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#121
October 2nd 05, 10:02 PM
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"Peter" wrote:
Floyd Davidson wrote: It does not necessarily have to be that one grew out of the other. However, I *don't* see them as totally unrelated. Ok, I'll bite. What relationship do you see between the term "prime lens" used to mean the main lens as opposed to a supplementary lens or attachment, and the term "prime lens" used to mean a fixed focal length lens? Clearly that came about because fixed focal lenses are typically, for any given price better lenses than a similarly priced zoom lens. Prime of course can mean the one which is the first in quality, or the first in favor, or the first to be used, or "primitive" as in the least complex. It is just an extension of the concept that a "normal" or "standard" lens is called a "prime lens". And since there are already at least two very good terms for that meaning, it does seem rather natural for the meaning of "prime" to migrate to a somewhat broader scope. Rather, it is a logical progression. Again, what is the logical connection between the two? Again... (You are aware of the various meanings of prime and of how these various terms have been used in this field, right?) And the newer meaning does not necessarily negate correctness of the older meaning any more than and older meaning makes a new one incorrect. Of course. Though having a word with multiple meanings or an unclear meaning within a technical lexicon could create problems. That's part of why I think "prime lens" in the sense of "fixed focal length" while a useful bit of slang until someone comes up with something better, shouldn't be regarded as a part of the proper technical vocabulary of photography. Well, until some other term comes along, you don't have any choice. The *fact* is that is is here, today. And it probably won't be going away any time soon either. So? I could probably come up with a single paragraph that used at least 4 or 5 different meanings for the word "prime". It would be interesting to see such a paragraph in which at least four out of the five uses had no obvious connection to the concept of "first" indicated by the word "prime." I would like to see you try. Why would it have to be where four out of five have no connection to the etymology of the word? The use of the word to mean "fixed focal length" has it roots in that. Your merely proposing a ridiculous shift of the goal posts. Does that make the more recently evolved meanings incorrect just because there is also an older meaning? No, but creating additional meanings for an existing technical term could be a problem. A lot of things "could be a problem". So what? *Not* creating some such term would definitely be a problem. It makes a lot of sense to deprecate the use of a new meaning for a technical term if it is seen as beginning to erode the usefulness of the established technical use of the term. You are welcome to try, but tilting at windmills, barking at the moon, and a number of other similar activities would be more productive. Language just doesn't work that way. As the late Steve Allen used to say on TV about timing being everything in comedy, context is everything in word usage. Right, if context is not actually everything, it is a lot of it. I've got no strong objection to "prime lens" as a handy bit of slang to refer to fixed focal length lenses, but if it starts to look as if some people are treating it as if it were a proper part of the technical lexicon then it may be time to object. Wrong. That is when it is already far too late to object. All you get then is someone like me making fun of you for refusing to accept reality... :-) It's a done deal. We might as well get used to it. I'll grant that if you had asked me 20-30 years ago if I thought it would be a good idea to use that term in that way, *I* would have been on your side at that time. But undoing history isn't something I'm up to. But that happens with a lot of words. For example, I really really wish that "hacker" was not equated with "cracker" the way it is today. But it is. And on a more technical note, we hear about high speed T1 or T3 lines in the telephone industry all the time... and almost every time you hear someone say T1 or T3 what they are talking about is a DS1 or a DS3. We live with it though... -- FloydL. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) 
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#122
October 2nd 05, 11:19 PM
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#123
October 2nd 05, 11:44 PM
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Floyd Davidson wrote:
And now you have what used to be a perfectly good term, "prime lens", that, having become ambiguous, is now *useless* for *either* of the meanings we are talking about here. It is a dead term. It can't be used to mean Why would you say that? Prime had several meanings long before this happened, and yet you say it was not ambiguous then but is now???? That's not logical. I refer to the term "prime lens", not "prime". "Prime lens" is a specific enough term that it can have only one useful meaning in one technical field; were that not the case, this very discussion would not be happening. This is in some contrast with another dead term, "zoom lens", which has for all intents and purposes entirely lost its real meaning and had it replaced. This is also pure entropy -- there were two terms that meant two different things, and now they both mean the same thing -- but it can be used with its new meaning without a discussion like