Terminologia techniczna (‘Technical Terminology’, 1961) — an overview

Preface (pp. 7–8)

The preface explains where the book came from: from the many years of work of the Central Committee for Electrical Vocabulary (Centralna Komisja Słownictwa Elektrycznego), active since 1917, and from articles the author had earlier published in a professional journal; the findings gathered here are meant to be of use to technicians outside electrical engineering. Mazur justifies the need for such work by the scale of technical vocabulary, many times larger than the stock of everyday language, and by the fact that Poland at the time had no research institution that would deal with specialist language as universities deal with the general language.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

The importance of technical terminology (pp. 9–10)

The chapter links two reasons why the question of names is becoming urgent with a thesis about the character of technical vocabulary. The reasons: an abundance of vocabulary is a natural consequence of the development of technology, not a fault of terminologists, and readers who cannot keep up with the avalanche of publications anyway should not also have to struggle with disorder in names. The thesis with which the chapter opens: a technical name is now treated as a tool and judged by whether it lets its user down — in production, planning, statistics and in learning a trade without a teacher — and care for the language is only one of the requirements.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

The concept of a technical term (pp. 10–11)

The chapter introduces a distinction between a technical name and a term, and ends with a conclusion that sets the course for the rest of the work: the conventional character of names gives the terminologist freedom, and this freedom should be used for names that themselves suggest the right sense. The division itself is simple. The criterion is the need for a definition: a term is a name whose meaning cannot be read off from the sense of the words that make it up — hence every single technical word turns out to be a term, while a combination understood directly is not a term. Mazur explains this with a few short examples: a comparison of two word combinations, only one of which requires a definition, and compound words made of elements that seem understandable on their own.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminology and standards (pp. 11–13)

The chapter ends with the thought that between compulsion and arbitrariness there remains the linguistic culture of technicians themselves: technical language has no boundaries as clear as those of a product covered by a standard, so even the most authoritative dictionary can only recommend. Two matters lead up to this. The first is the authority of standards in questions of names. Mazur's answer is in principle negative, though he admits that names in standards are often carefully chosen: the force of a standard concerns the product, not the vocabulary, and in questions of names precedence belongs to terminological committees — standards are left at most with the role of a substitute reference. The second matter is the kinds of dictionary — registering, critical-registering and normative — which differ in whether they merely record words or also assess and recommend them.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological principles (pp. 13–46)

The longest chapter of the first part (more than thirty pages) is built as a catalogue: a short introduction is followed by fourteen subsections, each of which formulates one requirement for a name, justifies it and supplies examples. The key to reading the whole catalogue is the separate chapter on coordinating the principles: Mazur makes it clear from the outset that no single principle settles a name, because each captures only one point of view. He defines the terminologist's role by contrast with the linguist's — the one tends the language as it is found, the other deliberately designs names — because nomenclature that arises spontaneously tends to be split between communities, illogical and slow.

The fourteen principles can be grouped by what they concern (the groups are ours; the names of the principles are Mazur's):

• attitude to existing usage — the principle of prevalence: every change of a name multiplies confusion for a while, so a proposal must have a clear advantage over the existing name in the light of the other principles; what counts here is currency among technicians, not among laypeople. The principle of emotional acceptability: a name that irritates or amuses may fail to catch on, however carefully it has been justified. The principle of correctness: words taken from everyday speech are subject to its rules, words created artificially to analogy and the feel of specialists, and linguistic objections cannot abolish needed concepts;
• origin of roots — the principle of internationality: roots understood in many languages, for the sake of the bodies that agree definitions between countries and of readers of foreign literature. The principle of nativeness: a basis in Polish words, which makes learning a trade easier, but without Polonising at all costs. The principle of homogeneity: a Polish root is not combined with a foreign one in a single word; most of this subsection is a survey of troublesome foreign prefixes;
• link between name and concept — the principle of logicality: a name should lead towards the content of the definition, not away from it, which is why a name saying what a thing serves for outlives changes in its construction. The principles of univocity and single naming: one name corresponds to one concept and vice versa; Mazur rejects both the excuse that a specialist will guess and reaching for synonyms to vary a text. The principle of systematicity: names should form a hierarchy in which each group of concepts of the same rank has its common name; defining by the nearest genus rests on this hierarchy. The principle of uniformity: related concepts get a common root, even at the cost of repetitions within a sentence;
• form of the name — the principle of concision: each feature is mentioned in a name only once, and the same applies to writing definitions. The principle of operativeness: a name should work well in speech and writing, without superfluous syllables and awkward combinations — hence the advantage of the adjective over the genitive. The principle of reproductivity: it must be possible to form derivatives from a name, so a new one is planned from the start together with its whole family.

