A discussion on another board led me to this, and I thought it might be intriguing to look back upon, and discuss, the semantical evolution of so important a word. Musick, what say ye? And, tsuwm, whence the apostrophe?
From WEBSTER's 1828 DICTIONARY:
SCI'ENCE, n. [L. scientia, from scio, to know.]
1. In a general sense, knowledge, or certain knowledge; the comprehension or understanding of truth or facts by the mind. The science of God must be perfect.
2. In philosophy, a collection of the general principles or leading truths relating to any subject. Pure science, as the mathematics, is built on self-evident truths; but the term science is also applied to other subjects founded on generally acknowledged truths, as metaphysics; or on experiment and observation, as chimistry and natural philosophy; or even to an assemblage of the general principles of an art, as the science of agriculture; the science of navigation. Arts relate to practice, as painting and sculpture.
A principle in science is a rule in art.
3. Art derived from precepts or built on principles.
Science perfects genius.
4. Any art or species of knowledge.
No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth.
5. One of the seven liberal branches of knowledge, viz grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
[Note - Authors have not always been careful to use the terms art and science with due discrimination and precision. Music is an art as well as a science. In general, an art is that which depends on practice or performance, and science that which depends on abstract or speculative principles. The theory of music is a science; the practice of it an art.
apostrophe?? isn't it an accent?
apostrophe/accent Hmmm...you think this particular dictionary chose to incorporate the accent in the word-listing? Though I've never seen
science spelled that way, I thought perhaps it might be some archaic spelling...perhaps indicating the prefix
sci- was shortened from another word originally, or an extra letter dropped...perhaps
scioence? Or am I making a mountain-etymology out of an accent-molehill?
I thought perhaps it might be some archaic spelling......perhaps scioence*? Or am I making a mountain-etymology out of an accent-molehill?
Yes.
*Ænigma suggests [scissor]. I take that to mean "cut it out".
Sweet WO'N, this is great--thank you. Is this on-line somewhere, or did someone (perhaps your source from the other board) type this themselves? Though I see that you say the accent is in the word-listing, I'm wondering if there is something about the fonts that certain places allow might possibly have turned an accent into an apostrophe. Just a thought*--for all I know, it
was sci'ence. Nicholas?
My first question was based on seeing the word chimistry. Did it used to be spelled that way? And I was surprised to see
No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth. That isn't true today, is it?
*My first typing of this came out "Joust a thought"--now there could be a phrase with meaning!
Webster's dictionary is a strange beast to look things up in...it uses biblical and religious quotes as sample sentences, and at least one group seems to think that re-introduction of this dictionary in "homes, church, and school" (see
http://www.face.net/Webster's_1828.html) will somehow improve the moral life of the people of the US.
Now, I don't know how widespread this view is - any loony can have a homepage on the Internet, so you can get a slightly warped view of real life if you take every internet page seriously. But it
does make me wonder if I can trust the definitions in a dictionary which seems to have some sort of moral agenda - and also happens to be almost 175 years old. BTW, I'd originally found this site by accident when I was just Googling "Webster's Dictionary", trying to find a link to it that I'd lost. It certainly caught me by surprise!
Anyway, maybe it's not the greatest place to get an honest definition of the word "science", of all things.
I used to know name of writer who coined the word. Can somebody else remember it?
P.S. maybe it was "scientist" I was thinkin of.
name of writer who coined the word
What word? Science? Coined? I thought that it, like Topsy, jus growed.
>you think this particular dictionary chose to incorporate the accent in the word-listing?
well, we've got the whole thing online, why don't we take a look....
http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=pronunciationlexicographer Sidney Landau gives us a clue to what was going on: "One modern critic,
Robert Secrist... calls rather engagingly for a return to the 18th and 19th century systems, which generally avoided respelling, instead merely marking certain vowels of the entry word with diacritics to indicate the specific sounds."
the apo-accentOkay, so I know it's an accent...but, hey, I tried!
"...instead merely marking certain vowels of the entry word with diacritics to indicate the specific sounds."
That include schwas? [innocent face-e]
Whewell coined the word 'scientist', around 1830 I think.
That thing's just a syllable divider.
I think Bean makes a lot of good points here. But I also think the citation shows how much our perception of science has changed from the early to late 19th century, and even up till today.
No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth.
RELATIVITY
PART I
THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
I
PHYSICAL MEANING OF GEOMETRICAL PROPOSITIONS
In your schooldays most of you who read this book made acquaintance with the noble
building of Euclid's geometry, and you remember -- perhaps with more respect than love --
the magnificent structure, on the lofty staircase of which you were chased about for
uncounted hours by conscientious teachers. By reason of your past experience, you would
certainly regard everyone with disdain who should pronounce even the most out-of-the-way
proposition of this science to be untrue. But perhaps this feeling of proud certainty would
leave you immediately if some one were to ask you: "What, then, do you mean by the
assertion that these propositions are true?" Let us proceed to give this question a little
consideration.
Geometry sets out from certain conceptions such as "plane," "point," and "straight line," with
which we are able to associate more or less definite ideas, and from certain simple
propositions (axioms) which, in virtue of these ideas, we are inclined to accept as "true."
Then, on the basis of a logical process, the justification of which we feel ourselves compelled
to admit, all remaining propositions are shown to follow from these axioms, i.e. they are
proven. A proposition is then correct ("true") when it has been derived in the recognised
manner from the axioms. The question of the "truth" of the individual geometrical propositions
is thus reduced to one of the "truth" of the axioms.Now it has long been known that the
last question is not only unanswerable by the methods of geometry, but that it is in
itself entirely without meaning...... The concept "true" does not tally with the assertions
of pure geometry, because by the word "true" we are eventually in the habit of designating
always the correspondence with a "real" object; geometry, however, is not concerned with
the relation of the ideas involved in it to objects of experience, but only with the logical
connection of these ideas among themselves.
