Terminology - David Englund

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David Englund

Terminology

Self-coined terms

“Entheogenist”, a entheogen user.
“Non-world order” for NWO, not New-world order
“Hyper, Object, Truly -Relational Database Management System (HOTRDBMS)”, coined by me and Matt Lee.
“Research entheogens” as a synonym for “research chemical entheogens”.
“Pomuman” instead of fruitarian since pomum means fruit on latin. This would be fair since lacto to describe milk.
“Shackan”, a complex clip between “shaman”, “hacker” and “vegan”. Coined 2009-08-29.
“Free softwaretarian”, a person who uses free software only.
“GLAMP” as a replacement for LAMP. Approved by Richard Stallman
“GLAPS” for GNU/Linux, Apache HTTP Server, PostgreSQL, Sovix.

General

Avoid the term “intelligent dance music” (IDM) to describe the music genre. It's a label invented by PR companies who need catchphrases. Use the term “braindance” as Aphex Twin suggest instead.
“Spy chips” to describe RFID microchip tags (coinded by Katherine Albrecht). I use the term “Restricted Freedom through IDentification”.

Medicine

“Drugs” is a word that's been used by governments to make it impossible to think creatively about the problem of substances and abuse and availability and so forth and so on. -- Partial transcript of Terence McKenna in Mexico 1996 ^{[Terence McKenna]}
Asperger (named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger), not Asberger.
The term “enthogen” (“creates god within”) is very commonly misinterpreted as “any substance which traditionally has been used in religious or shamanic contexts”.
I personally tend to avoid the word addiction because of the baggage it carries with it - social unacceptability, legal involvement, pharmacological dependency. I like the word dependency because for one thing it avoids the addiction word; and secondly, it allows me to define two types of dependency - physical dependency and psychological dependency. --Dr. Shulgin

Software

WRS as a replacement for Web CMS, coined by RMS.

For more terms, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html. Some of these words has been set up at that page after request.

Special terms

Its more humble to use the term “give and get” then “take and give”.
The term “I shall have” is egocentric.
Alcohol. There are many forms of alcohol in chemistry so simply say ethanol instead. The term alcoholism should be replaced with ethanolism to be precise.
Please avoid to use the term “alcoholism”, use the term “narcomanism” instead; Narcomania is physical or psychical dependency to narcotic substances. Alcoholism describes physical dependency to alcohol but does not warn people that its heavy narcotic (or a hard drug) since its not narcotic classified. Many people refuse to belive in this and defend their use of alcohol to be “social accepted”.
Weed. Use the term parasite instead.
Milk. When refering to milk we usally think of cowmilk. That is a missleading term because there is so many types of milk. For some the term milk is milk that does not come from animal. For a vegan or a fruitarian milk is sesamemilk, oatsmilk, cocomilk or soymilk. To not confuse things, use the full term of whatever sort of milk you are trying to describe.
Peripheral hearing is that part of ear perception that occurs in the periphery.
Never spell abbrevations with dots and avoid to use uppercase if the abbrevation consist of siple words.

Technically incorrect pronunciations

Prounce special chars in chemical terms. Example: Spoken-word and visual media have by and large adopted the technically-incorrect pronunciation of “Omega n”, as opposed to the term used by chemists, “Omega minus n.”
Prounce abbrevations and acronyms in the language then are written in and not the language your speaking. USA should for instance be prounced on English in a Swedish sentence. You could say FSA on Swedish. This would be fair since FN is used as UN on Swedish. But that would be confusing since most languages would have their own abbrevation or acronym for that.

Terms that does not deserve attention

Do not pay attention to the “word events” like “eye for an eye”. Dont use religios terms such as “oh my god”, “hell” if you dont belive in them. The struggle you should pay attention to is on a personal level.

Misnomers

General misnomers

Avoid the term “koala bear”. Koalas are marsupials not closely related to the Ursid family of bears. The name koala is preferred by zoologist and in Australia, where koalas are native.
The Koala's scientific name (Phascolarctos cinereus) comes from the Greek: phaskolos meaning “pouch” and arktos meaning “bear” which means that it is techical incorrect.
Dont use the term “firefly” to describe Lampyridaes is not a fly, but a beetle, though it does fly. It is ok to use the term lightning bugs to describe them
Do not use the term ladybirds (British English, Australian English, South African English) or ladybugs (North American English) but lady beetles to describe coccinellidae since its a beetle.
Please dont use the term peanut to describe Arachis hypogaea. Is not a nut, but a legume. It is ok to use the term goober peas for that reason.
Fagopyrum esculentum, called buckwheat, is not related to wheat

Older name retained

“Video filming” is a synonym to “video recording” even when talking about digital video
“To tape” is a synonym for “to record”, even in reference to recordings made onto digital media instead of analog devices such as cassette tapes or videotapes.

