6 ms·

Vowel shift is a term of art in linguistics, so I'm not sure the pun would be worth it.

yesenadam 6y ago
> Vowel shift is a term of art in linguistics Aside: I see "term of art" everywhere on HN lately. Why?! What does it add to saying "Vowel shift is a linguistics term" or "a term in linguistics"? Why do people want to sound like patent lawyers? Am I missing something?
- chc 6y ago
  "A term in linguistics" is imprecise — it's also a term outside of linguistics. The phrase "term of art" means basically "I know that you think you know what this means based on the words, but it is a special defined term that means something particular in this field." It is generally used to correct someone who seems to be viewing a term of art as a common English phrase, so the precision is useful.
  - westoncb 6y ago
    Seems like "idiomatic" already fits this perfectly. Is "term of art" in some way different? maybe has a more of a "you can't really understand it as an outsider," sense?: Idiomatic: A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on. A specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon.
    - chc 6y ago
      "Term of art" means that it has a technical meaning in a specific field, while "idiom" just means that a phrase has a meaning. For example, "a dime a dozen" is an idiom but not a term of art. If you wanted to avoid the phrase "term of art" for some reason, "idiom" would be a reasonable alternative.
      - westoncb 6y ago
        "a technical meaning in a specific field" is one of the definitions of idiom (as given above)—they literally list 'jargon' as a synonym ("The specialized language of a trade, profession, or similar group, especially when viewed as difficult to understand by outsiders."). That entry was from: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition. Since idiom has both the structural denotation of a phrase being semantically 'atomic' (you lose the meaning if you break it into pieces), plus its synonymity with 'jargon', there appears to be nothing added in "term of art". —but maybe this is a lesser known meaning of 'idiom'.
        jacobolus 6y ago
        To start, “idiomatic” is an adjective while “term of art” is a noun. The word “idiom” in the sense you are quoting refers to the whole language/dialect/way of speaking, not one word. The sense of “idiom” meaning one phrase (maybe shortened from “idiomatic expression” or something?) does not mean the same thing as “term of art”, but is more like a common expression in a particular language / dialect. It does not have the sense of a specific technical meaning for a word, distinct from the ordinary definition. These words are not synonyms, and should not be substituted.
        westoncb 6y ago
        And there’s what I was looking for :) I did overlook that ‘idiom’ applies to a full language/dialect. I think you’re overstating your case though when you say “It does not have the sense of a specific technical meaning for a word, distinct from the ordinary definition”—since jargon is a synonym for one sense of idiom and idiomatic is less specific in the group/individual distinction (and yes it’s an adjective but you can trivially employ it to construct an equivalent noun phrase so this matters little). That said my own case is clearly a stretch here lol. Maybe more relevant is the fact one could just say “technical term” and they’d be understood perfectly—I’m pretty sure that phrase is the reason I’ve also never come across “term of art”.
        6y ago
    - ketralnis 6y ago
      "term of art" is a term of art in pedantry circles
- JackFr 6y ago
  It’s shorthand for “in context, that might not mean what you think it means.” I would use term of art to distinguish something that has a particular meaning for the context. For example “clobber” has a useful meaning, a meaning that many people use, but when programmers use it, it’s a term of art that means something specific and non-obvious.
  - yesenadam 6y ago
    Yes..it's a term in programming, a programming term. None of these replies justifying "term of art" seem at all convincing to me. "Term doesn't imply a specialized meaning" – but I think it does here: if "clobber" didn't mean something different in programming, you wouldn't (need to) say "it's a programming term". "It's a programming term" precisely means "the term has a meaning in programming different to what it commonly means". The listener already knows it's a word in everyday English, which is apparently all "term of art" adds.
    - lanstin 6y ago
      To my ears, "term of art" has a certain connotation of precision that the alternatives lack. Not just "this means something you might not guess" but "it has a very particular, well-defined meaning you might not guess."