Albert Einstein
>That thing's just a syllable divider.
no, it actually is meant to show the major empha'sis... follow the link for "pronuncia'tion" I gave above.
>That include schwas? [innocent face]
gee, I'm so glad you mentioned the schwa (in innocence): [insouciant glee]
Landau goes on, "He [Robert Secrist] even dares to question the almost universally praised adoption of the schwa in dictionary pronunciation systems, on the ground that it is unnecessary and is used as a catchall for a variety of different sounds... and is in reality neither phonetic or phonemic...." (hi bill!)
p.s. - I just had a revelation! WO'N's original question about the apostrophe wasn't in regard to sci'ence but rather Webster's(!) and he was just too magnanimous to point out my misapprehension. Webster's Dictionary of 1828 is indeed the last actual dictionary from Noah Webster (except for a second edition, published in 1841, two years before his death).
p.p.s. - In 1830 Joseph Worcester published the Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language. he was accused a few years later of plagiarizing by Webster. Worchester had worked on the 1828 dictionary, but was able to prove that he had been working on his own before he began abridging Webster's and show considerable differences between his work and Webster's.
He even dares to question the ... adoption of the schwa ... on the ground that it is ... used as a catchall for a variety of different sounds
I got points taken off on a linguistics test in college one time for spelling my name wrong. I still maintain that the i sound that I use in David is, if less than a full [i], more than a schwa.
I got points taken off on a linguistics test in college one time for spelling my name wrongum . . . shouldn't you know how to spell your name by the time you get to college?
I find it interesting that the wordscience means knowledge in Latin, whereas mathematics means the same thing in Greek. Today we consider mathematics to be a science, but do not consider science to be only a branch of mathematics, one term having generalized more than the other.
The Bean said...
Webster's (1828)dictionary is a strange beast...it uses biblical and religious quotes as sample sentences.
Milo said...
Well burn down the barn, Bean, a little morality want kill us. Back then, Webster and the gang realized that words don't exist in a vacuum, but rather they exist in accord with all aspects of human endeavors. In comparison, our guarded, contemporary dictionaries seem computer generated.
Then Jackie read and then asked...
No sci'ence doth make known the first principals on which it buildeth. This isn't true today is it?
And Milo answered...
Yes, it is true today, but how refreshing to hear a direct and un-mealy mouth admission.
Then Einstein said...
I agree with Milo. Didn't yall read my rambling post?
Finally Faldage spoke...
(Concerning a pedantry) AEnigma suggests [sissor]. I take that to mean cut it out.
Then Ray Bradbury sang in sing-song...
Robot mice and robot men run 'round in robot towns.
And at last, Kurt Vonnegut said...
And so it goes...
And in a spirit of agreement, to show what a thoroughly nice guy I am, and to claim kinship on some level with Kurt Vonnegut, I say:
Yes. And so, indeedy, it does go.
But where to? he asked plaintively.
Ummmm.....nice summation milum! You should consider law!
Hi Keiva!
nice summation
I was misquoted!
At least we can do many things we could not do before, in spite of not being able to prove anything.
And so it goes...But let us not forget that the protagonist of the novel famous for that Vonnegut quote took his own life by drinking Drano, the breakfast of champions!
... and probably drank it in the fifth slaughterhouse he could find while strumming on a player piano ...
... In 1830 Joseph Worcester published ... he was accused a few years later of plagiarizing by Webster. Worchester had worked on the 1828 dictionary,
An interesting typo. Happens all the time to this town, and we always wonder why. People have no trouble pronouncing the name of the sauce - howcum they insist of putting in that gratuitous h?
Wofahulicodoc (resident of Worcester, Mass) (not Worchester)
>(resident of Worcester, Mass) (not Worchester)
...and I suppose it's pronounced wooster.
Definitely two syllables, similar to Wooster (Ohio?). Or, if you should happen to come from around here, "WOO-stah". (That's "oo" as in "foot".) The sauce is "woo-ster-shear" sauce, from the place in England. It's the ineffable British condensation, which also makes Leicester be pronounced "Lester" and Leominster "Leminster" and, inevitably, turns Cholmondeley into "Chumley". (And reaches its epitome when it renders eleemosynary as "alms," by now a fait accompli.)
But all those are shortenings. Why _add_ a letter/change the phoneme? If it were just the literal mind operating it should have come out wor-ses-ter, not -chester.
Sheesh! And I was hoping to stimulate some nice esoteric discourse akin to the "time on my hands" ponderings when I offered SCI'ENCE as the Alpha post on this thread!
Guess I blew it with that apostrophe quip, huh?
Great, Max! This whole thread was worth the trip just to get to that gem of a parody! (not discounting, of course, the other posted treasures along the way!
)
And, Max, I think the parody deserves a home and link on your "Fruits of Our Labors" page...this definitely belongs to AWAD posterity!
Nobad, Maxy, nobad at all. You didn't even force the scansion. Liked it.
"The Thread goes ever on and on
Down from the board where it began.
Now far ahead the thread has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it on ayleur's feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many words and ideas meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
This works to the tune of "It Was the Song That Never Ends"...
I find it interesting that the wordscience means knowledge in Latin, whereas mathematics means the same thing in Greek.
Actually gnosis is 'knowledge' in Greek (and I'm sure you could come up with others), whereas mathematics is 'learning'... what's the Latinate for that? Apprehension (going by French)?