Dear Eduardo,
For my money, Klaus is right. Even though the quotations were falsified, Klaus’s point applies.
Your usage of the earliest definitions by Noah Webster only shows that lexicography was different in Webster’s days than in our own. The current definitions are based on deeper research into historical examples than was possible to Noah Webster. Even so, his definitions capture all the meanings. It’s only the order that changes.
Even had the quotes been real, they would be meaningless. The issue is that you simply refuse to acknowledge that Simon (or anyone else) may properly apply the term “design” to anything other than objects that are made beautiful through the artistry of “diseno”. On this basis, one cannot design an experiment, design an organisation, design the circuits on a computer chip, or design a customer service system. Nevertheless, people design all these kinds of things, and they use the term design for what they do.
Your Noah Webster quotes are probably correct, if you’re not teasing us again. Even if Webster wrote his dictionary as you quote him, that is irrelevant. The case is that there has been deeper and richer research done since Webster’s time.
It is useful to compare the translation of a 19th-century lexicographer against the current translation of lexicographers with the richer resources that scholars have developed on the past two centuries.
If you want to insist that the word “design” only refers to a limited range of activities linked to drawing and beauty, the definitions don’t matter. It’s a matter of faith and belief.
Simon’s definition conforms to the first English-language usage. The fact that this usage does not appear first in a 19th-century dictionary does not change the fact of what the word first meant in English. Even though Simon’s definition conforms to the earliest English-language usage of the word design, he may nevertheless be wrong for those who insist that we can only use the word design in a certain way.
If we’re all mistaken, what we need is a new English-language verb to describe what it is we do when we design experiments, organisations, circuits, or service systems.
Yours,
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
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