this ensuing. You need to look up the word "evolution" and find out what it means. "The process of unrolling, opening out, or disengaging from an envelope." Hmm, no, probably not that one. No, I'm not being facetious; it's worth noting that terms having very different meanings in different contexts does not cause any particular problem; the problem arises when the two meanings exist in the *same* context. As with "prime lens", and "zoom lens" before it. And as to whether change is "a good thing", that is subjective and your opinion that it is not really isn't worth a plugged nickel. (Neither is mine, so don't be upset that the world continues to turn even if we don't like it.) Well, I would find it difficult to appreciate an argument that brutally removing things from the language can have any positive effect. The changes made by marketing people, for example, are always bad. As a guy who worked my whole life in Operations (and never stopped making fun of Marketing), even I have to tell you that you've over stated the case there. Can you think of any change to the language perpetrated by marketing that was good? Some words: awesome, amazing, astounding, incredible, unbelievable. All of these words now mean "very good". That's stupid. There is nothing good about that; it has removed meaning and variety from the language and not replaced it with anything of equal value. -- Jeremy |
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#124
October 3rd 05, 12:24 AM
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Floyd Davidson wrote:
"Peter" wrote: Floyd Davidson wrote: It does not necessarily have to be that one grew out of the other. However, I *don't* see them as totally unrelated. Ok, I'll bite. What relationship do you see between the term "prime lens" used to mean the main lens as opposed to a supplementary lens or attachment, and the term "prime lens" used to mean a fixed focal length lens? Clearly that came about because fixed focal lenses are typically, for any given price better lenses than a similarly priced zoom lens. You say "clearly" but the origin of the term really seems to be pretty murky. The slang use of "prime lens" for "fixed focal length" appears to have originated in the professional cine industry. And while the early pro cine zooms were rather flare-prone they didn't have anywhere near the performance compromises of the amateur cine and still-camera zooms of the 1960s. Other possible hypotheses a 1) Afocal zoom attachments used to be available which would convert a fixed focal length lens into a zoom. In that case the base lens would have been a "prime lens" in the more orthodox terminology and the name could then have stuck. 2) Fixed focal length lenses could have been primary at one point simply because the studio or production company owned a lot more of them and thus could be the default when a zoom lens was not specifically needed. Prime of course can mean the one which is the first in quality, or the first in favor, or the first to be used, or "primitive" as in the least complex. The explanation that they are less complex and thus "prime" seems possible. There appear to be many possible reasons for the name, but so far no one appears to have provided documentation or a really strong argument to indicate how it started. The name seems to be in use because people hear or read others using the term and it catches on, and not because there is any widespread agreement about exactly why they are "prime." And the newer meaning does not necessarily negate correctness of the older meaning any more than and older meaning makes a new one incorrect. Of course. Though having a word with multiple meanings or an unclear meaning within a technical lexicon could create problems. That's part of why I think "prime lens" in the sense of "fixed focal length" while a useful bit of slang until someone comes up with something better, shouldn't be regarded as a part of the proper technical vocabulary of photography. Well, until some other term comes along, you don't have any choice. The *fact* is that is is here, today. And it probably won't be going away any time soon either. I'm not objecting to the slang use of the term. It is convenient. The convenience alone justifies its use as slang. I do object to the idea that it has, through use, achieved status as part of the standard photographic vocabulary. So? I could probably come up with a single paragraph that used at least 4 or 5 different meanings for the word "prime". It would be interesting to see such a paragraph in which at least four out of the five uses had no obvious connection to the concept of "first" indicated by the word "prime." I would like to see you try. Why would it have to be where four out of five have no connection to the etymology of the word? The use of the word to mean "fixed focal length" has it roots in that. Your merely proposing a ridiculous shift of the goal posts. I don't think I'm shifting goal posts. I'm not asking for four uses which have no possible connection to "first," but only for four uses where the nature of the connection is obscure. Does that make the more recently evolved meanings incorrect just because there is also an older meaning? No, but creating additional meanings for an existing technical term could be a problem. A lot of things "could be a problem". So what? Ask someone in any other technical field, or even in optics whether the technical vocabulary of their field should shift in such a fashion. *Not* creating some such term would definitely be a problem. Leaving it understood as a common slang term would seem to fit our actual needs just fine. It makes a lot of sense to deprecate the use of a new meaning for a technical term if it is seen as beginning to erode the usefulness of the established technical use of the term. You are welcome to try, but tilting at windmills, barking at the moon, and a number of other similar activities would be more productive. