebook.

<digression degree="partial"> In the US, "learning disabilities" refers to
difficulty with specific cognitive tasks, particulary those involved with
the use of language, that is out-of-line with an individual's overall
cognitive ability.  An example is dyslexia.  This terminology has been
used for decades in the US.  In the UK, "learning disabilities" has
recently been adopted as the preferred term for an overall depression of
cognitive ability, as observed in, say, Down Syndrome or early-childhood
iodine deficiency.  It was chosen to escape the negative connotations
associated with "mental handicap," which in turn had been chosen to escape
the negative connotations of "mental retardation," which had yet in turn
been chosen to escape the negative connotations (and, in this case, sloppy
and pseudo-scientific *denotations*) of "idiocy" and "imbecility."

The reason I class this digression as only partial is that it involves a
case where one group was using a term (e.g. "namespace") with a settled
meaning and another group comes along and starts using it to mean
something entirely different, something that already has several names
(e.g. "schema," "syntax," "language").
</digression>

IMHO, Dublin Core is a perfect example of a case where a namespace can
meaningfully identify a vocabulary or terminology, but not a language in
any technical sense (e.g. following Chomsky) of the term.

Received on Thursday, 22 June 2000 17:04:22 UTC