[WikiEN-l] Multilingual?

Fri Nov 14 09:05:52 UTC 2003

Charles Matthews wrote:

>Because the lowest common denominator of English-speaking users is to know
>nothing about other cultures, this argument in effect can always be used to
>lower standards of cultural sensitivity. The worry is that we then get a
>tabloid version, not something compatible with scholarly practice.
>
>Therefore I say this is an intrusion of journalistic thinking, into an
>encyclopedia; where it is inappropriate.
>  
>
I'm not sure I entirely agree with this view.  An encyclopedia _should_, 
I think, have something in common with journalistic practice, and not be 
entirely a scholarly work.  If someone wants a scholarly work on a 
particular subject, there are already plenty available; the only value 
an encyclopedia adds is having a convenient summary of various things in 
a manner understandable by the majority of people (including those who 
are not experts in the field being discussed).  Part of this is simply 
using language as it is used by people, not using jargon specific to a 
scholarly field that is not in widespread usage.  To take your example, 
"chess" is a well-understood term by the vast majority of English 
speakers, used to refer to the game known as, well, "chess".  A "chess 
variant", again in standard usage, would be anything other than standard 
chess (Fischer random chess, for example).  Using other terminology 
would be rather confusing.

This is fairly standard encyclopedia practice: when you open Britannica, 
for example, you find things for the most part described in plain 
English, using words with their commonly accepted meanings.  I'm not 
sure how this gets us a "tabloid version", and think that grossly 
underestimates the quality of many of our articles.  At the very least, 
we're "as bad as" the New York Times, not the National Enquirer.

-Mark