The examples in this chapter come from many branches of technology and usually take the form of pairs of names, one of which satisfies the principle and the other breaks it; in a few places Mazur also reaches for comparisons from everyday life. The principles often pull in opposite directions — familiarity against internationality, for instance, or convenience of use against the order of the classification — and this is precisely what the next chapter deals with.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Coordinating the terminological principles (pp. 46–48)

The chapter gives a method for settling disputes over names: when two candidates are compared, only the criteria that distinguish them count, and everything in which they are equal is set aside. The method is needed because no ideal name exists: a dispute over a name is often in fact a dispute over which requirement to rank higher, and an explicit catalogue of criteria allows it to be conducted on the merits, instead of with indignation at a decision that sacrificed someone's favourite principle. Mazur illustrates the procedure with the replacement of krótkie spięcie (literally ‘short clasp’) by zwarcie (short circuit), which several principles favour against the mere popularity of the old name, and stresses that the aim is not to count points mechanically but to put the arguments in order.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

International terminological work (pp. 48–50)

A short chapter assesses international dictionaries: they are useful for putting concepts in order, but they are not oracles, because the draft is usually prepared by one country's committee and the dictionary inherits its authors' habits, while the equivalents in other languages are sometimes literal translations. Another difficulty is the mismatch between the translation of a name and the translation of its definition, although what the reader of foreign literature needs above all is the equivalent of the word itself. The chapter announces a discussion of the ISO recommendations.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

ISO terminological recommendations (pp. 51–63)

The chapter is a translation with commentary: Mazur presents the 1959 draft of 33 recommendations of the ISO technical committee for terminology — from concepts and definitions to dictionaries and the role of context — and adds remarks of his own. He deliberately gives his own principles and the ISO recommendations different names, because the two sets have different subjects.

Most of the supplements concern definitions. Mazur accepts the ban on circular definitions and adds that a circle stretched across many entries far apart from one another is easy to overlook. For Polish readers he introduces names for kinds of definition — narrowing, widening (generalising and integrating) and, beyond ISO, lateral — and subordinates the choice of kind to the rule of proceeding from the known to the less known. In his comment on the recommendation on definitions tied to a single publication he corrects the ISO authors: what is sometimes tied is the name an author has chosen for their own use, while the specification of the concept itself remains valid wherever that concept is discussed. He also points out the confusion of concision with brevity and rejects the idea of naming the same concepts one way in texts for home use and another way in dealings with other countries.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Oznaczenia” (‘Designations’) to “Rozkład — zmienność” (‘Distribution — variability’) (pp. 65–97)

general concepts, quantities and their qualifiers

The second part has no introduction: the entries begin at once, usually pairs or triples of words regarded as synonyms. In many of them a similar line of argument recurs — Mazur notes the confusion in the literature, shows that two words conceal two different concepts, and gives each a separate name — while in others he chooses one of the two words or accepts two equivalent ones. This block is the source of a distinction to which the author returns in later entries: one speaks of distribution (rozkład) when comparing points in space with time held still, and of variability (zmienność) when following a single point as time passes. The earlier entries put in order the vocabulary of technical thinking itself (przypadek and wypadek, case and accident; sposób and metoda, way and method; środowisko and ośrodek, environment and medium) and of physical quantities (wielkość and wartość, quantity and value; średnia and przeciętna, mean and average), and a long run of adjectives closes with a classification of variable quantities. Mazur often sets the word under assessment against its opposite and, where possible, prefers names that form a negated pair with it, because such a division leaves no third possibility.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Przyrost — spadek i zwyżka — zniżka” (‘Increase — drop and rise — fall’) to “Wrażliwość — czułość” (‘Sensitiveness — sensitivity’) (pp. 98–126)

space, time, measurement and checking

From the point of view of the later dictionary, the important entry in this block is Wyznaczanie (determination, pp. 108–111). It separates wyznaczanie (determining, that is, finding information) from określanie (specifying, that is, giving it), and a definition from an explanation (objaśnienie): a definition is concerned only with the boundaries of a concept, whereas an explanation is written for someone who is meant to understand something, so it may be extensive and illustrated. The same block is the source of the distinction between rigour (ścisłość, correctness of thinking) and accuracy (dokładność, correctness of execution), and, following from it, between błąd (error) and uchyb (deviation), which makes it possible to tell a mistake from an inaccuracy within a single measurement. The remaining entries put in order space and time — wymiar and rozmiar (dimension and size), kierunek and zwrot (direction and sense), prędkość and szybkość (velocity and speed) — and the vocabulary of measurement and investigation. At the very beginning of the block stands a proposal that Mazur does not settle but leaves to the judgement of the authors of scientific works: separate pairs of names for differences in time and for differences in space (zwyżka and zniżka, rise and fall, alongside przyrost and spadek, increase and drop).

