The International Terminological Key - universala esperanto

necessary, even beyond the state's borders, to ensure that spare parts were
compatible with officially specified models, as well as with the machine tools
to make them, up to consistency and weight of the materials needed. Alas,
also the pitiless competition and the desire to monopolize markets grew
alongside, every now and then putting obstacles on the road to harmonious
unification. So standardization continued but in an atmosphere of rivalry, to
the despair of customers. Today this battle has become an international and
worldwide problem.
With all that, we mustn't forget that the standardization of processes and
products is always preceded by an abstract phase – the one of reflexion and
reckoning by someone or a group of people. And in that phase, the planner(s)
are forced to think up names for the items on their mind, which is no other
than the practice of terminology.
Unluckily, neither manufacturers nor engineers are supposed also to
possess an adequate knowledge of linguistics, in order to accomplish this
task effectually; and usually they won't even think of consulting linguists, let
alone terminologists, on the matter. So, once again we have to put up with
chance and caprice. That which should precede, only follows, and that which
should only result, wants to precede.
Moreover, a name which “sounds well” has a better chance of being
remembered than a “pale” one. This pushes businessmen, entertainers,
journalists and the like into inventing playful coinings by the dozen, coinings
which are more often than not grotesque capers, and become detrimental to
the language. The modern computer furore constitutes a most eloquent proof
of that phenomenon. Such a wild proliferation cannot but make any
dictionary start to read like a telephone book. Think for instance about the
already innumerable constructions with euro- where the original ending -pa
or -pe has simply vaporized. Today the chaos, intensified by intentional
labelling of lies as truth and truth as lies (desinformation) and producing
masses of double talk, has become so great that one cannot help thinking of
George ORWELL's futuristic Newspeak...
The first and foremost rule of terminology is and should always be the one
of transparency, i.e define as clearly as possible the concept denoted by
the term itself.
And in order to realize such a principle, one must situate a given notion as
precisely as possible within its hierarchical context – which is a matter of
nomenclature.
It is only after this determination of the part and the whole, that the name
under consideration justly merits the label of “term“ – thus "technical word“
– instead of merely commercial, fancy, slangy coinage. Paraphrasing a fairly
well known aphorism, we might say that: “Terminology is much too serious a
matter to leave it in the mouths of comedians and businessmen.”
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