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, there have been cases in the history of photography where a once popular misuse of a technical term has been corrected. The example I gave was the common early 20th century tendency to use "depth of focus" when what was really meant was "depth of field." Right, if context is not actually everything, it is a lot of it. I've got no strong objection to "prime lens" as a handy bit of slang to refer to fixed focal length lenses, but if it starts to look as if some people are treating it as if it were a proper part of the technical lexicon then it may be time to object. Wrong. That is when it is already far too late to object. All you get then is someone like me making fun of you for refusing to accept reality... :-) There's no point in objecting to slang when it is used as such. The slowly creaping respectability of the term is a relatively recent phenomenon. I have dozens of books about photography, only one, published in 2000, contains "prime lens" in the sense of "fixed focal length lens." It would be interesting if someone could dig up the earliest print uses in photography books. It's a done deal. We might as well get used to it. I'll grant that if you had asked me 20-30 years ago if I thought it would be a good idea to use that term in that way, *I* would have been on your side at that time. But undoing history isn't something I'm up to. But that happens with a lot of words. For example, I really really wish that "hacker" was not equated with "cracker" the way it is today. But it is. By newspapers, by the general public, but not by the people who stay up to early morning doing interesting things on computers for recreation. A hacker knows what the word means and knows that it's the newspapers and general public who have it wrong. And on a more technical note, we hear about high speed T1 or T3 lines in the telephone industry all the time... and almost every time you hear someone say T1 or T3 what they are talking about is a DS1 or a DS3. We live with it though... I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the field to comment much, but based on what you say, it would seem that T1 is sometimes used as slang when DS1 is the correct designation for that line. If so, this would seem to be a good example of the difference between correct terminolgy and slang use. Peter. --
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#125
October 3rd 05, 01:29 AM
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In article ,
Jeremy Nixon wrote: Can you think of any change to the language perpetrated by marketing that was good? To pick a random example, we have the verb "to hoover", which avoids overloading the noun, "vacuum" by turning it into a verb. Or for something more modern, and with more international currency, try "to google" - much more managable than "to search the Internet". There's also an endless list of names of foodstuff, introduced into the language through marketing exercises, which are useful and inoffensive. Sundae, Stilton (never been made there, AFAIK), Creme-brulee, etc.. Some words: awesome, amazing, astounding, incredible, unbelievable. All of these words now mean "very good". That's stupid. There is nothing good about that; it has removed meaning and variety from the language That variety still exists - if a concept is useful, there will be words to express it. In the cases above, for words or phrases which convey the "original" meaning, I'd offer the following: For awesome, try awe-inspiring. For amazing, try astonishing I don't agree that "astounding" has "lost" its meaning - perhaps this is a British English/American English difference? Incredible - not-credible Unbelievable - not-believable
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#126
October 3rd 05, 02:38 AM
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Chris Brown wrote:
Can you think of any change to the language perpetrated by marketing that was good? To pick a random example, we have the verb "to hoover", which avoids overloading the noun, "vacuum" by turning it into a verb. Wow... I've never heard the verb "to hoover". I think my ears might bleed if I did.  (I'm sure the folks at the Hoover company wouldn't be toohappy about it, either.) As for "vacuum" being verbed, that is not a recent development; it seems to have been used as such for about as long as vacuum cleaners have existed, and I'm not sure it originated with marketing. In any case, the earliest example in OED of "vacuum" as a verb is from 1922, while the noun colloquially meaning "vacuum cleaner" dates back to 1910. I'd rather see "vacuum cleaner" used formally (as would the nice folks at Oxford), but "vacuum" doesn't bother me much; it beats "to hoover" by a country mile, at least. Or for something more modern, and with more international currency, try "to google" - much more managable than "to search the Internet". I really hope that one never makes it past pop-culture slang. It is worth noting, in that case, that the word "google" actually has another meaning, one that has almost certainly already been destroyed beyond hope of recovery. -- Jeremy |
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#127
October 3rd 05, 04:10 AM
