User talk:Milkunderwood

Just bluelinking here. Milkunderwood 06:15, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

theory

Hi Ƿidsiþ--

I'm not particularly surprised that the very long explanatory quote I had put in for the science entry got quickly reverted. However, while acknowledging the page's usage notes, which is certainly helpful, do you not think that an explicit distinction between "theory" as a term of art in scientific fields, as opposed to its usual understanding in a more colloquial sense, is worth making there? This is one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted terms in the language - and not only with respect to evolution. Milkunderwood 20:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

• Hi. Not really. The distinction is already explicit -- we have two very separate senses covering the two uses. The difference is also reiterated in the Usage notes. I wanted to salvage something from your edit since it was obviously a serious attempt to add value, but in the end it was too complicated and I just reverted. The problems were mainly: you said something like, "In scientific contexts..." whereas Wiktionary policy is to do this more concisely with a {{science}} context tag at the start of the line (which you removed); the citation was way too long (if you pick out a specific short sentence, you could re-add that, or alternatively add the whole thing to the Citations:theory page); and finally your tweaks to the definition, by using italics, seemed to add nothing except a vague air of condescension. I'm also not convinced that (deprecated template usage) term of art is well-known enough to be useful. I think your best bet, if you still feel Wiktionary should make more of the distinction (which I actually don't), is to work on improving the Usage Notes. Ƿidsiþ 09:10, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your thoughtful response. I'll mull this over some, see if I can do any better. Milkunderwood 10:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

[Discussion continued on your talkpage] Milkunderwood 11:50, 18 November 2011 (UTC)