[Sca-cooks] Question remove vs. course.

[Joel Lord]

At the same time, it is the question.

Why do people _still_ use the incorrect term?  Because they _know_ it to 
be correct.  What are they referencing?  Undoubtedly nothing, as we have 
just proven out that the term was not used prior to 1625 in a culinary 
sense at all (at least in writing), and at no point did it mean what 
they are using it to mean.  Even if we had traced the use of the word 
into period it would still be denotationally incorrect.

I have found, in my not horribly large number of years in the SCA (6? I 
think?  Clearly I have not earned seniority and I know that.) that 
arguments of this sort that begin with either: "You're wrong." or "What 
are your sources for that?" have already ended.  Particularly in cases 
where what is being fought is conventional wisdom, calling it out in 
those ways will make most people shut down and stop listening.  There 
have recently been studies of this sort of behavior done around current 
pieces of conventional wisdom circulating around US politics, and 
directly confronting incorrect conventional wisdom is nearly always 
completely unsuccessful.

So my approach is to provide the correct information in a way designed 
to show both veracity and verifiability, and let people decide to be 
their own fools if that is what they wish.  In the case of "course" vs. 
"remove", I am personally making sure that I use the correct term to set 
a good example, and will only break out the documentation if someone 
tries to "correct" me or if I find myself in a situation where it is the 
right thing to do: teaching a class or the like.  Yes, I could more 
actively try to educate, but I find that trying to educate people who do 
not wish education is a waste of my time and theirs.

Now, if the person spreading the incorrect information happens to be 
"Master Sven", I would argue that someone of similar Societal 
recognition should first attempt to educate, give them their chance to 
choose to be correct, and if they choose not, should thwack them 
thoroughly.  As my wife's now former Laurel (prior to her own elevation) 
noted, if he, as a Bardic Laurel, comes out with an absurd statement 
about historical accuracy of *absolutely anything* and delivers it with 
a straight face, a very large portion of people will take the statement 
as fact.  Nowhere on his medallion does it say: "Expert in Norse poetry 
and nothing else."  Worse still would be if he were spreading BS about 
Norse poetry.  But even among the experts people are afflicted with the 
disease called "conventional wisdom."

No, shooting "remove" in the head is going to be a very slow, 
deliberate, and patience stretching fight.  So while Countess Alys has 
written a lovely article on the topic that I have every intention of 
spreading, it is missing key information most easily sourced from the 
OED, and having a copy at hand I attempted to provide it.  Would that I 
had access to the online version.  Would that I had read the entire 
archives of the SCA-cooks list to see that it had come up previously. 
But amongst all of the information now at hand the original poster now 
has more with which to argue to continue the good fight.  And I'll 
continue to recommend that she not lead with: "what are your sources for 
that?"

On 12/30/2012 7:33 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:
> That's not the question. The question is why do people use this term in the SCA and why haven't we abandoned its use?
>
> We've done the OED definitions before. I'm a librarian. I always start with OED. It's a click or two away.
<snip>
> My question is what are these SCA cooks referencing (if anything) when they use the word REMOVE and not COURSE when listing their dishes on their menus.
>
> Johnnae


-- 
Joel Lord
Web Administrator, Alpha Psi Omega Grand Cast
etc... etc... etc...