databases (was: Re: [Buddha-l] Tibetan for...?)

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Jim Peavler schreef:
> "data" is a fairly recent English word, used first within the last 
> hundred years (I used to know when and where). The word had not been 
> used for many centuries when it was introduced as a word for a 
> collection of instances in a mathematical context. English speakers 
> have commandeered words since before Beowulf, from whatever language 
> was handy, and nearly immediately changed the word (from French, 
> Latin, Old German, Spanish, etc) into English -- with English 
> inflections (or lacks thereof).
>
> In my opinion it is very interesting to recognize the etymology of 
> English words, such as "data", but it is completely unnecessary to try 
> to return them to their original language.
>
> Place name pronunciations are an especially amusing example of the 
> same tendency (which is as old as the language). Most of us are 
> outraged the first time we hear a native of places like Nevada or 
> Versailles Missouri or Buena Vista or Salida or Del Norte pronounce 
> the names of their hometowns.
>
> When we hear such outrages against the historical origin of such names 
> we must remember that the person naming the place in many instances 
> was not intending to be speaking the original language but considered 
> the name to be just a name. When you are in places like Texas or New 
> Mexico, however, the namers of places were using the Spanish of their 
> place and time so presumably the correct pronunciation would be 
> Spanish rather than the later anglicized version.
>
Of course, many people don't know or understand the rules of the game, 
but that doesn't mean anything goes. The result of ignoring the rules 
leads to chaos and confusion. In Dutch there used to be a clear 
difference between indication of a reason ('daarom') and a cause 
('daardoor') in the dictionaries these words have become synonyms and 
the justification for this is that the man in the street thinks they 
are. This is a vicious circle of course. 
In Dutch the difference between single and plural in composita used to 
be strait forward. Jam made of apples used to be the equivalent of 
'applesjam' and the stone of an apple used to be the equivalent of 
'applestone'. In some composita an  extra 'e' was introduced to 
facilitate pronounciation. For instance 'pancake' used to be 
'pannekoek', because the Dutch had some difficulty in pronoucing a 
dental semivowel right after a gutteral. Then a commission invented the 
inserted 'n', which  was originally the 'n' of the plural form and 
prescribed the use of an inserted 'n' in each case where both members of 
the compositum can be used on its own. So 'pannekoek' became 
'pannenkoek', because 'pan' and 'koek' both are meaningful words. The 
result was emotional debates, which since the last ten years or so never 
have stopped.

Erik



www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950