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Stany skupienia” (‘States of matter’) to “Powłoka — pokrycie” (‘Coat — covering’) (pp. 126–138)

substances and materials

This block builds hierarchies: fluids divide into liquids and gases, and from matter through substance, material, raw material and tworzywo (processing material) a path leads to the semi-finished product and the product. Here Mazur judges reforms by their effects — he praises the ordering of the names of iron and steel, and criticises separating the name of the element from that of the material in the case of aluminium — and several times openly admits that no good name could be found. The input–output pair, familiar from describing energy and voltage, should in his view also cover the flow of materials. Mass is distinguished from weight, and for the molecule the author recommends the name drobina, because cząsteczka (the usual word for a molecule) is confused with cząstka (a particle).

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Pojęcia czynnościowe” (‘Activity concepts’) to “Wybrak” (‘Rejects’) (pp. 138–150)

the functioning and operation of devices

The entry on rationality indicators (pp. 145–147) is built like a short lecture: rationality is a large result for a small input, and the same quantity may be the result of one process and the input of the next. Around it, the entries put in order the vocabulary of functioning and use — proces and przebieg (process and course), czynność and operacja (activity and operation), zadanie and cel (task and goal), the working states of machines, postój and przestój (standstill and downtime), conditions and requirements. The man-hour (pracogodzina) turns out to be a different concept from an hour of work (godzina pracy), and zakłócenie, zaburzenie and uszkodzenie (disturbance, perturbation and damage) form a graded scale against which awaria (breakdown), overused after the war, proves superfluous in technical literature.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Struktura — konstrukcja — układ” (‘Structure — construction — system’) to “Dzwonowy — kołpakowy” (‘Bell-shaped — cap-shaped’) (pp. 150–170)

the construction and shape of devices

In this block several words appear that in Mazur's later books will become terms of the theory: układ (system), tor (path), organ (organ). For that later theory the most important is the entry Organ — człon: organ is a functional name, saying what role a part plays in a control or regulating system, while człon (member) is a constructional name, emphasising that the part is independent of the rest of the device; Mazur takes care that these two orders of names are not identified, because they describe a part from two different sides. In the same way he separates structure (struktura, the arrangement of parts) from organisation (ustrój, their cooperation), and for the closed path of actions in automation he proposes speaking of obiegi and tory (circulations and paths), so as not to confuse them with electrical circuits. Transducers, which convert energy of one kind into another, he describes solely by a pair: what kind of energy goes in and what kind comes out. The rest of the block is taken up by names of kinds of devices, of parts and of shapes.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Automatyczny — samoczynny” (‘Automatic — self-acting’) to “Regulator” (pp. 170–180)

automation, control, cybernetics

These pages bring in concepts that Mazur will develop in later books: control, regulation and cybernetics itself. The short entry Cybernetyka deals mainly with the name itself: after a concise characterisation of the new field of knowledge and a mention of the ancient origin of the word, Mazur considers whether it should be spelled with ‘c’ or with ‘k’. The entry Sterowanie (control) ends with a proposal for putting this family of names in order: control as the most general term and, beneath it, three specific terms — among them regulation, based on feedback, and kontrola, which Mazur proposes for control without such feedback. Within the entry itself he also distinguishes nastawianie (setting) and kierowanie (directing) from control, and separates two adjectives as follows: sterowny means capable of being controlled, and sterowniczy means serving for control.

