Re: How did the Spelling Police miss this one?

[Timothy Miller <miller@techsource.com>]

viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk wrote:

>On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 10:46:06AM -0400, Timothy Miller wrote:
> 
>  
>
>>On the other hand, "canonicalize", while strange and new, unambiguously 
>>means (b).
>>
>>Is there an already-existing word which means (b)?
>>    
>>
>
>% webster normalize
>nor-mal-ize \'no[0xC7]r-me-,l[0xF5]^-z\ vt  -ized; -iz-ing
>(1865)
>1: to make conform to or reduce to a norm or standard
>2: to make normal (as by a transformation of variables)
>3: to bring or restore (as relations between countries) to a normal
>     condition
>-- nor-mal-iz-able \-,l[0xF5]^--ze-bel\ adj 
>-- nor-mal-iza-tion \,no[0xC7]r-me-le-'za^--shen\ n 
>
>
>  
>

Yeah, that works pretty well, but there's more we can debate about.  :)

(a) Are "normal" and "canonical" necessarily equivalent?  They certainly 
aren't in Psychiatry.

(b) Are people going to know what we're talking about when we say 
"normalize" as well as they do when they see "canonicalize".


As a person who enjoyed studying Linguistics and hated studying English, 
I prefer to take the liberal (descriptive, rather than prescriptive) 
stance and vote in favor of the use of the word "canonilcalize".  But 
the debate isn't over, and I'm willing to change my opinion (not that it 
really matters...).