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  I've found that using 'term of art' more effectively communicates 'this word has a domain-specific meaning that might differ from what you would naively think, pay attention' than simply saying 'x is an x term' or the like, which people tend to gloss over. [edit] I am pleased to see that HN readers as a group love to define things, and also that I need to learn to refresh tabs I've had open for a while before responding
  - forbiddenvoid 6y ago
    Then why not just say 'domain-specific meaning?' Term of art doesn't really have a clear meaning in general (native English speaker, and this is the first time I've heard this), and it's unclear/ambiguous as to what it actually indicates.
    - naniwaduni 6y ago
      Because "term of art" is the term of art... "Domain-specific" is nonsense gibberish to people outside ~computing, more or less.
    - aesh2Xa1 6y ago
      "Jargon" is a good word for this case.
      - shemtay 6y ago
        "Jargon" sounds pejorative to me, and implies that the phrasing is difficult for outsiders to understand. "Term of art" only implies that it is the specific phrasing used by practitioners to describe the matter at hand.
      - anoncake 6y ago
        Does that imply that the meaning is well-defined like "term of art" does?
        aesh2Xa1 5y ago
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Maybe you just noticed it lately. Term doesn't imply a specialized meaning. Term of art does. And it doesn't have a negative secondary meaning like jargon.
- eointierney 6y ago
  Terms of art are pre-scientific jargon that survive mainly due to utility. They are common in crafts such as pottery or the Law. They are references to heuristically derived conveniences. They're linguistically cool. In Math, lemma is a term of the art.
  - glup 6y ago
    In linguistics, lemma is also a term of art.
  - mehwoot 6y ago
    They are references to heuristically derived conveniences That's every word in existence
    - eointierney 6y ago
      Yes, and this is not trite. Every word we hang on to has special meaning. Think about the amount of words we've forgotten. Could a computational linguist chime in please? How many words in how many human languages will never be spoken again in 2021?
      - bradrn 6y ago
        Not a computational linguist (or a linguist at all), but this is an area I know a bit about. The question you ask is at the centre of the study of ‘glottochronology’ [0]: > The original method presumed that the core vocabulary of a language is replaced at a constant (or constant average) rate across all languages and cultures … Unfortunately, the only major discovery glottochronology has revealed is that rates of change vary too much to be of any use: > in Bergsland & Vogt (1962), the authors make an impressive demonstration, on the basis of actual language data verifiable by extralinguistic sources, that the "rate of change" for Icelandic constituted around 4% per millennium, but for closely connected Riksmal (Literary Norwegian), it would amount to as much as 20%. And there are other factors affecting replacement rate as well. For instance, a curious trait about the non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea is that the word ‘louse’ is practically never replaced: it evolves according to normal sound change, but never gets thrown out entirely. By contrast, many languages have a taboo against mentioning the names of the deceased; this can speed up lexical replacement if those people have names homophonous with common words. For these reasons, I suspect that a general answer to your question will be extremely difficult — if not impossible — to find. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottochronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottochronology
- hunter2_ 6y ago
  > I see "term of art" everywhere on HN lately. Why?! Probably a combination of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and virality (meme).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Igelau 6y ago
  "Term of art" is a vector of meaning.
- test_alpha 6y ago
  It is common that people try to sound knowledgeable by using overly complex, verbose, or obscure language. When it's a phrase like this that requires no thought to use, it an spread very quickly. Another one that is used (and usually badly butchered when I've seen it used in tech) is "speak to". Don't let it bother you too much though, it's human nature.
optimuspaul 6y ago
Seems like linguistics is the perfect arena for exploiting puns. Term of art I think not when they miss a perfect chance for artistry.

