Well now--this is an interesting term, Elizabeth! Since you didn't capitalize commonplace, I'm assuming we can give it the normal meaning; would you mind sharing what the contrasting category is? Extraordinary books, perhaps?

http://www.assumption.edu/users/lknoles/commonplacebook.html

I have replaced mine with a data base on my computer.

that's a new one for me, Padre. thanks for the link, and the info.

I'm sure someone else on this board knows where the name "commonplace book" originated. I first heard of it on CBC when Bill Richardson started a "Commonplace book of the air" and invited listeners to phone in their entries.
A commonplace book is a book in which you write things that you find striking in your reading or conversations. A lot of what is in mine are witticisms, but I also have quotes from "Cold Mountain" and longish pieces on the nature of art, etc, things that I think "I love that, and I'd like to read it again without having to search thorugh the whole book for it" So instead I just search through books I've kept (on my third so far) and get sidetracked by other interesting things.
I make my own commonplace books, using whatever paper has grabbed my attention at the time. The one I'm currently using is covered with an off-white paper printed in burgundy with writing in, I believe, Thai. The paper was brought to me by a friend when she returned from a trip to SE Asia.
In an oxymoronic way, a commonplace book is actually quite extraordinary.

Well, for heaven's sake--I never knew any of that; I just would say "my notebook", or something. Thanks, everybody!

On something of a tangent, I have been rather put to it in the past few days to try and get across to my children (born in '84 and '85) the significance of the term "Deep Throat". Their primary acquaintanceship with it is from the X-Files. I don't think they can fully appreciate all the connotations it has for those of us who lived (and watched) when the Watergate investigation was going on.

>>The decision about the question "Does this bunch of phonemes, nay, lexemes, qualify as a word?" is clearly not a democratic one, even less the affair of a commitee. It is more like the fate of a pebble carried along by a river: some are ground down to sand quickly, others end up well-rounded and smooth.<<

I like that very much, Werner. But, if we the speakers are the river, then isn't language *essentially democratic? the streams of speech the referenda?

WHY I MOVED MY COMMONPLACE BOOK FROM PAPER INTO A COMPUTER DATABASE.

My very first commonplace book was a bound book with blank pages. The problem with it was that things went in chronologically as I discovered them which made retrieval a problem. The best classical commonplace books (e.g. those of Thomas Jefferson) were divided into sections so that his political stuff could be kept separate from his botanical/agricultural stuff. My later commonplace books were all three-ring binders which allowed me to move stuff around into different sections and even rearrange the sections over time. This was ducky except that some things fit into more than one category. For example, I might want to keep everything about politics in one place and everything written in Latin in one place. Mini-crisis: where to put something about politics written in Latin? This led me inexorably toward moving my commonplace books into a database -- a project which is not yet complete but keeps me out of the tavern on slow days. The database does not care where a file may be "physically" located within itself. If one identifies a single file with separate identifiers -- e.g. POLITICS and LATIN QUOTES -- then it is appropriately retrieved with its brothers and sisters when that identifier is keyed into the search function. How cool is that!? While I am certain that none of this seems marvelous to those on this Board who are computer sophisticates, I am still struck with awe and wonder by it all.

I'm with you, Steve, a good database is a delight.

It has its points, I grant you. I, however, am more of a rambler than that, and, besides, I can read my commonplace book by candlelight, and carry it everywhere. (OK, you can carry a laptop everywhere, too.)

I can read my commonplace book by candlelight, and carry it everywhere.

If one is sure-handed and not too rambunctious, one may read one's commonplace book book in the bathtub. It is not recommended that one take one's laptop into the bathtub, no matter how sure-handed and quiescent one is.

isn't language *essentially democratic? - If, by that term, you mean it is beyond the reach of dictators, then I agree. But in the narrow sense of "determined by majority", I have my doubts: many words owe their existence to persistent minorities.

many words owe their existence to persistent minorities. And the consensus of the majority.

>>And the consensus of the majority.

Well, not necessarily, Faldo. Remember the jazz ergot which stayed in the jazz clubs for many moons before it escaped into the wider world. And professional jargon often stays in the shadows. Only the consensus is really necessary ...

A word or phrase might get started by a persistent minority and even maintain a minority existence for a long time, but, for it to become a part of the language as a whole, it needs majority support.

Well, without wanting to be too picky, I disagree. A word can become part of the language without ever having been heard by the majority. For instance, think of some of the medical terms which are now in the OED, but which have never passed the lips of anyone but specialists.

What about, for ex., surfers' words? Let me see: gnarly, tubular (sorry, I'm rather out of touch with the current surfing scene, she said dryly); for a long time these were used in a limited setting. Then people, mostly kids or wannabe kids across the country started using them--but was this a majority?

Doesn't a word enter the jargon when it is accepted by a some 'critical mass' of the jargon's users? And don't you think that even though this principle may be subject to regulation by governing bodies in professional circles, in wider or less formal ones, a word enters the language when it finds some number of users? (For the sake of argument, let's say those users are *not members of the same family.) Do you think this proposition is extreme? One way or another, I don't think that in saying that language is, in this sense, democratic, one is necessarilly invoking a majoritarian rule. Ideally, democracies also protect the interests -- and so, here, usages -- of minorities. Or?

Idon't want to be picky, either, but had to repress a wry
grin, capfka, at 'jazz ergot'.
And, Elizabeth, the only reference I knew for 'diss' was
'disrespect'. You can add this to your diss lisst and I'll
have to wonder which dis diss means when I hear it!

I have been rather put to it in the past few days to try and get across to my children (born in '84 and '85) the significance of the term "Deep Throat". Their primary acquaintanceship with it is from the X-Files. I don't think they can fully appreciate all the connotations it has for those of us who lived (and watched) when the Watergate investigation was going on.

My own association of the term is with a rather more X-rated character than in the X-files. In my case, it comes from familiarity with the term from before Watergate.

only reference I knew for 'diss' was
'disrespect'.

I don't think "disrespect" is a verb. I'll have to go look it up. But the whole group of them indicates a similar attitude to the person being dissed - an attitude that says that what they are saying or doing is not worth serious consideration, or perhaps consideration at all.
And, Sparteye, I remember the original "Deep Throat" too. Did you know her FATHER watched that movie? More than once, I heard. Lowlife.