Dear Keith,
You write, “Word frequency and usage patterns indicate something but what?”
Please don’t make more of this than I intended.
I was not making general claims about word frequency or drawing inferences. I was specifically and only responding to Terry’s claim that “It demonstrates how the *design* (noun) referring to the drawings for manufacture is characteristically and historically more common, and hence more important, than the verb form (designing) or the occupation ‘designer’ which seem absent from any discussions at the time.”
Terry argued that the word “design” occurs more frequently as a noun than as a verb in the corpus of the English language than .
That did not sound right to me. Google Ngram offers a quick and dirty opportunity to check this kind of assertion.
Terry made a claim about word frequency and usage patterns.
I tested Terry's claim.
The result of my limited test indicates that Terry was wrong. That is all it indicates. I made no further claims.
You’ve written a detailed philosophical analysis of issues that I do not raise. I only wanted to see if it is true that the word “design” has appeared more often in history as a noun than as a verb. Even if the noun did appear more often than the verb, I’m not sure that this would have deep implications.
My check was a specific response to a specific post that incorrectly described the noun and verb forms of the word “design.” Terry bolstered these incorrect assertions with a questionable claim on frequency and usage. After disposing of the first claim, I wanted to check the second claim. Google Ngram makes it easy to do a quick check, so I checked.
To go deeper would require a careful analysis supported by empirical evidence. I have not done this kind of analysis. Neither Kant nor the turtle need apply themselves to the relatively simple issues I examined in my reply to a single sentence with several mistakes.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University Press | Launching in 2015
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts | James Cook University | Townsville, Australia ||| Visiting Professor | UTS Business School | University of Technology Sydney University | Sydney, Australia
Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
Telephone: International +46 480 51514 — In Sweden (0) 480 51514 — iPhone: International +46 727 003 218 — In Sweden (0) 727 003 218
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