[Sca-cooks] Question remove vs. course.
Joel Lord
jpl at ilk.org
Sun Dec 30 17:42:14 PST 2012
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...
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