Naming/How to name a concept
When one is discussing a concept, having a label to use to refer to it facilitates discourse, and identifies it as a specific idea, making the concept more mnemonic and usable, via chunking. See especially use of the term "thought experiment" on the value of naming a concept.
Naming concepts is useful both for technical jargon (within a specific work or field), or in common speech. This is due in fact, creating neologisms as concepts help increase the the variety of vocabulary, lexicon, jargon, and terminology, and diversify the culture of the each concept.
Successful examples[edit | edit source]
Examples of names for concepts that have caught on:
These were both central ideas of a book.
More recent:
These latter were the titles of books that focused on the concepts.
These are all two-word noun phrases; in some cases they use a more or less unusual word ("conspicuous", and "paradigm"), in other cases common words.
In all cases, there is a clear idea underlying them: the issue is simply to label it in a memorable and evocative way.
Unsuccessful examples[edit | edit source]
The "world of ideas & information" is a commonly understood concept that does not have a commonly accepted term, despite the above efforts. "Noosphere" is rather alien-sounding, while "infosphere" is too casual-sounding.
High jargon fields[edit | edit source]
Technical fields tend to be higher in jargon, as one uses existing concepts to build higher concepts, hence one needs a way to refer concisely to these concepts.
- Legal jargon
- Mathematics
- Engineering
- Mechanical work
- Philosophy
- Programming
- Information Technology
General principles[edit | edit source]
Avoid generic terms[edit | edit source]
For instance, in mathematics, "normal" means a bewildering array of distinct concepts.
Foreign terms[edit | edit source]
Loaned foreign terms can be memorable for their very foreignness: in physics, Gedankenexperiment is frequently used for thought experiment. One can also calque a phrase (translate it word-for-word).