I was thinking more about this piece on tonight's constitutional. In particular I was wondering why the words Jowa used for fuseki, middle game and yose disappeared, given that they were in use for centuries, seem perfectly serviceable, and had the kudos of being used and possibly invented by Honinbo heads. I have no sure answers, but now that we may have a brief respite from derailment of threads, I invite others to suggest an explanation and so continue a discussion. But first my own as yet unformed thoughts.
1. The word ishidate (Jowa's) for fuseki means 'establishment of groups'. It appears in Honinbo Sansa's poetry but perhaps has the defect that it says what the opening is but not how it proceeds. There are several reasons that may matter. I suspect the prime reason may be the innovations introduced by Honinbo Shuei (end 19th century). Although he used the word ishidate himself, he was recognised as breathing fresh and vigorous life into the opening (which is what his book Hoen Shinpo - translated on the GoGoD CD - is all about). He did this by emphasising, amongst other things, wider and higher extensions. The term fuseki (lit. spreading out of stones) could be seen as more descriptive of how to achieve the new opening style. Further, Shuho founded the revolutionary Hoensha, which kept going in parallel to, and often in opposition to, the Honinbo family. One of the Hoensha's leading lights was Iwasa Kei who later became its head. If we look at the titles of books published around that time, we will see that in 1909 there were quite a few that used ishidate in the title, but there are also a couple that use fuseki - and both are by Iwasa. He may have done this to highlight the new brand of go that the Hoensha was heir to. At any rate, by Taisho times - the following decade - the term fuseki took over and by Showa times (1926) it had ousted its rival.
2. Connected with that, though, may have been the need to allocate a new use for the word joseki. If you look at Edo period books, many have the word joseki in the title, but its meaning there is really (and literally) just 'fixed stones', and it applies to the opening as a whole and not just to the corners. By the early 20th century, study of corner variations was beginning to be a major preoccupation, and it is easy to see in those circumstances that people liked the idea of making a distinction by twinning the terms joseki and fuseki.
3. As to the middle game, Jowa's term is wakare - division (of the spoils). Perhaps the wish to reserve this term for evaluating josekis (now limited to corners) became combined with the feeling that there was a need to express another facet of Shuho's revolution - the fact that centre of the board began to loom large (though it was probably his successor Honinbo Shuei who first successfully demonstrated the value of the centre, and so attracted so much attention from modern players from Go Seigen onwards). The modern term chuubansen thus evolved. Although this is conventionally translated 'middle game', I suspect there is a drawback in that most westerners will think of this in its temporal chess sense, i.e. the middle part of the game between the beginning and the end. In fact, the Japanese term is spatial and more strictly means 'centre fights', and so successfully captures one essence of Shuho-style opening development. That would certainly be a good enough reason for the new term to become ensconced.
4. Katame, however, I find harder to explain away. It means 'solidifying' and so is a handy term for boundary plays. It is also excellent in shining a light on Jowa's thinking about the folly of trying to capture territory too early (i.e. it still needs solidifying). Yose has a very similar sense (i.e. it does NOT mean endgame) in that it refers to bringing groups together to seal off the boundaries (the even older term than katame likewise meant tying up loose ends). Perhaps yose is seen as more subtle than katame, rejecting the overtones of arguably clumsy solidification regardless of where the opponent's stones are in favour of overtones of moving towards and engaging with the enemy. But all this is highly speculative.
In fact this whole piece is speculative, though I do think it may stand as a way of explaining historical developments in go even if the etymologies are false. So over to you for your speculations.
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