quiddity wrote:
On 6/30/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
quiddity wrote:
My recommendation (made somewhere, a while ago), is that "Bibliography" be recommended (as part of the MoS) only as a term for a subject's personal/collaborative works, along the lines of "Filmography" and "Discography".
This is contrary to the way that the term is normally understood in the rest of the world.
It's only contrary to ''one'' of the ways it is understood... http://www.onelook.com/?w=bibliography
The simple fact that that site give 31 citations for the word should be a warning not to adopt a more restrictive definition. Editors will come to us with established notions about the meaning of the word without suspecting that we have our own eccentric usage. That is a prescription for endless arguments when those who have agreed with your definition attempt to enforce it.
Tradition doesn't have to smite common-sense ''every'' time! Look, it's so elegant and logical ^_^ Biography - Bibliography, Discography, Filmography
Sonetimes following tradition _is_ common sense. "Discography" is a relatively new term from the 1930s, and "filmography", with its bastardized etymology, only dates back to the 1960s. Both were formed by analogy with "bibliography". On the other hand, "bibliography" has been established for centuries, and certainly appears in the title of many books as a guide to writings _about_ the subject. We also apply "bibliography" when discussing material about people who have never themselves written anything..
It would be similarly confusing to use "Discography", as it applies in its alternate meanings (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=discography), for such things as a list of "Further listening" or 'subject-primer-material', in a broad topic like [[Dixieland]] (which actually has the expansive [[List of Dixieland standards]]), such as this thread was originally about.
I suppose that an alliterative phrase like "Dixieland discography" would have irs place. :-)
It's always best to avoid trying to run up the down escalator. You may still get to the top, but only with the expenditure of a lot of energy.
Ec