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Folksonomy vs. Fauxonomy

Posted March 16, 2005 6:18 PM.

When I first heard the word "Folksonomy" I was sure it was fauxonomy. Everyone was kind of reeling at the neologism but for me it sounded neat. Fauxonomy! Like a fake taxonomy! Or a false one! Nice. I mean it's a hideous hideous neologism, but hey... When I found out it was folksonomy I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I mean it's a neat enough word, but somehow the sound is better than the spelling, and the associated meanings are so different. Not that I wouldn't rather someone came up with a nice properly international Greek-derived word that everyone else could understand. But hey...

This post is coming from the Folksonomy panel at ETech 2005 and was inspired by lots of people shouting at me on IRC to write this up as quickly as possible. Whatchagonnado?

Comments

Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

Inquiring minds want to know what was said...

Posted by: vanderwal at March 16, 2005 7:05 PM

how did the subject of folksonomy came up?? i was reading the paragraph and trying to look for the point of this blog.

Posted by: Tracy at March 17, 2005 1:33 AM

Come on, wake up and smell the decaffeinated coffee beans, it's not even a Greek-derived neologism, for ****'s sake!

Posted by: Claire Pedersen at March 17, 2005 10:31 AM

Which one isn't? Folksonomy? The one built on the word taxonomy, where nomos means convention in Greek?

Posted by: Tom Coates at May 29, 2005 11:54 PM

Very interesting and illustrative etymology. I arrived to a similar conclusion. Your article is short but the connotations are wider.

Posted by: Makurrah at February 17, 2006 8:26 PM

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