[Sca-cooks] I'm back! (Be afraid? :-/ )

[Daniel Myers]

Welcome back!

Language is not constant, but is continuously evolving.  Webster's 
online dictionary defines redact as "to put in writing" or "to select 
or adapt for publication."  Both of these definitions are rather 
broader than the one you gave, and both could be applied to the 
activities of the cooks on the list.

Your post derided jargon as something that serves only to make the 
discussions of those on the "inside" more incomprehensible and 
impressive to those on the "outside".  While this may sometimes be the 
case, it is certainly not always true.  Jargon serves as a sort of 
"shorthand" form for a concept that is used frequently by a group.  
There are a number of words used by medical doctors which describe 
things like diseases or procedures which either have no meaning or a 
very different one outside of the medical profession.  This is not 
(normally) an attempt to confound the patients or to impress other 
doctors, but is a more efficient method for communicating specifics 
between doctors.

Also, jargon can afford a finer degree of precision in speech and 
writing than would normally be present.  Consider the various terms for 
snow used by skiers (or surfers).  They allow one person to clearly 
describe environmental conditions to another to a very specific level.

In the SCA cooking community, the word "redact" and all of its variants 
has a very specific meaning -- one that may differ substantially from 
what would be understood by other groups (e.g. translators, librarians, 
etc...).  Here the word would seem to mean (allowing for differences in 
opinion) the conversion of a period recipe into a modern form suitable 
for sharing with the rest of the community.  There is (to me) a 
distinct difference between a "redaction" and an "interpretation".  
Interpreting a recipe allows for a wider range of variation.  For 
example, the person doing the interpretation might be trying to create 
a dish which is pleasing to a wide audience, and may take substantial 
liberties with the source recipe in the process.  Whereas the same 
person may redact the same source recipe in order to come as close as 
possible to what would have been cooked in period so that they could 
better understand the tastes of a particular time and place.

In short, I disagree.

- Doc


-- 
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  Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
  http://www.medievalcookery.com/
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On Sunday, September 7, 2003, at 10:20 AM, Alex Clark wrote:

> Hola! I'm back after several years' absence. I don't know how long 
> I'll be on the list--as usual, it seems that while it's for SCA cooks, 
> it's not as often for SCA cookery.
>
> When I unsubscribed, I sent a reminder that has seemingly been 
> forgotten. I'll restate it (at more length) so that it can be 
> forgotten again.
>
> "To redact" means to give composed form to content, either by giving a 
> new form to content derived from one or more pre-existing 
> compositions, or by putting one's thoughts into a composed form 
> (typically a written document). It specifically does not mean to 
> create any kind of content whatsoever, including interpretive content. 
> One may both redact from other sources and give interpretations 
> thereof within the same document, but if that document is supposed to 
> be a "redaction" then the redacted parts should be distinct from the 
> interpretations.
>
> "Redact" (and words derived therefrom, especially "redaction") as 
> typically used here are ill-chosen and nearly useless jargon, and no 
> number of instances of misuse will make them correct. These are among 
> the few words (such as "irony") that should not be messed with. These 
> words belong to the literati, and are nothing but buzzwords to the 
> many who don't know their correct meanings. Since it is 
> interpretations of period recipes (even if those interpretations are 
> not yet written) that are being called "redactions" this word is in 
> effect being used as a substitute for a more correct word: 
> "interpretation." You can only really redact a period recipe if the 
> changes that you make are in its form rather than in its content. So 
> in _Curye on Inglysch_, where variations from different MSS of _The 
> Forme of Cury_ are given in the footnotes, *that* is a redaction of 
> period recipes. When (as usually happens in interpreting period 
> recipes) measurements or methods or cooking times/temperatures, etc. 
> are added, the resulting interpretation is no more a redaction of a 
> period recipe than a dog's tail is a leg. When written, it is only a 
> redaction of the modern writer's interpretation.
>
> So please, for the sake of clarity and especially accuracy, let's call 
> interpretations what they are, and not bandy about words like 
> "redaction" that are not really in the vocabularies of most SCA cooks. 
> Especially since redacting period recipes is far more than modern 
> cooks really accomplish with most of their interpretations thereof. In 
> these cases, using a word like "redact" lends a false semblance of 
> authoritativeness to something that actually contains a significant 
> amount of guesswork.
>
> I don't mean to say that the word "redact" doesn't have some 
> importance on this list. It does have one real use: as jargon, it's a 
> way for people to proclaim their conformity with the in-group. That's 
> okay as long as one is being misled by the rest of the group. But for 
> now I'm here to say (with occasional reminders in the future) that 
> most modern cooking and recipe-writing from period sources is 
> interpretation, not redaction. Please don't be misled by those who 
> don't yet know this.
>
> Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark
>
> P. S. When you discuss cuskynoles, send a Cc to Voldemort. Maybe he'd 
> like to share his opinions.