Similarity

Jellyfish is not a fish, just call it jelly.
A lead crystal is not a crystalline solid but an amorphous glass.
A Guinea pig is neither a pig nor does it come from Guinea. commonly called the cavy after its scientific name Cavia porcellus.
The term “podcast” is a portmanteau of the words “iPod” and “broadcast”. Podcasting is not limited to the iPod, nor does the technology involve any casting as the consumers pull audio data onto their audio players. However, like broadcasting, it is a way of distributing audio or visual data to large numbers of people.
An egg cream is really chocolate flavored water with seltzer and milk. It has no eggs and no cream.
Head cheese is actually a meat product.
Do not call food with ingridients derived from dead animals for “vegetaric”. A typicall example is when manufactuers call their product for “vegetaric pizza” which in most case uses non-vegetaric cheese, that is cheese with enzymes derived from calf stummages. Its very irresponsible by them to do so and every convinced vegetarian should stand up and tell them to use vegetaric alternatives instead. Allthought many vegetarians does not know about this which makes them to involuntary flextarians. Use the term flextarian (semi-vegetarian) if you make occasional exceptions like this. Use the term Pollotarianism (also called pollo-vegetarianism) if you not consume mammalian meat such as beef, pork, and lamb, but does consume chicken. Use the term Pescetarianism (not pescevegetarianism or pesco-vegetarianism since they are not valid vegetarian diets) if you not eat the flesh of any animals other than types of seafood. Use the term fruitarian or frugivores to describe someone who lives on fruit entierly.
“Horny toads” or “horned frogs” are actually lizards.
The mountain beaver is in the Aplodontiidae family so is not really a true beaver (Castoridae family), though fairly similar in appearance, to beavers not usually found in mountainous areas

Difference between common and technical meanings

“Narcotics;” are commonly referred to as “drugs”. Coffe is the most common pshychoactive drug in the world.
Hackers are commonly referred to as Crackers. Mass media and pupular culture use the word hacker instead of cracker to describe a person who specializes in work with the security mechanisms for computer and network systems and seek access despite them. Read the book Hackers by Steve Levy if you want to find out more.
Linux when trying to describe the operating system GNU/Linux. Linux is really just the kernel in that system which could be compared with the kernel in a fruit. Read more at http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html.
A blind witness can act like a earwitness but not as a eyewitness.
Avoid the term satanism; Modern satanism can in general be categorized under two broad types: Theistic Satanism (devil worship) and Atheistic Satanism.
Internet radio. Radio is the wireless transmission of signals and has nothing to do with audio streaming delivered from a server over a network. Thefore I suggest the term “internet audio”.
Pedophilia is the paraphilia of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent or peripubescent children. Avoid to use the word pedophilia to describe sexual attraction towards children in younger ages, there is other terms for that.
Apes are commonly referred to as monkeys. A few other primates, such as the Barbary Ape, have the word “ape” in their common names (usually to indicate lack of a tail), but they are not regarded as true apes.
A coconut is not a nut, but a fruit. The term “cocofruit” should be used for that.
A light-year is a unit of distance measure, not time as commonly misinterpreted.
Tear gas is not a gas, but a (solid) crystalline substance. The term “tear crystalline” should be used for that.
Middle East, Far East and Sub-Saharan Africa are geo-political terms which are ambiguous.
Vitamin D is actually a prohormone. Use the term ergocalciferol (D²) and cholecalciferol (D³) instead.

Other notes

If you use other languages than English, please try to avoid borrowing English terms such as “free software” or “freeware.” It is better to translate the term “free software” into your language [ref].
Please don't use the term “human race”. H. s. sapiens are a specie of the kingdom animalia and therfore classified as animals.
Please don't say that “alcohol is not a drug”. The fact is that alcohol is narcotic from a criminal viewpoint beside that, alohol is a dependency depressant drug.
Intelligent and smart is not synonymous. Its for example smart (not intelligent) to eat healthy food since the food can increase your IQ.
Avoid abbrevations that can mean different things in same category. Visual IQ and Verbal IQ can both be shorted as VIQ for example.
Avoid lies. Someone who is frustrated might say “I've told you millions of times now”. It would might be honest to say “I don't know how many times I've told you by now”
Tell the exact time in 24 hour clock. Its better to say “the clock shows 13:28” to indicate that it can switch minute any second.
More about time; a person is young if he or she is 40 or younger if the average age is 80 (80/2=40). So you could say “I'm 40 years young”.
Do not use bad words like “hell” if you don't belive that it exist
Please don't use the word “disturb” to describe the word “sick”.
Its not racial slur to use the n-word (nigger or negro), it has it owns culture which they should be proud of.

Use gender-neutral third-person pronouns “person”, “per”, “pers” and “perself” which were promoted, and perhaps invented, by Marge Piercy in Woman on the Edge of Time. They are used just like “she”, “her”, “hers” and “herself”, except that they apply equally to males and females.

Avoid the term “is” when you describe a model, its only a model after all

Please send comments on these web pages to dbenglund at dbenglund period org.