John Fairbairn wrote:
Robert: your willingness to reconsider your use of nakade is a welcome sign, but I still think you are missing an important point.
I'm really just repeating tchan's point, but none of us here, even if we set ourselves up as a committee of wise men, gets to decide which words the go community prefers. Observation of technical terms in any field suggests that users (a) tolerate a degree of looseness and ambiguity, and (b) welcome a degree of looseness and ambiguity. We can posit good reasons why this may be so. One is that people learn at different paces, and allowing a term to be used in a loose way in the initial stages, with refinements to follow later, is useful pedagogically. Another is that discussions of the field at hand usually involve some measure of entertainment and fashion: both writers and readers want the freedom to use terms in new ways. This may be something as simple as to start using a noun as a verb (e.g. a scapegoat --> to scapegoat).
In addition, while observation also suggests that users are not averse to brand new terms, in this case two points have to be emphasised. One is that, again, it is the go community that gets to decide which new terms are accepted, not the inventor, and the other is that users generally resist more than a couple of new terms at a time. They seem to prefer to see which ones fill a genuine need and/or which ones are going to be fashionable.
Users also seem to resist (very strongly, I find) extensive definitions. Apart from the instant impression of being given complexity where simple entertainment or limited progress is often wanted, we see repeatedly that this quickly gets out of control. You define something as a move in an area, but what is a move, what is an area? What is meant by territory, shape, position, vital point, point, string, group? And all these issues apply in the most basic of basic ideas in L&D: nakade. Sledgehammers and nuts don't do justice to that kind of teaching.
We see all of this in operation at the moment in the UK in the coffee shop and coffee machine explosion. Different companies try to push their own words and so we are suddenly faced with varieties of coffee labelled as lungo, intenso, caffe crema (no milk), barista, cortado, flat white, and new uses of macchiato and Americano (with milk). The result is that you can go into one coffee shop and enjoy a lungo, and the next day go into a shop on the other side of the street and ask for a lungo only to be met by a blank stare. I can even imagine some people stay out of coffee shops because they are terrified of looking like idiots if they say "I want a white coffee" (which gets me many blank stares in the USA, incidentally).
In the case of go, there is the added complication of the influence of oriental languages. There are quite a few players who use (or misuse), say, Japanese terms just to sound swanky, but for the most part what is going on is simply that people recognise that Japanese go teachers/writers have long experience in spreading the game and we are trying to piggyback on that experience. Yet this is awkward for many reasons. Apart from the need to understand the base term, which may be rendered in many ways in English, thus disguising that fact that a technical term is even being used, there are nuances and grammatical usages that do not carry over easily into English.
To bring this specifically back to nakade, what we can say is that Japanese go educators have found it useful (and, more importantly, beginners have found it acceptable) to isolate a couple of areas to concentrate on in this context. One is to identify a small number of shapes (collections of contiguous empty points) that currently represent one eye and which have the potential to be split into two eyes, but which are such that a single play by the opponent at a vital point within that shape can prevent two eyes. For this move they have devised the term nakade, which is unequivocally described (Nihon Ki-in Glossary of Go Terms) as "basically a contraction of naka no te. A move at the vital point for making eyes inside an opponent's territory" (followed up with several examples to show the limits of the context). This is the main usage. In practice, however, it has been found useful to extend the term grammatically, and so elliptical forms such as gomoku nakade (bulky five) have been used, and the noun can be turned into a verb by saying nakade suru.
However, on the basis of experience again, it has been found useful to extend even this idea a little, in particular to the notion of counting liberties in capturing races and so the table 3-3, 4-5, 5-8 etc is often talked about using nakade type language.
Still, go is not just for beginners and when the topic changes, so the terms can change or be extended. For example, a move at the 2-2 point inside a carpenter's square is, in one sense, 'a move inside' but experience tells us that the nature of this problem is rather different from the bulky five kind of problem, and so nakade is never used there. The favoured term is oki (placement).
Advanced players may be shown more difficult problems involving under-the-stones and other shapes where a 'bulky' clump of stones is captured and it is possible play back inside that area with a cut. That cut can be (and often is) referred to as a nakade, It is, however, assumed that players strong enough to appreciate these moves are strong enough to distinguish this usage from the main one.
Even more advanced players may be introduced to the Chinese classics such as Guanzi Pu where many of the problems are not life & death at all but endgame problems in which there is 'a move inside' that causes huge damage. In this case a Japanese writer might use nakade, but he also might flag up this usage as being unusual. Either way, he knows his main audience is very advanced players and so does not need to worry about confusion with the basic usage.
We know the Japanese experience works: they've got 9-dans coming out of their ears. We can usefully follow their basic analysis: identify the commonest themes for beginners. We also know people in general resist over-definition, strange words, too much newness at once. That is for the most part a motivation not to follow the Japanese terminology too closely, though in my view it is sensible to have an awareness of what the main usages are in Japanese (if following their basic analysis) simply so that the commonest themes can be most sharply delineated.
What I think also follows from all of this is that western writers have to avoid over-definition in writing, and allow and even sometimes pander to the reader's inclination to tolerate looseness and ambiguity (treat him as an intelligent grown-up, if you like). Of course, a writer can do his own research and split the go atom, but when it comes to presenting this to the general public he should eschew claims to have invented this or discovered that, and should write in language that benefits the reader rather than the writer (e.g. avoid locutions such as "this is the commonest case but there are 45 major exceptions"). There should be no trumpeting about structure. There should be structure, but opaque to the reader.
In the case of L&D there are several books I have seen that already do this admirably. The best I have seen for the most basic L&D is a Korean one (Sahyeol moreugo... ISBN 89-333-0354-5 03690) but there are several in Chinese and Japanese, and I would highly commend also the James Davies book. The point of all these books is that they prove it is possible to present the topic in an informative and entertaining way without revealing the deep analysis that preceded the book, and that in three of the languages concerned, the writers managed not even to mention the word nakade at all.
To attempt the other way risks the failure of Aaron Nimzowitch in chess. He wrote a vast number of books, articles and essays on chess theory (a new book has just collected many of the rare items), yet - with not too much exaggeration - all he is remembered for today, despite being quite a remarkable man - as he constantly reminded us, is the term prophylaxis, mockery of his term isolani, misquotations (the threat is stronger than the execution) and constant argument over how to spell his name.
In a nutshell, the debate should not be over nakade but over presentation.
I'll avoid the go lexycon battle because I'm not qualified enough and instead comment on two items. A macchiato, as well as a cortado are pretty clear-cut terms, because they are foreign words very precise in their own languages. A macchiato is a slightly longer espresso (generally, in Italy it may be a normal one) with a drip of milk. A cortado (past participle of cut in Spanish) is similar, but since the quality of espresso here is lower, it is closer to just a small cup, half coffee (strong, not one of these American things) and half milk.
As for Nimzovich (whatever: each language has his own rules for Russian/Slavic names, at least I know Catalan does but I always forget) for me he is better remembered for his book "My System" which is always touted as a good treatise on theory. He also named an opening or defense, don't remember (my stints with chess were 15 years ago)
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