I think you missed the point of my examples. I'm perfectly aware of their etymologies; I meant to point out that merely having a homonym doesn't make a word "bad" -- the fact that you hear "marsh" when someone says "fen" is not a problem imherent to the word. (It is a problem, obviously, since you complained about it. The problem is not inherent in that use of "fen" any more than someone misunderstanding which "homo-" root another word derives from is inherent to those words.)
The musical genre I was referring to is "filk", and I'm a bit surprised that wasn't clear to someone who hangs out where "fen" is used as the plural of "science fiction fan".
And as for your disdain of "Shank's mare", your response is helpful to me in understanding your viewpoint. (That is, it was not a rhetorical "of course these are okay" question; it was actual curiosity as to whether those terms bothered you as much.) I see "Shank's mare/pony" as being so old and established that the cute has worn off and it's simply become another part of the idiomatic backdrop of our language. That you percieve it as obnoxiously clever suggests that I'm not going to convince you to see "fen" as anything other than that. (So I guess it's a good thing that I started with "I respectfully disagree" rather than "you're wrong", eh? We're not going to see eye to eye on this; I think I understand your point of view, I'm hoping to get my own understood and acknowledged as "not unreasonable", but have no intent of trying to convert you to it.)
But the problem was that the examples didn't make sense, aside from "race" because the meanings you were imparting to "broadcast" and "homogenize" simply don't exist. "Race" has a variety of well-understood and widely-used meanings, and therefore context is very important to understanding which meaning is intended. On the other hand, "fen" has only one accepted and understood meaning; a marsh. Other meanings are a) non-standard and b) specific to a particular usage by a particular sub-culture.
As for not knowing "filk", but knowing "fen", I hadn't heard "fen" until the last week or two. Also, it was not used in reference to a sci-fi series or film, but rather in reference to an anime fandom.
And while I will agree to disagree with others about language and use, I have a background that has trained me to avoid the use of slang and jargon. Between growing up in a home with a teacher who specialized in Reading and English, and going on to get a graduate degree (which required that I avoid slang and outside-of-field jargon when writing), I've learned to be precise and standard in my usage. Standard use of the language makes your writing more accessible to the general population, and in communication I believe that accessibility of writing is the goal. But that's simply my belief, and I know that others prefer their communication to be exclusive. So, it's not that you're viewpoint is unreasonable, but I think that you are supporting a use of language that is more exclusive, and hinders communication amongst those that speak the language. This isn't a negative-value judgment, it's just me stating that we have different ideas of use in communication. And when posting in internet forums and livejournal communities, I consider communication to be the ultimate goal of the posting. This is all.
The meaning I suggested for "homogenize" would have occurred to a hypothetical listener unfamiliar with the other "homo-" root, though I'll grant that I was reaching pretty badly with "broadcast". My point was that "it makes me think of a marsh" has more to do with your being so much more familiar with that than with the jargon meaning, and was not a flaw inherent to the word. And that the other meaning is specific to a subculture ... well isn't that what I said when I called it jargon?
Until tonight, I had not heard "fen" to refer to anime fandom other than in regard to where it overlaps science fiction fandom. It's possible this is a new extension of the usage (one which I'll admit I personally find a bit jarring, ironically); it's also possible this is established in anime fandom and I was simply unaware of it because of my rather limited interaction with that community on its own turf. Or perhaps the speaker did use it out of ignorance. I don't know.
"Standard use of the language makes your writing more accessible to the general population"
Agreed -- when one is writing for the general population. On the other hand, writing in-field, jargon can make things much clearer and more precise.
Whether various internet fora should be considered to be "for the general population" must be judged, of course, forum by forum. If I'm writing on the Rialto, for example, I'll use SCA jargon and not worry about writing to a more general audience because the primary audience of that particular forum is SCAdians.
(Note: I am not familiar with the forum to which your complaint originally referred)
"[...] I know that others prefer their communication to be exclusive [...]"
Here we get into secondary and tertiary functions of language -- group recognition markers ("let me in, I'm one of you") and exclusivity. Clumsily done, the first of those can have the second as its unintended consequence. (And the second, when intentional, pretty much requires the first.) I think I've outgrown my "hit you over the head with all my markers in case you missed any" phase, and while I occasionally find insider-tagging myself useful[1], most of my choice of language is to support the primary goal of language -- clear communication.
So our ideas of the appropriate goals and uses of language do not line up perfectly, but are actually pretty close. I say "fen" where I expect it to be understood mostly because it does have a meaning slightly different from "someone who likes science fiction" (and partly out of habit).
I find it easier to simply avoid talking to anyone I'd prefer not to bother with, than to (intentionally) make them feel like a "clueless outsider" by way of opaque language. But doing so inadvertently because I've misjudged my audience is a mistake I've probably made more than once or twice, though I try to be aware and avoid it.
