[CCWG-ACCT] Terminology for the ICANN trinity

[Nigel Roberts]

On 07/03/17 07:28, Schweighofer Erich wrote:
> ...  Some ontology work can help.

Although it referred to ontoGENY (and Häckel's oft-misquoted hypothesis 
remains discredited in that context), in the ICANN context ontoLOGY 
really does recapitulate phylogeny.  Or as Santayana put it, if we do 
not remember the past, we shall be doomed to repeat it.

Language is a tool.  ICANN (and the wider tech community) has too often 
subscribed to the view of Humpty Dumpty to our disbenefit. (See below).

To define the word "organisation" NOT to include the wider ICANN 
organisation (i.e. the staff and community) is to invite 
misunderstanding and confusion from outside agencies and outside media 
who will not understand that 'organisation' only means PART of the 
organisation.



I have a long memory where ICANN is concerned.

The VERY first DNSO Council meeting (today's GNSO and ccNSO together) of 
which I was a member, had an utterly Pythonesqye quarter-hour where the 
speakers of American English and British English suffered from entire 
and complete mutual incomprehensibility following one member;s 
suggestion of "tabling" a motion until ICANN Chairman, Esther Dyson, 
sitting on the floor under the stage intervened to translate each the 
other's confusion.

" "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 
"it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you /can/ make words mean so 
many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."