Entry 440 — Support for My Hyperneologization
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I came across it by chance:
APODIZATION* literally means “removing the foot”. It is the
technical term for changing the shape of a mathematical function, an
electrical signal, an optical transmission or a mechanical structure.
An example of apodization is the use of the Hann window in the Fast
Fourier transform analyzer to smooth the discontinuities at the
beginning and end of the sampled time record.
Now, then, is this a pompous, unpronounceable, superfluous term? It was once a coinage, you know. Why not “foot-removal?” I suspect because whoever coined it wanted it quickly to narrow the mind into mathematics, i.e., a particular system or discipline–which I also want most of my terms though not “Wilshberia” to do. I know: there’s a difference between a certified subject like mathematics and the theoretical psychology I try to link my terms to. I understandably (I should think) don’t consider that relevant. Why should someone be discouraged from systematic naming of terms to fit interactingly into a theory he’s creating just because he’s a crank.
I think one reason for my lack of recognition is that the sort of people who might be in sympathy with my hyperneologization are not generally the sort of people with an interest in poetics. As I’ve often declared, I may well be too much of an abstract thinker to be a poet and too much of an intuitive thinker to be a scientist. You’d think that would help me with both groups but it does the opposite. About the only “real” mathematician who appreciates my mathematical poems is JoAnne Growney.
The other day, after my “anthrocentricity’ and “verosophy” had been subjected to the usual reactionary jibes, I asked why “egocentricity” was an acceptable word for “self-centeredness,” but “anthrocentricity” not an acceptable word for “people-centeredness.” Needless to say, no one answered me.
Far too many many academics are so locked into their received understandings that they are blind to how those understandings might be revised or extended in ways that require the coinage of new terms.
Tags: neologisms