cd dictionary

[Guest guest]

All,

 

Certainly the term debate brings out strong emotions. I apologize for

allowing myself to lose my temper at times and am sorry for being

overly personal in my desire to defend Nigel's terms from the repeated

criticism that they have been subjected to. Perhaps I can elucidate

why the topic got me riled up to the point that I began to lose my cool.

 

The CD dictionary represents the sum total of Nigel's work for the

past 20 years in term development. While it took a great deal of work

and has a significant value, he chose to release it at no charge in

hopes of benefiting the TCM community and helping translators like

Jason and myself to have more efficiency and clarity in our work.

From the very beginning, it was clearly stated that the software was

in a beta version, an initial trial that was given out for free to

target parties in hopes of receiving suggestions on new terms to be

added, discrepancies, and comments on areas to improve clarity. It

was always hoped that the CD dic would be a tool that would be

appreciated and would be a source of more inspiration than criticism,

as it is the largest resource we have in English to create the

backbone of a translation standard.

 

In an ideal world, constructive comments, questions, and criticisms

would be given to Nigel initially as soon as they were discovered so

that he could either clarify his reasons for his term choices, or

improve any holes or flaws that existed so that future editions and

future users would benefit. The CD dic was not presented as a

finalized work, but rather a working copy that could be edited and

improved through diverse applications and use, given for free in its

trial stages to generate feedback and correct errors for the release

of later versions when all the minor typos (delirium is spelled wrong

in one place, for example) and consensus on debated terms could be

achieved.

 

The reason I was so easily upset by Jason's repeated comments was

because we gave him a cd dic in hopes of benefiting his translations

and giving him a useful tool. Rather than taking things up privately

with Nigel on term ideas, he latched on to a single term that he feels

is inconsistent and has used the cd dictionary as a means of

discrediting Nigel's work publicly. He has made vocal contentions of

errors within it and terms that are not yet integrated into it,

without giving Nigel the courtesy of investigating the sources of

contention and offering him the chance to correct the database or

provide evidence for why it is already correct before launching his

tirades on the online forum. It would have been a far more

professional and amicable thing to have simply done what we asked him

to do when we gave him the disc- to note new terms to add and let us

know if any discrepancies were found. While I know Jason has

essentially good intentions, it seemed like Nigel's work was getting

trashed in public over the 0.1% of problems rather than being praised

for the 99.9% accuracy.

 

Naturally, Nigel's supporters, such as myself, have been on the

defensive to assert the integrity of the database and translation

system. I have had my emotions get the better of me because I was

annoyed that a tool meant to better the profession has been used as a

method of discrediting Nigel's life work. If I had half the brains of

a monkey I would have not gotten riled up and would have been more

confucian in my relations and more conscious to keep my arguments from

getting personal. I know that Jason wasn't trying to discredit Nigel

or devalue the CD dictionary, but others can latch on to selective

parts of his arguments and take them on tangents beyond the context

that Jason intended.

 

Jason, I know you appreciate the CD dictionary, the PD, the Paradigm

works, etc, and meant Nigel no offense. I understand that you just

wanted to illustrate the vastness of CM literature and the degree of

possible interpretations. But can you imagine how you would feel if

you had suffered through twenty years of political wrangling simply to

produce something that you felt was an important asset to the

community, only to have some new translators take the free disc that

you gave them (in hopes of helping them) and use it to broadcast

sparsely elaborated criticisms to a list of a thousand professionals?

If you have criticisms, wouldn't it be more polite to bring them up

privately and see if a solution could be reached before you start

launching an assault on a man's life work on an online forum? I

imagine that Nigel's work feels thankless enough as it is without

having his personal gift to you be used to degrade his work publicly.

 

Jason, I realize this wasn't your intention, but you have to take into

account that it came across that way. I also realize that you ended

up elaborating your criticisms and points, but all this long exchange

really only ended up coming down to a single, long, pre-modern term

and how it could be tweaked. I know that you weren't trying to insult

Nigel or his work. I don't think you had any bad intentions, and I do

think that you raised some interesting questions. I just think that

you have to take into account that a scholar like Nigel is a human

being with feelings who takes pride in his work, he has contributed

30,000 terms in a searchable database and really doesn't need so much

bandwidth bashing him to nitpick one obscure term instead of the

merits of the other 29,999 wonderfully researched terms(especially

when that one term is basically correct, if not quite to your liking).

 

Readers, I apologize that my emotional reaction to this injustice got

the better of me in this drawn-out thread. We have thus far had one

term out of 30,000 that has been a topic of contention because it is

not anally literal enough, though its accuracy within its context

appears perfectly valid. We don't have any examples of a definition

that has been proven to be invalid, and (minus Bensky's 59 pegged

terms, Giovanni's 50+ terms, and Chen's 140+ terms), we have still

over 29,800 references available to us that we have never had before.

Furthermore, it is a resource that took 20 years to make and is given

away for free to those who know how to use it. Why it is the source

of so much criticism and so little praise is a great mystery to me.

Maybe it has a majority of quiet appreciators and a minority of vocal

critics, but the loudness of the criticisms really drowns out the

continual applause in the background. (Again, I am not singling out

Jason here, as Jason largely respects Wiseman's terms and is hardly

his biggest critic by any stretch of the imagination.)

 

I use the cd dictionary every day and it has made my entire study of

TCM Chinese much faster, more insightful, and more pleasurable; it has

not created any confusion for me in any way. I think that an entire

generation of students will come to realize it as the single greatest

tool we have (combined with the PD and the dozens of interrelated

works by Paradigm and Blue Poppy) for approaching Chinese language and

advancing the westward transmission of CM. I have not experienced any

confusion or misinterpretations by using it, but I would have had an

endless amount of confusion and potential misinterpretations without it.

 

All I have to say to Nigel is thank you. I think that if other

scholars spent their time working with him and making suggestions

instead of using any trivial inconsistencies as ammunition against

him, the work would continue to advance at a wonderful pace and

generations of TCMers in the West would regard this stage in the

history of TCM as one of the greatest leaps forward thus far achieved.

 

Sincerely,

Eric Brand