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Chris Brown wrote: For awesome, try awe-inspiring. For amazing, try astonishing I don't agree that "astounding" has "lost" its meaning - perhaps this is a British English/American English difference? Incredible - not-credible Unbelievable - not-believable One of my strongest memories from reading H.G. Wells' The Time Machine when I was about 10 or 11 was the way he used the word "incredible" it was immediately obvious from the context that he really meant it. I do not think I had read the word used in its strong sense before. It has left me with a conviction that words can be rescued. Perhaps the word did not yet need to be rescued in 1898 when the book was first published, but it certainly did in 1978, and for me the word was restored to its proper meaning as soon as I read it. To my mind, "not-credible" is a weak work-around for a word that has lost its former power, and I'd much rather read "incredible" from someone capable of writing in a way which shows that he really means it. Peter. --
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#128
October 3rd 05, 05:26 AM
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"Peter" wrote:
Floyd Davidson wrote: "Peter" wrote: Floyd Davidson wrote: It does not necessarily have to be that one grew out of the other. However, I *don't* see them as totally unrelated. Ok, I'll bite. What relationship do you see between the term "prime lens" used to mean the main lens as opposed to a supplementary lens or attachment, and the term "prime lens" used to mean a fixed focal length lens? Clearly that came about because fixed focal lenses are typically, for any given price better lenses than a similarly priced zoom lens. You say "clearly" but the origin of the term really seems to be pretty murky. The origin may be murky, but the reason it caught on and stuck is perhaps not. The slang use of "prime lens" for "fixed focal length" appears to have originated in the professional cine industry. And while the early pro cine zooms were rather flare-prone they didn't have anywhere near the performance compromises of the amateur cine and still-camera zooms of the 1960s. None of which is significant. That does *not* explain why it became a common usage. Other possible hypotheses a 1) Afocal zoom attachments used to be available which would convert a fixed focal length lens into a zoom. In that case the base lens would have been a "prime lens" in the more orthodox terminology and the name could then have stuck. 2) Fixed focal length lenses could have been primary at one point simply because the studio or production company owned a lot more of them and thus could be the default when a zoom lens was not specifically needed. I can't imagine that either of those was a great influence, though both may have had some insignificant but measurable effect. Prime of course can mean the one which is the first in quality, or the first in favor, or the first to be used, or "primitive" as in the least complex. The explanation that they are less complex and thus "prime" seems possible. There appear to be many possible reasons for the name, I think the point, though, is that the meaning of the word as it existed at the time made people feel comfortable with the extension of it into new ground. but so far no one appears to have provided documentation or a really strong argument to indicate how it started. The name seems to be in use because people hear or read others using the term and it catches on, and not because there is any widespread agreement about exactly why they are "prime." Exactly. It isn't in common usage because of where it started, or because it was obvious or strongly supported by some particular lobby (such as marketing). It's just a case of it being so close in meaning, so convenient, and sounding good, that it "rings true" and people remember it and use it themselves. Bingo, a new usage catches on. Since the advent of national TV in the late 1950's, this has been a fairly common occurrence in common language, but in technical fields it had become common even before then, as we came into the age of technology. My field is communications (and keep in mind that photography is in many ways a communications technology), and I've always been fascinated by the peripheral effects that basic changes in communications technology have had on society. In that respect, I saw TV come to the Seattle area when I was a kid, and then I saw it again in Alaska when my children were small. And I also watched, as a young adult, the effect of things like Direct Distance Dialing; and then again later I was part and parcel of bringing widespread telecommunications and computer networking to much of Alaska. Language evolution is one aspect in a much larger topology of the evolution of society as the technology of communications has advanced. I'm not objecting to the slang use of the term. It is convenient. The convenience alone justifies its use as slang. I do object to the idea that it has, through use, achieved status as part of the standard photographic vocabulary. Well... a short review of what google turns up suggests that objecting is a waste of time. Tilting at windmills... ;-) So? I could probably come up with a single paragraph that used at least 4 or 5 different meanings for the word "prime". It would be interesting to see such a paragraph in which at least four out of the five uses had no obvious connection to the concept of "first" indicated by the word "prime." I would like to see you try. Why would it have to be where four out of five have no connection to the etymology of the word? The use of the word to mean "fixed focal length" has it roots in that. Your merely proposing a ridiculous shift of the goal posts. I don't think I'm shifting goal posts. I'm not asking for four uses which have no possible connection to "first," but only for four uses where the nature of the connection is obscure. Why though? That *is* the common thread that runs through various meanings of prime. I have never claimed, and see no point it any attempt to prove, that there are *any* meanings for "prime" which are not related to "first". That is just trivia, and insignificant. Does that make the more recently evolved meanings incorrect just because there is also an older meaning? No, but creating additional meanings for an existing technical term could be a problem. A lot of things "could be a problem". So what? Ask someone in any other technical field, or even in optics whether the technical vocabulary of their field should shift in such a fashion. Look, I'm a techie geek type of guy, who is retired after working for 4 decades in the communications industry. *You* are going to tell *me* about shifting technical vocabulary???? If you can, then we could compare notes... but if you want to "ask someone in any other technical field", rest assured you did. I can remember working with a fellow in the mid-1960s who had a really good story about that... He was a retired Navy Chief, who'd been in Fire Control before WWII, and retired in the mid 1950's. You wanna talk about shifting technical vocabulary! *Everything* to do with Fire Control changed. When he signed on, it was all mechanical. When he retired, is was all electronics. His best joke was about trying to order a "soldering iron" to work on electronics in about 1946, and being unable to get supply people to realize that he did *not* want a plumber's soldering iron. He also said that just about everyone was positive that anybody who dealt with the stuff they did was some kind of weirdo, with a social disease or something. Highly suspect, at a minimum. Of course in the 1960's when I worked with that fellow we were using vacuum tubes in computers, radios, and particle accelerators! Virtually the entire vocabulary used today in almost any industry using electronics *didn't exist* in 1965, and was created between then and 1985. And now has been in place for 20 years, and people think of it as *old* and carved in stone! But pull out a resistor that has colored *dots* to identify it, and is 3/4 of an inch long with wire leads that wrap around each end, and ask someone if they could solder it into a circuit... and you'll 1) have a hard time finding anyone with solder and an iron, and even if they do, they will 2) ask you what in tarnation that thing is, because 3) they've never seen nor heard of such a resistor. Heck, in the 1970's most electronics technicians couldn't identify many parts from WWII equipment because the technology had changed so fast. Today of course they can't identify *most* parts from back then. Photography and optics has changed relatively slowly by comparison. Perhaps that's why you are uncomfortable with the evolution of words, and to me that is just one more fascinating aspect of communications. *Not* creating some such term would definitely be a problem. Leaving it understood as a common slang term would seem to fit our actual needs just fine. That statement doesn't make sense. Just try coming up with a clear division of what is "common slang" and what is not. Ask 20 people... you'll get 25 different answers? It makes a lot of sense to deprecate the use of a new meaning for a technical term if it is seen as beginning to erode the usefulness of the established technical use of the term. You are welcome to try, but tilting at windmills, barking at the moon, and a number of other similar activities would be more productive. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, there have been cases in the history of photography where a once popular misuse of a technical term has been corrected. The example I gave was the common early 20th century tendency to use "depth of focus" when what was really meant was "depth of field." One example makes it a pattern of significance??? :-) Even half a dozen examples, which probably could be scraped up, won't indicate any significance. Right, if context is not actually everything, it is a lot of it. I've got no strong objection to "prime lens" as a handy bit of slang to refer to fixed focal length lenses, but if it starts to look as if some people are treating it as if it were a proper part of the technical lexicon then it may be time to object. Wrong. That is when it is already far too late to object. All you get then is someone like me making fun of you for refusing to accept reality... :-) There's no point in objecting to slang when it is used as such. Sure. But like I said... try to draw a line between when it is and when it isn't, and you *can't*. The slowly creaping respectability of the term is a relatively recent phenomenon. I have dozens of books about photography, So? only one, published in 2000, contains "prime lens" in the sense of "fixed focal length lens." It would be interesting if someone could dig up the earliest print uses in photography books. Interesting trivia, but again that just isn't really significant. It's a done deal. We might as well get used to it. I'll grant that if you had asked me 20-30 years ago if I thought it would be a good idea to use that term in that way, *I* would have been on your side at that time. But undoing history isn't something I'm up to. But that happens with a lot of words. For example, I really really wish that "hacker" was not equated with "cracker" the way it is today. But it is. By newspapers, by the general public, but not by the people who stay up to early morning doing interesting things on computers for recreation. A hacker knows what the word means and knows that it's the newspapers and general public who have it wrong. It is ubiquitous. And yes the old definition is still in use too! Context is everything... And on a more technical note, we hear about high speed T1 or T3 lines in the telephone industry all the time... and almost every time you hear someone say T1 or T3 what they are talking about is a DS1 or a DS3. We live with it though... I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the field to comment much, but based on what you say, it would seem that T1 is sometimes used as slang when DS1 is the correct designation for that line. I don't think "slang" is even close to what it is. The fact that you don't even know what it means, simply because it is a technical term from a field outside your range of experience, pretty much demonstrates that it isn't "slang". It is a very specific technical term, which originally had one specific meaning, but which now commonly is used (and some would of course say "incorrectly") to mean something slightly different too. Both uses are ubiquitous in the telecommunications industry. The only significance is that it's one of those "trick questions" by which you can determine if someone is *really* well versed. If they don't realize there are *two* meanings... they be newbies! If so, this would seem to be a good example of the difference between correct terminolgy and slang use. Virtually *everybody* in the industry uses the term in both the original, pedantic way, and as a synonym for a DS1. It isn't slang. (An interesting side note on just how significant "convention" is to me in communications... I just ran a spell check on this article and found that I had incorrectly spelled "communications" virtually every time I used the word. To me, a word is just a symbol for a meaning, and symbols are a dime a dozen and can change every day.) -- FloydL. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)
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#129
October 3rd 05, 09:32 AM
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David Littlewood wrote:
In article , Floyd Davidson writes It is just an extension of the concept that a "normal" or "standard" lens is called a "prime lens". And since there are already at least two very good terms for that meaning, it does seem rather natural for the meaning of "prime" to migrate to a somewhat broader scope. I had never seen that usage before this discussion, despite being a keen photographer for several decades. The universal term for such lenses, in the days when they were the most common of SLR lenses, was always "standard". Maybe it was a US usage, but I don't even recall seeing it in US texts. You may have a point that once a respectable term has been utterly *******ised, it makes little difference if it sinks into further degeneration. I suggest that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the meaning of language (and I do think you have a good point, regrettable though it is) the use of such a *******ised words is best avoided by those who value precision of language. Those who do use it may be suspected by some of slipshod linguistic standards David "English is the most widely learned and used foreign language in the world, and, as such, many linguists believe it is no longer the exclusive cultural emblem of "native English speakers," but rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it grows in use. Others believe that there are limits to how far English can go in suiting everyone for communication purposes. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
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#130
October 3rd 05, 11:27 AM
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In article ,
Jeremy Nixon wrote: Chris Brown wrote: Can you think of any change to the language perpetrated by marketing that was good? To pick a random example, we have the verb "to hoover", which avoids overloading the noun, "vacuum" by turning it into a verb. Wow... I've never heard the verb "to hoover". That's most likely because you're from North America, and it's a British English word. (I'm sure the folks at the Hoover company wouldn't be too happy about it, either.) On the contrary, I believe they are entirely happy with the word "hoover" having come to be a generic term for vacuum cleaner, and the currency of the associated verb. Indeed, AIUI they positively encouraged the use. It's probably responsible for a good section of the dwindling market share they have left. It used to be the case that everyone hoovered with a Hoover. Now everyone hoovers with a Dyson. I understand there's a near parallel in American English with "kleenex" (although there's no associated verb). In British English, there's no such improper noun (they're just "tissues"), only a proper noun. Or for something more modern, and with more international currency, try "to google" - much more managable than "to search the Internet". I really hope that one never makes it past pop-culture slang. I believe it's in the OED. It is worth noting, in that case, that the word "google" actually has another meaning, one that has almost certainly already been destroyed beyond hope of recovery. If you're thinking of 10^100 then you're wrong, that's a googol. The name of the search engine is a pun on that.
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