While in rules speak I use fixed terms in fixed grammer only (no "live" when the definition says "alive"), in practical player terminology I agree that flexible grammatical variation is reasonable to some extent (like when "connection" is defined, it is ok to say "to connect" or "he connects"). What I try to avoid is usage of common language words that have not been defined as go terms (yet).

You say "standard practice" (to a string-connected turn) where I think it is not. Rather I think that such careless use of could be a term but is abused with introduced unnecessary ambiguity.

There is a point, of course, that so far terms are not universally accepted yet and so every writer may use his own set of terms with his own defined or implied meanings. This causes constant problems though because whenever somebody uses a term one first needs to verify with which "personal" meaning he is using it. At least for the terms I use after having defined them, I am as consistent about using them with the same meaning afterwards as anyhow possible.

Usually comments refer to diagrams. In them one sees the shape geography. So for that usage adding the obvious, the shape geography, is superfluous, IMO. When not using diagrams, trying to describe the visual appearance of all the shape details is cumbersome. I'd prefer to avoid that but I understand that you might sometimes prefer to describe it.

I think this is the nub of the issue. Whatever terms are used, they are used for the benefit of the student, not for the satisfaction of the teacher. A good definition is one that works for the student, and not necessarily one that can be proven be capture every sliver of every nuance.

Now, speculating a little, every speaker of every language he grows up with is conditioned by that language to think in certain ways, and to favour certain ways of saying things. This does not mean that one language is better than another - just different.

As regards go, one of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese that many people will be familiar with is the verbal noun (hane, nobi, sagari, etc). Their go books naturally make heavy use of that way of describing things. Fortuitously, English has an approximation to that - words that look the same in verb and noun forms (turn, bend, stretch). I don't think German or French or Russian, say, has this to anything like the same degree. I think these languages find it a degree harder to translate Japanese go texts into their own language - in that respect. There will be other areas where they find it easier, but as verbal nouns are so important in go, perhaps English is in the luckiest position.

However, in English I believe our most distinctive structure, and one that certainly gives foreigners a lot of trouble, is the phrasal verb, as in run along, jump up, bend over, turn round. The ideal go text, or ideal definition of a go term, for the student whose native language is English is probably going to want to use phrasal verbs to create the best conditions for osmosis from teacher to student.

In this, I think, lies the difference between cut and sever mentioned by a couple of people. The lack of the distinction in favour of all-embracing connection was one of the areas that made me hiccup strongly when reading Robert's Vol. 2. I excused it there as a different and therefore interesting way of looking at things, but really it is unnatural for us. The point is, cut can be and often is used as a phrasal verb - cut down, cut up, cut across, cut through... But sever never is. The two words seem to belong to different parts of the brain. That part of the brain is probably where "connection" lives, too. It's an area like the well-kept "living room", ironically used for Sunday best instead of everyday life.

Whilst we love phrasal verbs, what we English speakers don't like very much, as pointed out by daal, is too heavy reliance on adjectives and nouns. "Join your stones up" or "keep your stones together" are so much sweeter (and more usefully nuanced) than "form a tight connection", which could be claimed to be a better definition in that it covers both sweet phrases, but so what? It's less natural, and seems to get in the way of instant understanding.

Hear, hear!

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Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Being kind to the student with ambiguous words is of no use when different meanings need to be conveyed rather than lost in confusion. Tolerating the student's variety of speech can easily be in conflict with his missing understanding of a principle if it uses a specific term while the student does not recognize that as a term but expects some imprecise, generously ambiguous meaning. Principles are powerful for learning when they use a clear language with precise meaning.

robert: Koreans dont really care to define each go terms as you do and they learn to play fine.
and i also think they have better understanding of each terms.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

From more abstract (left) to more concrete (right):

nutrition < food < meal < breakfast < fruit < apple < green apple < rotting green apple (*)
motion < exercise < leg exercise < run < run fast < 100-meter dash
form a tight connection < keep your stones together < connect
connection < living room (two unrelated things, from John's post)
extension < extend
thick extension < extend
connection < connect < bamboo joint
thick string connection < turn

The top one (*) is based on an example from a book; the rest are in my opinion.

