Life and death of go words

[Mef]

Hence meaning is the most relevant. Terms should express meaning as clearly as possible. Not arbitrary meaning but the most relevant meaning.

I think to ignore the connotation of words is a great hindrance in trying to properly define purpose or feel of a move, and certainly relevant to the terminology used (though admittedly it does make it tougher for non-native speakers if a good translation can't be found). Likewise to call connotative meaning arbitrary seems a bit naive. In many cases picking the right word is the perfect way to succinctly capture intricate details in a situation. My knowledge of Japanese is pretty much limited to what I learned from go, so I won't even try on those terms, but I can think of a few English examples --

For instance cut vs. severed. Even though the definitions are virtually the same, if someone described a position as "black's group has been cut" I would think it just means they are separated, where as "black's group has been severed" I would think it implies a sizable piece of a larger group has been cut off and will die. Similarly impede, block, or plug. Impede would imply the opponent still progresses (albeit slower), block would imply they have been diverted or stopped, plug would be not only stopping them, but doing so in an area where they were pushing between two of the opponent's positions. If you were to insist on saying "Black plays so as to completely blocks white's advance in an area where black is strong on two sides and white is pushing through the middle" instead of "Black plugs the gap" it would not only be more cumbersome to describe a position, but it would likely be more difficult, more confusing for the reader, and would potentially fail to convey fully the subtlety of the position.

[RobertJasiek]

I think to ignore the connotation of words is a great hindrance in trying to properly define purpose or feel of a move

Words, phrases or sentences can be as short or detailed as necessary. If the question is "Is the group alive?", then an answer might be "Yes, because it is connected to another live group." Here the implied "safely connected" or (in my terminology) "directly connected" quality does not need to be stated explicitly. If the question is "How good is the connection?", then some quality has to be stated in an answer.

For instance cut vs. severed. Even though the definitions are virtually the same, if someone described a position as "black's group has been cut" I would think it just means they are separated, where as "black's group has been severed" I would think it implies a sizable piece of a larger group has been cut off and will die. Similarly impede, block, or plug. Impede would imply the opponent still progresses (albeit slower), block would imply they have been diverted or stopped, plug would be not only stopping them, but doing so in an area where they were pushing between two of the opponent's positions. If you were to insist on saying "Black plays so as to completely blocks white's advance in an area where black is strong on two sides and white is pushing through the middle" instead of "Black plugs the gap" it would not only be more cumbersome to describe a position, but it would likely be more difficult, more confusing for the reader, and would potentially fail to convey fully the subtlety of the position.

Using too many different common language words makes understanding difficult because every two speakers imagine different things when a word is applied to Go and it becomes difficult to recognize which are the terms. It is much better to use well agreed upon or defined terms. Where necessary, those terms should be varied (like direct versus indirect connection) or qualified by easily understood standard adjectives: good connection, very good connection, bad connection.

[daal]

@ Robert

While some of my suggestions were perhaps inaccurate, I am somewhat surprised to hear you objecting to standard terms such as "retreat" or "stand." Also your objection to "turn" (think: "thousand dollar turn") seems call into question standard practice in favor of your own somewhat awkward inventions.

I call them awkward not because they are inaccurate, but rather because they rely strictly on nouns and adjectives to describe the functions of the stones which I suspect leads to sentences that are difficult to read and to visualize. Compare: "Black turns at 1" with "Black 1 is a thick string connection." No, I have a better idea: Ask one of your students to compare the two.

It is no less accurate to say "Tom was the assailant and Michael was the victim" than to say "Tom hit Michael," but the latter is more vivid, inviting the reader to visualize the situation. This is something that writers do in order to get their point across better.

While it is logical to view go stones as static entities, it is common practice to describe the relationship of newly played stones to existing ones in terms of motion. We speak of jumping and crawling and pressing for example. While this may seem odd at first glance, to anyone familiar with the game it makes perfect sense. We see a go game as something dynamic. As such, the most powerful words to express this are verbs.

I would also like to question another of your objections, that the shape context does not interest you and spoils the descriptive value of a term. One of the reasons stated by John for differentiating between moves, is in order to better visualize the actions taking place. For this purpose, the shape context is anything but irrelevant.

[Bill Spight]

There was similar disagreement over peek and poke.

As I recall, poke is the invention of one English writer who felt that peep or peek carried a sexual connotation, e. g., Peeping Tom. peep show. (Apparently unaware of any sexual connotation of poke.) I was unaware of poke gaining any currency.

[EdLee]

I was unaware of poke gaining any currency.

Well, Facebook also thought it was a bad idea.

[RobertJasiek]

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.

[John Fairbairn]

I call them awkward not because they are inaccurate, but rather because they rely strictly on nouns and adjectives to describe the functions of the stones which I suspect leads to sentences that are difficult to read and to visualize. Compare: "Black turns at 1" with "Black 1 is a thick string connection." No, I have a better idea: Ask one of your students to compare the two.

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.

[Bill Spight]

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.

Hear, hear!

[RobertJasiek]

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.

[Magicwand]

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.

[EdLee]

"Join your stones up" or "keep your stones together" are so much sweeter... than "form a tight connection"

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

[RobertJasiek]

they have better understanding of each terms.

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.)

[Dusk Eagle]

(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?

[Tryphon]

Could you explain briefly what you mean by this?

I don't think he can

[Magicwand]

they have better understanding of each terms.

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.)

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.