This whole dialogue sounds like the Veep's performance during the first of
the debates <s>
Ross Weeks Jr.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lucy Sperlin Skjelstad" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Harmony/CIMI Research Project Call for Participation]


> All this is perfectly true, but Steve's point is still well taken that a
> pitch for something is best written in ways the audience understands. An
> indecipherable message certainly won't get results and you might as well
> save your key tap time.  I, personally, was even more turned off by the
> flood of acronyms, of which I was familiar with only a few. I think I
> gave up on that message after about the second paragraph.
>
> Lucy Sperlin
>
>
> Cate Cooney wrote:
> >
> > Stephen, Jay et al.,
> >
> > Ah the joys of language!
> >
> > Jay Heuman wrote:
> > >         You should not apologize for anything . . . people in
different fields
> > > and subfields have different knowledge.
> >
> > Absolutely!  And asking is the only way to educate yourself.
> > >
> > > > what the heck does interoperability mean and what on
> > > > earth is a metadata vocabulary?
> > >
> > >         "Interoperability" is just another way to say "compatibility."
> > >         Metadata vocabulary is just another way to say data sets
(spreadsheets,
> > > databases, etc.).
> >
> > Not exactly.  Metadata vocabulary is a standard, agreed upon set of
> > terms to describe data.  Huh?  For instance, your database of slides has
> > fields like "artist" and "title" while my database of slides has fields
> > which describe the same concepts, but I call them "maker" and "what they
> > done called it."  If we are using the same metadata vocabulary, we will
> > call the fields the same thing, and gosh, if our systems are
> > interoperable, maybe we could share the information easily.
> > >
> > > > If you are trying to create interest in the community
> > > > may I suggest you start first by using terms with
> > > > accepted/standard/(any) meaning?
> >
> > That's funny, because that's the goal.  It is good to be reminded that
> > what have become accepted, standard terms to one person, may be jargon
> > to others.  And as Jay said, there are a whole bunch of people with
> > different areas of expertise who make up an institution, so educating
> > yourself about what they do, rather than brushing off their terminology
> > as made-up terms with no meaning, will probably make the entire
> > institution function more smoothly.
> >
> > > > Recently I've also encountered such gems as post-genome
> > > > and post-global.Why must we learned folk try so hard to
> > > > verbalize ourselves into oblivion?
> > >
> > >         There is an oft-asked question.  The answer, quite simply, is
> > > self-preservation.  If everyone can understand everything, what good
is
> > > an MA or PhD?
> >
> > As one of my former professors said "any turkey can get a PhD." and if
> > you make up some really nifty terms with hyphens, parentheses, or
> > nonStandard capitalization, you just might impress someone.  However,
> > "interoperability" isn't quite the same as "post-genome" in terms of
> > elitism!
> >
> > Oh, and as Jay pointed out, language changes.  English changes a lot:
> > think of all our new verbs, which were once perfectly nice nouns:
> > "office," "flipchart" (oh, wait, I hated that noun too...)
> >
> > I suppose my point is this: sometimes words you don't understand are
> > jargon, and sometimes they are terms for something you know nothing
> > about.  I am a little alarmed by the way the business world and yes,
> > computers, have changed our amazing language, but change it will (unless
> > you want to be like the French and have an academy to establish a
> > standard vocabulary, metadata or no).
> >
> > -Cate Cooney
> > Digital Projects Librarian
> >
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