"Concrete (high imagery) words and sentences are almost always
learned faster and remembered better than abstract words" -- Your Memory, by K. Higbee.

"Our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t need to recall phone numbers or word-for-word instructions
from their bosses or ... history curriculum or ... the names of dozens of strangers at a cocktail party.
What they did need to remember was where to find food and resources and the route home
and which plants were edible and which were poisonous.
Those are the sorts of vital memory skills that they depended on,
which probably helps explain why we are comparatively good at
remembering visually and spatially." -- Moonwalking with Einstein, by J. Foer

Provide their understanding of the terms ko, influence and thickness and we can compare! (Their understanding of ko threat is hopeless, as I have explained on rec.games.go a couple of years ago.)

Could you explain briefly what you mean by this?

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I don't think he can

i dont know about writing a paper about those terms
but we play the game with those concept without serious thinking about the definiton.

it is like...what is "1" really mean. what is "+" really mean.
you can write a book about them but do you really need to understand for simple operations??
does that mean that people do not understand what "+,-,*,X, and division" is just because they dont know what "Peano System, Successor function, Ring theory"?

i think you are claiming that everyone need to learn graduate math in order for them to do simple math problem.
if you like to do such boring work..fine. do not claim that you are better and they are dumb just because you like to do such boring works.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Magicwand - naming moves isn't Robert's idea. As John wrote in the first post:



So apparently this is not one of Robert's quirks, but rather a long standing practice among Japanese go players - including professionals. I would be surprised if there were not similar names for the moves in Korean.

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Patience, grasshopper.

but he is claiming that koreans do not have understanding of ko threats and many other terms.
and i am claiming that they dont have to write a paper on go term to have an understanding of simple terms like ko, influence, or thickness.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Pshh, next you'll try to suggest that a pitcher can throw a curveball prior to receiving formal instruction in fluid mechanics (=

Koreans (the professionals) are strong players for sure. This does not imply that they or all of them are also strong at understanding go terms. Helel got it right.

Naive approximations of ko, influence, or thickness are simple. Precise explanations are much more difficult. I am asking whether Koreans have better precise explanations than mine.

Perhaps Magicwand's argument is more along the lines that such precise explanations are not necessary for being strong at the game. That's the way I interpreted it, anyway.

Further, I think that it might be argued that, just because you don't precisely define something, it's not necessarily the case that you don't have a full understanding of it.

It's possible that pros know more about ko than you do, for example, even if you know how to define the terms more precisely.

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be immersed

One big problem here is people are lumping together, confusing, and mixing up three different meanings or levels of the word "understand":

- ACTION: e.g. top pro Go players; top pro players in any sports or field (Go, basketball, tennis, brain surgery, F-1 racing, piano; plumbing; sharks).
- TALK: people who talk but cannot themselves put it into action, i.e. beat the pros, which is 99% to 100% of us here on the forum.
- TEACH: people who help others get to top level, who may or may not themselves be top pros, and who may or may not be able to mathematically explain everything.
(e.g. coaches in any pro field, including Go, basketball, etc.)

I believe Fujisawa Hideyuki sensei was a top pro himself, was a great teacher who helped many others reach top level,
and I don't care if he ever read or wrote a mathematical Go article.

not necessarily but very likely



About ko strategy maybe. If so, they should share their knowledge.

It is not only a matter of maths. Reasonably careful and detailed explanations can be given also on other levels of expression. I just see too few of them.

let me sum what you are saying..
you have 100% understanding of what ko threat and influence and thickness
korean pros dont have full understanding because they can not define the terms as you do.
and you get your ass kicked by people who doesnt understand basic go terms.

you are some character.....

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson