Dear Derek,

I re read Flusser’s essay and I confirmed my first impression. It is a wonderful cunning piece of text but it is not an etymological essay. 
The problem is that he do not provides examples in ancient texts. However, his intuitions are generally right. 
Sometimes etymological sources from etymological texts do not provide examples. They simply assume that things happened in a certain way because of similarities with other words and scholars have been repeating the same assumption over the years. I looked upon texts and dictionaries of the times in appreciation. If there is anyone that can provide any examples from the same times that contradict what I read, I’m more that glad to learn more. 
Plus, I chose the only dictionaries available in some periods. For instance, I quote Cowdrey’s table of hard words because it was the first English dictionary. Bailey’s because it was the first Etymological Dictionary. I do not quote Samuel Johnson’s because he mostly repeats and corrects Bailey. I quote Noah Webster’s because it was the first American English dictionary. 
Recently I discovered that Samuel Johnson (1755, p.574) was the first to document “Designer” and not only “Design” (I’ll use this in future articles)

Designer 
"1. “A plotter; a contriver; one that lays schemes.

It has therefore always been both the rule and practice of such designers to suborn the publick interest, to countenance and cover their private. Decay of Pity.

2. One that forms the idea of any thing in painting or sculpture.

There is a great affinity between, designing and poetry; for the Latin poets, and the designers of the Roman medals, lived very near one another, and were bred up to the same relish for wit and fancy. Addison”
http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?page_id=7070&i=574 

It is clear to me that the 2nd meaning was the one that originated in the following century Design Schools in order to educated people to be like second and that the 1st meaning (hopefully) disappeared.

I have no reason to believe that Johnson was wrong. He provides examples and repeats Wotton’s text cited in Bailey’s 1731 edition corrected from the original.
My conviction after reading this influential and the only dictionaries available at the time is that Design was the final unified spelling of different words from different origins and meaning different things. One of the meanings, that I suppose was imported by Wotton from the Italian “Disegno”  was idea in painting or sculpture, drawing. “The idea which an artist endeavors to execute or express” (Johnson 1755, p. 574).

I therefore beg you and everyone to find me a use of the word Design prior to 1580 related with Art or any type of creation technical or other.
I also beg you to provide me with any text from the early 1800’s that may indicate that the Normal School of Design also known as the Government School of Design was created having in consideration any other meaning of Design different from  “The idea which an artist endeavors to execute or express”
I’ll be one week almost out, so, my greetings to everyone.
Eduardo




> No dia 10/01/2016, às 17:03, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> escreveu:
> 
> Dear Eduardo and Derek,
> 
> Eduardo Corte-Real’s (2010) working paper is interesting. I’ve read it before and I like it. Nevertheless, this doesn’t negate the issues I raised earlier. Eduardo’s reading is wide, but selective. He selects sources to support his view. At some points he either misreads or misrepresents what he has read. I don’t say that Eduardo is deliberately misrepresenting his sources, but he certainly misread me and what he writes misrepresents what I wrote. On page 12, he writes, 
> 
> “The genealogy of design that has been established here contradicts, or at least alleviates, the published conviction that the word and concept of ‘design’ derives from a non-reflexive and poorly intellectualized arts and crafts tradition (Friedman 1997, 54-56)” (Corte-Real’s 2010: 12). 
> 
> In the cited section of this book chapter, I discuss the evolution of design practice and design education. I do *not* define the word and concept design, nor do I discuss the derivation of the word design. I do this in other papers that Eduardo does not cite. In the book chapter that he cites in his (Corte-Real’s 2010) working paper, the only definition that I use for the word design is Herbert Simon’s definition. This appears on page 58.
> 
> I enjoy Eduardo’s papers. He is a formidable scholar and an interesting thinker. I have learned a great deal from him, especially about the early sources of many modern and contemporary ideas, and he has pointed me to a great many interesting books and papers. At the same time, we see some issues in different ways.
> 
> While Eduardo is a scholar, he is not an etymologist or a lexicographer. Rather than determine the meanings of the word design and their lines of descent across the entirety of the language to develop primary and secondary meanings, he chose interesting but quirky sources to support an argument. The meanings to which Eduardo points exist. There is no question about that. But the first and primary meanings that I stated earlier are based on the full development of the word design as documented by etymological and lexicographic sources rather than early but partial dictionaries chosen on a selective basis.
> 
> While I do not define the word design in the paper Eduardo cites, I do define it in other papers (Friedman 2000, Friedman 2002). They are all available on my Academia.edu page. In each case I point to etymologically and lexicographically sound sources. My point is that there is a difference between an essay, even an interesting essay, and an analysis of what words mean. In this essay, I believe Eduardo did not represent my analysis of the word and concept design correctly, mistaking my analysis of how design education evolved for an analysis of the meaning and concept of the word design itself. The place to read what I write about the word “design” and the concepts it entails involve other documents.
> 
> For now, I think it is time to bow out of this thread. I’ve written about this many times over the years. Since the history of the English-language word design begins in the 1500s or slightly earlier, my view is not going to change unless someone offers new evidence on how the word design entered English and what it meant. My guess would be that everyone interested in what I have to say about this has already read what I wrote on the topic — anyone who remains interested and wants to read can do so by going to my Academia page at URL:
> 
> https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
> 
> In another thread, Chuck Burnette offered a concise, elegant summary of why Herbert Simon’s definition is useful and remains useful. I thought he summed it up well. 
> 
> And with this, thanks all. 
> 
> Ken
> 
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
> 
> 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 | Melbourne, Australia
> 
> —
> 
> References
> 
> Côrte-Real, Eduardo. 2010. “The Word ‘Design’: Early Modern English Dictionaries and Literature on Design, 1604 - 1837‟, Working Papers on Design, 4,
> ed. Grace Lees-Maffei. Available at URL:
> http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpdesign/index.html
> 
> Friedman, Ken. 1997. “Design Science and Design Education.” In The Challenge of Complexity, ed. Peter McGrory, 54-72. Helsinki: University of Art and Design Helsinki. Available at URL:
> https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
> 
> Friedman, Ken. 2000. Creating Design Knowledge: From Research into Practice. IDATER 2000: International Conference on Design and Technology Educational Research and Development, Loughborough University. Available at URL:
> https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
> 
> Friedman, Ken. 2002. “Theory Construction in Design Research. Criteria, Approaches, and Methods.” Common Ground. Proceedings of the Design Research Society International Conference, Brunel University, September 5-7, 2002. David Durling and John Shackleton, Editors. Stoke on Trent, UK: Staffordshire University Press. Available at URL:
> https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
> 
> --
> 
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