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[Phys-L] Re: Charts or Graphs, and other Excel stuff



At 15:44 -0400 10/4/05, John Denker wrote:

-- As a side light: A road-map is a map. A sectional aeronautical chart
is a chart ... even though this map and this chart are nearly identical
in form and function. I have to persuade student pilots to use the
word "chart".

And the "chart room" on a ship in not where they keep the graphs, or
the flip-charts. It is where the nautical charts are kept. And aboard
ship, anyone who calls a chart a map is subject to being keel-hauled.

The thing about language is that it is one of the ways we separate
the "insiders" from the "outsiders." So a physics or other science
student who calls a graph a chart is quickly marked as an outsider,
and often treated as such, even by the teacher, just as a student
pilot or a naval cadet who called a chart a map will be so
identified, and it will be made clear to them along the way, that, if
they aspire to someday be an "insider" in that community, that they
will learn to use the insider's language, as well as the jargon.

Nevertheless, it is important for any insider to remember, when they
are talking to an outsider, that they need to make sure the outsider
knows when insider language is being used and how the meanings are
different between insiders and outsiders--unless, of course, the
insider language is being used solely for the purpose of impressing
an outsider with the insider's status as an insider, in which case
the more confusing the language is to the outsider, the better. >:-}

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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