> Vowel shift is a term of art in linguistics Aside: I see "term of art" everywhere on HN lately. Why?! What does it add to saying "Vowel shift is a linguistics term" or "a term in linguistics"? Why do people want to sound like patent lawyers? Am I missing something?

chc 6y ago
"A term in linguistics" is imprecise — it's also a term outside of linguistics. The phrase "term of art" means basically "I know that you think you know what this means based on the words, but it is a special defined term that means something particular in this field." It is generally used to correct someone who seems to be viewing a term of art as a common English phrase, so the precision is useful.
- westoncb 6y ago
  Seems like "idiomatic" already fits this perfectly. Is "term of art" in some way different? maybe has a more of a "you can't really understand it as an outsider," sense?: Idiomatic: A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on. A specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon.
  - chc 6y ago
    "Term of art" means that it has a technical meaning in a specific field, while "idiom" just means that a phrase has a meaning. For example, "a dime a dozen" is an idiom but not a term of art. If you wanted to avoid the phrase "term of art" for some reason, "idiom" would be a reasonable alternative.
    - westoncb 6y ago
      "a technical meaning in a specific field" is one of the definitions of idiom (as given above)—they literally list 'jargon' as a synonym ("The specialized language of a trade, profession, or similar group, especially when viewed as difficult to understand by outsiders."). That entry was from: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition. Since idiom has both the structural denotation of a phrase being semantically 'atomic' (you lose the meaning if you break it into pieces), plus its synonymity with 'jargon', there appears to be nothing added in "term of art". —but maybe this is a lesser known meaning of 'idiom'.
      - jacobolus 6y ago
        To start, “idiomatic” is an adjective while “term of art” is a noun. The word “idiom” in the sense you are quoting refers to the whole language/dialect/way of speaking, not one word. The sense of “idiom” meaning one phrase (maybe shortened from “idiomatic expression” or something?) does not mean the same thing as “term of art”, but is more like a common expression in a particular language / dialect. It does not have the sense of a specific technical meaning for a word, distinct from the ordinary definition. These words are not synonyms, and should not be substituted.
        westoncb 6y ago
        And there’s what I was looking for :) I did overlook that ‘idiom’ applies to a full language/dialect. I think you’re overstating your case though when you say “It does not have the sense of a specific technical meaning for a word, distinct from the ordinary definition”—since jargon is a synonym for one sense of idiom and idiomatic is less specific in the group/individual distinction (and yes it’s an adjective but you can trivially employ it to construct an equivalent noun phrase so this matters little). That said my own case is clearly a stretch here lol. Maybe more relevant is the fact one could just say “technical term” and they’d be understood perfectly—I’m pretty sure that phrase is the reason I’ve also never come across “term of art”.
        6y ago
  - ketralnis 6y ago
    "term of art" is a term of art in pedantry circles
JackFr 6y ago
It’s shorthand for “in context, that might not mean what you think it means.” I would use term of art to distinguish something that has a particular meaning for the context. For example “clobber” has a useful meaning, a meaning that many people use, but when programmers use it, it’s a term of art that means something specific and non-obvious.
- yesenadam 6y ago
  Yes..it's a term in programming, a programming term. None of these replies justifying "term of art" seem at all convincing to me. "Term doesn't imply a specialized meaning" – but I think it does here: if "clobber" didn't mean something different in programming, you wouldn't (need to) say "it's a programming term". "It's a programming term" precisely means "the term has a meaning in programming different to what it commonly means". The listener already knows it's a word in everyday English, which is apparently all "term of art" adds.
  - lanstin 6y ago
    To my ears, "term of art" has a certain connotation of precision that the alternatives lack. Not just "this means something you might not guess" but "it has a very particular, well-defined meaning you might not guess."
Baeocystin 6y ago
I've found that using 'term of art' more effectively communicates 'this word has a domain-specific meaning that might differ from what you would naively think, pay attention' than simply saying 'x is an x term' or the like, which people tend to gloss over. [edit] I am pleased to see that HN readers as a group love to define things, and also that I need to learn to refresh tabs I've had open for a while before responding
- forbiddenvoid 6y ago
  Then why not just say 'domain-specific meaning?' Term of art doesn't really have a clear meaning in general (native English speaker, and this is the first time I've heard this), and it's unclear/ambiguous as to what it actually indicates.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    Because "term of art" is the term of art... "Domain-specific" is nonsense gibberish to people outside ~computing, more or less.
  - aesh2Xa1 6y ago
    "Jargon" is a good word for this case.
    - shemtay 6y ago
      "Jargon" sounds pejorative to me, and implies that the phrasing is difficult for outsiders to understand. "Term of art" only implies that it is the specific phrasing used by practitioners to describe the matter at hand.
    - anoncake 6y ago
      Does that imply that the meaning is well-defined like "term of art" does?
      - aesh2Xa1 5y ago
pseudalopex 6y ago
Maybe you just noticed it lately. Term doesn't imply a specialized meaning. Term of art does. And it doesn't have a negative secondary meaning like jargon.
eointierney 6y ago
Terms of art are pre-scientific jargon that survive mainly due to utility. They are common in crafts such as pottery or the Law. They are references to heuristically derived conveniences. They're linguistically cool. In Math, lemma is a term of the art.
- glup 6y ago
  In linguistics, lemma is also a term of art.
- mehwoot 6y ago
  They are references to heuristically derived conveniences That's every word in existence
  - eointierney 6y ago
    Yes, and this is not trite. Every word we hang on to has special meaning. Think about the amount of words we've forgotten. Could a computational linguist chime in please? How many words in how many human languages will never be spoken again in 2021?
    - bradrn 6y ago
      Not a computational linguist (or a linguist at all), but this is an area I know a bit about. The question you ask is at the centre of the study of ‘glottochronology’ [0]: > The original method presumed that the core vocabulary of a language is replaced at a constant (or constant average) rate across all languages and cultures … Unfortunately, the only major discovery glottochronology has revealed is that rates of change vary too much to be of any use: > in Bergsland & Vogt (1962), the authors make an impressive demonstration, on the basis of actual language data verifiable by extralinguistic sources, that the "rate of change" for Icelandic constituted around 4% per millennium, but for closely connected Riksmal (Literary Norwegian), it would amount to as much as 20%. And there are other factors affecting replacement rate as well. For instance, a curious trait about the non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea is that the word ‘louse’ is practically never replaced: it evolves according to normal sound change, but never gets thrown out entirely. By contrast, many languages have a taboo against mentioning the names of the deceased; this can speed up lexical replacement if those people have names homophonous with common words. For these reasons, I suspect that a general answer to your question will be extremely difficult — if not impossible — to find. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottochronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottochronology
hunter2_ 6y ago
> I see "term of art" everywhere on HN lately. Why?! Probably a combination of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and virality (meme).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Igelau 6y ago
"Term of art" is a vector of meaning.
test_alpha 6y ago
It is common that people try to sound knowledgeable by using overly complex, verbose, or obscure language. When it's a phrase like this that requires no thought to use, it an spread very quickly. Another one that is used (and usually badly butchered when I've seen it used in tech) is "speak to". Don't let it bother you too much though, it's human nature.

optimuspaul 6y ago

Seems like linguistics is the perfect arena for exploiting puns. Term of art I think not when they miss a perfect chance for artistry.