Lost in translation

There has been a bit of discussion on Twitter, and at our recent ALT-C VLE symposium, on the importance of naming things. Web 2.0 is a case in point. A lot of people don't like the name 'Web 2.0', because of its connotations, and some have tried to rename it. Doing so of course, they fall into exactly the same trap, because the alternative names - such as 'social web' and 'read/write web' - only tend to create certain expectations around those tools which may be unrealistic, and can also limit our imagination too. This belief is based upon Linguistic Relativity theory (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) which suggests that language and thought are intertwined, and that spoken or written classification of objects affects the way we behave toward them. But is it really so bad to give a 'name' to some new thing? And just how does a name come about? Is it by mass consensus, or is there some uber-guru up there such as Tim O'Reilly, giving names to new things and expecting all of us to adopt those new names?

At the VLE is Dead symposium, there was an issue over the term PLE (Personal Learning Environment). Some people objected to it being named as such, because they argue, the PLE is not a 'thing', but a concept or more accurately a counterpoint in the discourse of the VLE. James Clay summed up the problem quite well by saying that if we find a new species of animal, do we let the animal name itself, or do we try to describe it by giving it a name? The answer is obvious - we name it and the name enters our shared consciousness, our spoken and written culture, providing us with a visual and conceptual representation of that animal.

Let's take this idea a little farther. What if nothing was ever named? How would we know what thingamabob or wotsit others were talking about? Would we need to go completely overboard with an elaborate description so that everyone knew what was being talked about? Pidgin is a simplified language that arises when people need to communicate without sharing a common language. There are examples of over-description in Pidgin because no shared name exists for the object being discussed. Take 'corridor' - the Papua New Guinean Pidgin for this previously alien idea is: 'ples wokabaut insait long haus' (walking about inside a long house), or antiseptic: 'marasin bilong kilim jem' (medicine that is made for killing germs). There are numerous examples of this in the online Pidgin English dictionary. Simplification of language often leads to complexity of expression. And what about so-and-so over there ... you know .... 'thingy'. Does he have an opinion on this? He certainly doesn't appear to have a name...

No, if we name something, we tame it. We provide it with definition and enable it to become a shared concept. Whether it is a bad name or a good name is another debate really. If we try to rename something after it has already passed into common parlance, we run into a lot of trouble. Rebranding in companies is one thing. And the artist formerly known as Prince may have something to add. Trying to take something like Web 2.0, or the PLE and rename will be a little more difficult, I predict. But what other names could they possibly have that would be acceptable to all, and not just those who object to the first names that were given? I think we should be told...

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