[1] The version of this I find useful most often is to trigger the mental shift that gets a doctor to talk to me like someone who can understand technical information and really wants to understand what's going on, and to stop dumbing things down and trying to sound reassuring by saying what he or she thinks I want to hear. Some catch my signals consciously and acknowledge them; others seem unaware of what has happened but do shift their speaking style in response to it. That's more "I talk like you" than "I'm one of you", but it's clearly related. Less often it's useful to identify myself as being a member of a shared subculture or interest group at the start of a first conversation with someone, but most of the time that can just come out gradually and naturally over the course of the conversation.
Actually, it's hard to say what "homogenized" would make me think of the first time I heard the term because I have seen it on milk cartons since I was in pre-school, and I'd seen the word before I'd ever learned it. And before I learned it, the words that I know with the "homo-" root were pretty much limited to "homosexual", which is the same Greek root. I didn't learn "homo sapiens" or "homo erectus" until after I knew "homogenize" meant "to make the same".
Believe me, use of the term "fen" is new to the anime fandoms. And there is a significant overlap of anime otaku and people who are involved in the sci-fi fandoms as well, but I find it annoying that someone has decided to bring that term into anime when there's a perfectly fine jargon term within the anime fandoms, and it is generally not used in this particular community because not everyone there is an anime fan. "Fen" a non-standard usage, and I'd like it to go away.
The community in question involves anime, sci-fi and other fandoms -- people will rant about fanfics ranging from "Animorphs", to "Trek", to "House M.D." therein. The use of "fen" by this poster is something that has cropped up in just the last week, and smacks of "look at this neat new word that I learned!" And considering the reputation of otaku and other extreme fans, I'd take offense at being called a "fen" because I'd think that people were trying to tell me, in a not-so-subtle way, that I smell like swamp gases. ;)
I'm glad you try and limit yourself to the jargon where appropriate. I wish others would be, as well. And that was more or less the point of the rant. It's not so much whether or not something is a word (because I could put "adoens" together, assign a meaning to it, and call it a word in my own particular jargon), but whether use of jargon outside of the proper context, especially when it has an established (if somewhat archaic) meaning in the standard language, is proper usage or a barrier to communication. I argue for the latter.
And to be honest, jargon and slang can pass into standard usage. Committees convene each year to decide which of these terms have sufficiently passed into the mainstream in order to be considered "standard", though I believe that these committees are being a bit lax in their standards of what should be considered "standard" these days. This is how language adapts and evolves. This is why, while Modern English encompasses both that spoken by Shakespeare as well that spoken today, we have very different terms, such as the way possessive pronouns have evolved. Not only that, but the pronunciation has evolved and changed as well. And by that, I don't mean only the evolution of American accents, but also the way words are pronounced in Britain has changed, too. But even with all of this evolution in the language in the last 400 years, you can still read something written by Shakespeare and understand it, for the most part. This is not the case with Beowulf in the original Old English (I have a bilingual edition; rather neat, really), however.
Anyhow, I think we agree on significant portions of this, we just disagree on whether or not jargon can be considered "standard words" in a community where the purpose is for people to rant about proper spelling and grammar, among other issues.
The musical genre I was referring to is "filk", and I'm a bit surprised that wasn't clear to someone who hangs out where "fen" is used as the plural of "science fiction fan".
And as for your disdain of "Shank's mare", your response is helpful to me in understanding your viewpoint. (That is, it was not a rhetorical "of course these are okay" question; it was actual curiosity as to whether those terms bothered you as much.) I see "Shank's mare/pony" as being so old and established that the cute has worn off and it's simply become another part of the idiomatic backdrop of our language. That you percieve it as obnoxiously clever suggests that I'm not going to convince you to see "fen" as anything other than that. (So I guess it's a good thing that I started with "I respectfully disagree" rather than "you're wrong", eh? We're not going to see eye to eye on this; I think I understand your point of view, I'm hoping to get my own understood and acknowledged as "not unreasonable", but have no intent of trying to convert you to it.)
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As for not knowing "filk", but knowing "fen", I hadn't heard "fen" until the last week or two. Also, it was not used in reference to a sci-fi series or film, but rather in reference to an anime fandom.
And while I will agree to disagree with others about language and use, I have a background that has trained me to avoid the use of slang and jargon. Between growing up in a home with a teacher who specialized in Reading and English, and going on to get a graduate degree (which required that I avoid slang and outside-of-field jargon when writing), I've learned to be precise and standard in my usage. Standard use of the language makes your writing more accessible to the general population, and in communication I believe that accessibility of writing is the goal. But that's simply my belief, and I know that others prefer their communication to be exclusive. So, it's not that you're viewpoint is unreasonable, but I think that you are supporting a use of language that is more exclusive, and hinders communication amongst those that speak the language. This isn't a negative-value judgment, it's just me stating that we have different ideas of use in communication. And when posting in internet forums and livejournal communities, I consider communication to be the ultimate goal of the posting. This is all.