Around this entry stand entries that draw the line between self-acting and automatic devices (samoczynne and automatyczne), between protection and safeguarding (ochrona and zabezpieczenie), and between interlocking and making dependent (blokowanie and uzależnianie). The block closes with the entries Zdalny (remote) and Regulator: what distinguishes remote devices from merely ‘distant’ ones (odległościowe) is not distance itself but the need for a different technical solution, usually the conversion of energy into another form, and every regulator acts by itself, because it replaces a human being.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Elektryczne czynności łączeniowe” (‘Electrical switching actions’) to “Elementy napędowe” (‘Drive elements’) (pp. 181–217)

electrical engineering, radiation, heat

Important for the method in this block is a warning from the entry on welding: the name of a new activity has to be designed from the start together with its derivatives — the trouble with word forms in this field arose precisely from skipping that step. In the dispute over załączanie (a rival word for switching on) Mazur separates a term from a command: a command should be short and distinct, it need not be correct, but it should not pass into technical language. He distinguishes częstość (rate of occurrence), the number of any events per unit of time, from częstotliwość (frequency), the number of cycles of a periodic phenomenon, because only for the latter do phase and resonance make sense. In several entries he points out a similar mistake: the name of a material transferred to an object, or the name of one part transferred to the whole device (or the other way round).

The remaining entries put in order the family of words from łączyć (to connect) — włączanie (switching on) closes a circuit, przyłączanie (connecting up) only prepares for it — the names of resistance and conductance, radiation and colour, and, in the thermal part, the vocabulary from temperature to the distinction between studzenie, chłodzenie and oziębianie (three kinds of cooling); the block closes with a short entry on drive elements.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

Terminological clarifications, entries from “Silnik Diesla” (‘Diesel engine’) to “Nazwy specjalności i specjalistów” (‘Names of specialities and specialists’) (pp. 218–226)

general names, specialities and professions

The last and shortest block is heterogeneous: it ranges from the declension of surnames in the names of devices to the relation of technology to industry. It devotes most attention to the names of specialists, and usually finds the source of the trouble with them in a badly constructed name of the speciality itself. The book closes with remarks on the names of professions practised by women.

Concepts introduced in the chapter: no dictionary definitions come from this part of the book.

From terminology to the dictionary

our own account — the link with the later terminological convention

Terminologia techniczna does not yet contain any of the definitions collected in this website's dictionary, but it formulates rules with which those later definitions agree well. Three threads link it to the later dictionary; the first leads directly to Jakościowa teoria informacji (‘A Qualitative Theory of Information’, 1970), where Mazur separates the name of a concept (definiendum) from the defining expression (definiens) and calls the link between them a terminological convention.

The first thread is the priority of the concept over the name. As early as 1961 Mazur stresses that in technology the name comes after the concept, not the other way round, and accepts the ISO recommendation to define a concept first and only then look for a name for it. In Jakościowa teoria informacji this idea is sharper: a dispute about a word ceases there to be a dispute about the thing — when a name proves inconvenient, the label is changed, and the content of the concept stays the same.

The second thread is the construction of a definition: a more general concept plus a differentiating feature (the principle of systematicity), each circumstance mentioned once (the principle of concision), without examples, because a definition is not an explanation. The entries control and control path, for instance, are built on this pattern.

The third thread is the ban on circular definitions, including circles that close through several definitions. This website's concept graph shows exactly that: which concepts rest on which, and where a chain of definitions ends in primitive concepts.

There is also continuity of vocabulary. The adjective sterowniczy, recommended in 1961 for things serving for control, returns in later terms: control loop, control process, control properties. The functional concept of an organ passes into the description of autonomous systems (effector, homeostat, accumulator); the last of these words, in 1961 still the name of a technical device, gains a new meaning in the process. Let us note one change: for a closed path of actions in 1961 he preferred obieg (circulation), while in later books he uses obwód sterowniczy (control loop).

How to read it

It is best to start with the chapters “The concept of a technical term”, “Terminological principles” and “Coordinating the terminological principles” (pp. 10–48): they take up fewer than forty pages, are written accessibly and give the key to all the rest. The second part need not be read in order — the entries are self-contained, and a reader interested in cybernetics should look above all at pp. 150–180. While reading it, it is worth keeping the list of fourteen principles in view: the entries apply them to particular words. The title of the second part is worth reading in the light of the division in the entry Wyznaczanie: for Mazur a wyjaśnienie (clarification) is a text that removes doubts. The difficulty lies not in the content itself but in the density of examples from the technology of the 1950s: many devices and names have gone out of use, so some disputes are now understandable only from context. The subject index (pp. 227–251) makes it quick to find a particular word.

Concepts from this book in the dictionary

The dictionary currently contains no entries whose definition comes from this book (0 entries) — it covers definitions from three later books. See the dictionary of concepts.

Our own account, working version; definitions of concepts are in the dictionary, with their sources.

All summaries