Re: The case of the Hebrew word for "oxygen"...

In article
<7617b091-96f4-44d2-9690-c9c3970088ef@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
António Marques <entonio@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 9, 8:18 pm, r...@xxxxxxxxx (Pierre Jelenc) wrote:
António Marques <m...@xxxxxxx> writes:

In this particular case, if it's as you describe it, I happen to think
you're right. When a designation has been known to be misnomer for an
extended period of time, it doesn't seem justified to calque it -
especially since the people involved should know what they were doing.

It would be a misnomer if it were analysed every time it is used, but as a
chemist I can assure you that no chemist ever thinks of "oxygen" as "acid
maker".

But that doesn't matter here. The fact seems to be that:

1 - Someone decided to import the word into a language; that person
was familiar with the thing referenced by the word.
2 - That person decided to do it by calquing; a calque builder must
know what the individual elements mean in the source and target
languages, and have them in mind at the time.
3 - If the person knew the thing and the meaning of the word
describing it, then the person must have been aware, at the time of
devising the calque, of whether the original word was a misnomer or
not.
4 - In a scientific matter such as this, the person would be expected
to avoid the misnomer, either correcting it or choosing a different
path altogether.

I don't see why anyone should believe that 4 is true. As has been
pointed out numerous times, there are plenty examples of scientists
being less than scientifically rigorous when coming up with names
(quarks, the dwarf planet Eris, various plant and animal taxonomic
names, etc.).

Names are just labels---they need not be accurate descriptions as well.

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: The case of the Hebrew word for "oxygen"...
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  • Re: The case of the Hebrew word for "oxygen"...
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    (sci.lang)
  • Re: The case of the Hebrew word for "oxygen"...
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