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Posted October 8, 2002
Exploring the matter of the KBO planetoid Quoar, I've skimmed through a scientific paper on the subject. And there I met up with some amazing jargon. My favorite example, and one used often by scientists M.E. Brown and C.A. Trujillo, is deconvolve.
Alas, the word is neither on xrefer nor on Merriam-Webster. But convolve
is, so I now have a better grasp on the term's meaning:
Main Entry: convolve
Pronunciation: k&n-'välv, -'volv also -'väv or -'vov
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): conˇvolved; conˇvolvˇing
Etymology: Latin convolvere, from com- + volvere to roll — more at VOLUBLE
Date: 1650
transitive senses : to roll together : WRITHE
intransitive senses : to roll together or circulate involvedly
So when Brown and Trujillo write that they could deconvolve the data,
they might also have written that they could unroll, or (better yet) untangle, their data.
But with deconvolve
available, why use anything so common as untangle
? Besides, untangling does not allow as wondrous noun form, does it? Yes, Brown and Trujillo also use the word deconvolution,
too.
I am reminded of Herbert Spencer's late-in-life regret that he had chosen to popularize the word evolution
; involution
would have been so much better! Yes, involution,
aging Spencer thought, suggests the idea of complexity and integration better than evolution,
a word that did not quite fit:
Evolution has other meanings, some of which are incongruous with, and some even directly opposed to, the meaning here given to it. The evolution of a gas is literally an absorption of motion and distintegration of matter, which is exactly the reverse of that which we here call Evolution. As ordinarily understood, to evolve is to unfold, to open and expand, to throw out; whereas as understood here, the process of evolving, though it implies increase of a concrete aggregate, and in so far an expansion of it, implies that its component matter has passed from a more diffused to a more concentrated state — has contracted.
Spencer would have loved deconvolve
and deconvolution,
I bet. He might have preferred it to involution
too! Had he thought of it in 1857 (Progress: Its Law and Cause), we might not now speak of evolutionary, but of convolutionary theory!
And it follows that aspersions like his thinking is convoluted
would have become praise among scientists, while creationists and those who insist upon intelligent design
would have conserved its old, pejorative meaning.
Perhaps it's a good thing word usage did not evolve in such a way. Usage disagreements are complex as it is, and everyday hermeneutics requires enough deconvolution without imagining further, er, tangles.
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