Canonize

[Rob Seaman]

Hi Michael,

Good to see folks are keeping us honest.

That said, technical vocabularies, especially those related to  
multiple disciplines such as in computer science, are chockablock with  
repurposed terms, often spilling over into differing parts of speech.

Canonize has meanings like:
	1. To declare a person to be a saint.
	2. To include in the biblical canon.
	3. To include in a literary canon.
	4. To approve as being within canon law.
	5. To treat as sacred; glorify.

We could attempt to add an additional meaning like:
	6. To recast into a standard textual format.

...but all the other meanings of canonize focus on content, not form.

On the other hand, canonical has meanings:
	1. Music Having the form of a canon.
	2. Of or appearing in the biblical canon.
	3. Of or relating to a literary canon.
	4. Of, relating to, or required by canon law.
	5. Conforming to orthodox or well-established rules or patterns, as  
of procedure.

Three of these (2, ,4) are simple adjectival variations - simple, but  
adding layers of meaning.  Others are added (#1) - the root noun has  
bled into quite a large number of fields.  Some are subtracted,  
usually since there are better words - a person is sainted or saintly,  
not canonical.

The meaning computer science (or linguistics) has borrowed is  
something like #5 (of the second list :-). By consulting a proper  
dictionary, one could ferret out many more nuances.

It seems to me that it must be quite frequent that a technical  
vocabulary borrows a subtle tangential shading of distinction from  
other discipline - usually not in the form of stalwart noun or verb,  
but one of the more descriptive parts of speech.

In that case, the issue of how best to convert an adjective or adverb  
(or even a preposition) back into the corresponding verb or noun - of  
coining a new term - must be a frequent task.

Another way of looking at this is that the root word, canon, retains  
the same meaning in computer science as in any other academic  
discipline.  The canon of computer science includes Donald Knuth,  
Kernighan & Ritchie, Numerical Recipes, and so forth.

I guess I simply have a hard time believing that anybody within or  
without computer science is going to stomach the notion of canonizing  
XML :-)

Rob
--
On Jun 9, 2008, at 5:14 AM, Michael Wood-Vasey wrote:

> Dear VOEvent,
>
> I have no clear solutions to then authetication issue so I'll focus  
> on the other, more pressing question:
>
> canon (noun)
> cononical (adjective)
> canonize (verb)
>
> Thus to put something into canonical form is to canonize it and the  
> fact that one can do so means that it is canonizable.
>
> Michael