DOYLC

An enterprise may go to a lot of trouble to develop definitions.   Some degree of standardization across these definitions is helpful.   One aspect of standardization is dealing with terms that appear in definitions.   Terms can be divided into two classes: Common Terms, which widely understood, and require no definition; and Defined Terms, which signify the concepts that the enterprise is defining. A major rule in definitions is that the term signifying the concept should not appear in the definition.   This is a good idea for summary definitions, but it is hard to justify in full definitions.   Thus, if one component of a definition is a summary, it is best to keep the term being defined out of the summary.   However, the term should be allowed elsewhere in the definition. Common terms should be allowed in a definition with no special formatting.   There is no need to distinguish them as something special.   Indeed, this would be misleading. ...

Much definitional work begins with terms.  However, it is surprising that analysts very often take a term on face value and do not try to analyze it further.  In particular, they do not try to determine if the term is an analogy.  There is value in recognizing if a term is an analogy because the analyst can be put on guard against making errors in the definition An analogy seeks to explain a less familiar concept by some degree of resemblance to a more familiar concept.  By "explain" it is meant that there is an attempt to bring a mind to a better understanding of the less familiar concept (explanation being different to definition).  There can be problems with analogies, e.g. a business concept explained by football analogies will be confusing to an individual with no interest in football.  Because of problems inherent in the use of analogies, the analyst must find out if the term requiring definition is an analogy. It may be easy to detect an analogy in a...

The purpose of this blog is to contribute to the overall field of semantics by advancing the knowledge and promoting the understanding of definitions.  The orientation of the blog is ultimately to practical advances in data and information management, but guided by the realization that such advances must be based on sound theory. Last year I published the book Definitions In Information Management.  Since that time I have gathered additional facts and thoughts about definitions.  However, I have not set down these facts and thoughts, and risk losing them.  This blog will provide the means for recording these details - hopefully to be retrieved and structured more adequately at a future date.