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Was it John Maynard Smith - The Major Transitions in Evolution? It's a great book, that goes deeper than Dawkins' vulgarizations.
by ced 16y ago
Was it John Maynard Smith - The Major Transitions in Evolution? It's a great book, that goes deeper than Dawkins' vulgarizations.
- jacquesm 16y agoI wouldn't call any of Dawkins' work a 'vulgarization'.
- ced 16y agoUh, yeah, I was wondering if that word was appropriate in English. I meant it in the sense of: to make (a technical or abstruse work) easier to understand and more widely known; popularize. (from dictionary.com)
- jokermatt999 16y agoVulgar has a very negative connotation to it. The main thing I associate with "vulgar" would be swearing, crassness, or uncouth behavior. I haven't seen the word vulgarization used really, but it inherits that contexts from its root word to me.
- ced 16y agoLikewise in French! But we still use the word "vulgarisation" to describe popular science books, in a good way.
- tokenadult 16y agoYes, as you have learned through this thread, only very learned persons say "vulgarization" in English to mean "popularization," so it's safest in Internet writing simply to write "popularization."
- leot 16y agoWell, learned, or people who speak French: http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/vulgariser http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/vulgariser EDIT: I see that someone beat me to the punch ...
- hugh3 16y agoUnless, of course, your primary goal is to be pretentious, in which case go ahead and use "vulgarisation".