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Until tonight, I had not heard "fen" to refer to anime fandom other than in regard to where it overlaps science fiction fandom. It's possible this is a new extension of the usage (one which I'll admit I personally find a bit jarring, ironically); it's also possible this is established in anime fandom and I was simply unaware of it because of my rather limited interaction with that community on its own turf. Or perhaps the speaker did use it out of ignorance. I don't know.
"Standard use of the language makes your writing more accessible to the general population"
Agreed -- when one is writing for the general population. On the other hand, writing in-field, jargon can make things much clearer and more precise.
Whether various internet fora should be considered to be "for the general population" must be judged, of course, forum by forum. If I'm writing on the Rialto, for example, I'll use SCA jargon and not worry about writing to a more general audience because the primary audience of that particular forum is SCAdians.
(Note: I am not familiar with the forum to which your complaint originally referred)
"[...] I know that others prefer their communication to be exclusive [...]"
Here we get into secondary and tertiary functions of language -- group recognition markers ("let me in, I'm one of you") and exclusivity. Clumsily done, the first of those can have the second as its unintended consequence. (And the second, when intentional, pretty much requires the first.) I think I've outgrown my "hit you over the head with all my markers in case you missed any" phase, and while I occasionally find insider-tagging myself useful[1], most of my choice of language is to support the primary goal of language -- clear communication.
So our ideas of the appropriate goals and uses of language do not line up perfectly, but are actually pretty close. I say "fen" where I expect it to be understood mostly because it does have a meaning slightly different from "someone who likes science fiction" (and partly out of habit).
I find it easier to simply avoid talking to anyone I'd prefer not to bother with, than to (intentionally) make them feel like a "clueless outsider" by way of opaque language. But doing so inadvertently because I've misjudged my audience is a mistake I've probably made more than once or twice, though I try to be aware and avoid it.
[1] The version of this I find useful most often is to trigger the mental shift that gets a doctor to talk to me like someone who can understand technical information and really wants to understand what's going on, and to stop dumbing things down and trying to sound reassuring by saying what he or she thinks I want to hear. Some catch my signals consciously and acknowledge them; others seem unaware of what has happened but do shift their speaking style in response to it. That's more "I talk like you" than "I'm one of you", but it's clearly related. Less often it's useful to identify myself as being a member of a shared subculture or interest group at the start of a first conversation with someone, but most of the time that can just come out gradually and naturally over the course of the conversation.
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Believe me, use of the term "fen" is new to the anime fandoms. And there is a significant overlap of anime otaku and people who are involved in the sci-fi fandoms as well, but I find it annoying that someone has decided to bring that term into anime when there's a perfectly fine jargon term within the anime fandoms, and it is generally not used in this particular community because not everyone there is an anime fan. "Fen" a non-standard usage, and I'd like it to go away.
The community in question involves anime, sci-fi and other fandoms -- people will rant about fanfics ranging from "Animorphs", to "Trek", to "House M.D." therein. The use of "fen" by this poster is something that has cropped up in just the last week, and smacks of "look at this neat new word that I learned!" And considering the reputation of otaku and other extreme fans, I'd take offense at being called a "fen" because I'd think that people were trying to tell me, in a not-so-subtle way, that I smell like swamp gases. ;)
I'm glad you try and limit yourself to the jargon where appropriate. I wish others would be, as well. And that was more or less the point of the rant. It's not so much whether or not something is a word (because I could put "adoens" together, assign a meaning to it, and call it a word in my own particular jargon), but whether use of jargon outside of the proper context, especially when it has an established (if somewhat archaic) meaning in the standard language, is proper usage or a barrier to communication. I argue for the latter.
And to be honest, jargon and slang can pass into standard usage. Committees convene each year to decide which of these terms have sufficiently passed into the mainstream in order to be considered "standard", though I believe that these committees are being a bit lax in their standards of what should be considered "standard" these days. This is how language adapts and evolves. This is why, while Modern English encompasses both that spoken by Shakespeare as well that spoken today, we have very different terms, such as the way possessive pronouns have evolved. Not only that, but the pronunciation has evolved and changed as well. And by that, I don't mean only the evolution of American accents, but also the way words are pronounced in Britain has changed, too. But even with all of this evolution in the language in the last 400 years, you can still read something written by Shakespeare and understand it, for the most part. This is not the case with Beowulf in the original Old English (I have a bilingual edition; rather neat, really), however.
Anyhow, I think we agree on significant portions of this, we just disagree on whether or not jargon can be considered "standard words" in a community where the purpose is for people to rant about proper spelling and grammar, among other issues.
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