Not exactly a poor translation, more like the word exists in English with this meaning, but is used much more scarcely than in my own language. I vote for the revitalization of Latin as a Lingua Franca: science would be much easier for the common folk if they knew how crude the metaphors the words it’s made of are. Blastula: small seed. Blastoid: thing that resembles a seed. Zygote: egg. Ovule: egg. Etc.
Eeer… I mean, like, when you aren’t writing for peers but for other people so they can access the fruit of your research without all the travelling though the inferential distances.
I think they call it “popular science” or something, but I never liked that term, it it kinda evokes the image of scientists selling records of their lectures and churning out “science videos”...
Actually that’d be kinda cool, now that I think of it.. #mind wanders offtopic to the tune of MC Hawking*
Yes, populus and vulgus are basically synonims, with vulgus having the worst connotations (“folk” VS “the mob” basically), but semantic sliding and usage have made “popular” and its derivates get a base connotation. People don’t as easily link “divulgation” and “vulgar”.
It’d be nice to have a word that basically means “spreading elevated knowledge to the untrained” without making it sound like we’re abasing it. Every time I hear the term “Popular Science” I think of Dr. Sheldon Cooper deriding and ridiculing any of his colleagues who are trying to do just that.
Pleased to meet you, Dr Gablehouser. How fortunate for you that the University has chosen to hire you, despite the fact that you’ve done no original research in 25 years, and instead have written a series of popular books that reduce the great concepts of science to a series of anecdotes, each one dumbed down to accommodate the duration of an average bowel movement.
That sort of elitism just makes me sick*, and I’ve seen it in Real Life, even among scientists and from scientists towards engineers (“The Oompa Loompas of Science”, another Sheldonism)..
If only for self-serving reasons, it is very counterproductive. The more people know about Science, the more likely they are to understand the importance of any given work… and fund it. Also, the more likely they are to show respect to science-folk and freaking listen to them. That means investing time and effort to make this stuff reach the masses, and it’s perfectly understandable that a researcher spend their entire career on that: understanding scientific concepts proprely and then managing to grab untrained people’s interest and eloquently explain advanced concepts to them so that they grasp even a pale reflection of them is not trivial.
Oh. It looks pretty nice actually. Still, inflection-latin might be more fun to learn, but I guess if you just want people to learn Latin vocabulary and use it for simple thing so they aren’t baffled by the huge things, it might be a good idea to popularize it.
Not exactly a poor translation, more like the word exists in English with this meaning, but is used much more scarcely than in my own language. I vote for the revitalization of Latin as a Lingua Franca: science would be much easier for the common folk if they knew how crude the metaphors the words it’s made of are. Blastula: small seed. Blastoid: thing that resembles a seed. Zygote: egg. Ovule: egg. Etc.
Eeer… I mean, like, when you aren’t writing for peers but for other people so they can access the fruit of your research without all the travelling though the inferential distances.
I think they call it “popular science” or something, but I never liked that term, it it kinda evokes the image of scientists selling records of their lectures and churning out “science videos”...
Actually that’d be kinda cool, now that I think of it.. #mind wanders offtopic to the tune of MC Hawking*
The word you want in English is popularization. (Which, you’ll note, is also Latin-derived!)
Yes, populus and vulgus are basically synonims, with vulgus having the worst connotations (“folk” VS “the mob” basically), but semantic sliding and usage have made “popular” and its derivates get a base connotation. People don’t as easily link “divulgation” and “vulgar”.
It’d be nice to have a word that basically means “spreading elevated knowledge to the untrained” without making it sound like we’re abasing it. Every time I hear the term “Popular Science” I think of Dr. Sheldon Cooper deriding and ridiculing any of his colleagues who are trying to do just that.
That sort of elitism just makes me sick*, and I’ve seen it in Real Life, even among scientists and from scientists towards engineers (“The Oompa Loompas of Science”, another Sheldonism)..
If only for self-serving reasons, it is very counterproductive. The more people know about Science, the more likely they are to understand the importance of any given work… and fund it. Also, the more likely they are to show respect to science-folk and freaking listen to them. That means investing time and effort to make this stuff reach the masses, and it’s perfectly understandable that a researcher spend their entire career on that: understanding scientific concepts proprely and then managing to grab untrained people’s interest and eloquently explain advanced concepts to them so that they grasp even a pale reflection of them is not trivial.
It’s been tried
Oh. It looks pretty nice actually. Still, inflection-latin might be more fun to learn, but I guess if you just want people to learn Latin vocabulary and use it for simple thing so they aren’t baffled by the huge things, it might be a good idea to popularize it.