But it is a great sounding point, until viewed in the context of "readers." And "publishers." Both of which I am sure, have heard of and probably used dictionaries, at some point in their lives. Note: I personally ascribe a certain knowledge level to both groups, due to their literacy. Publishers in particular, have to know what they are actually saying for liability purposes, if no other reason.
It's linguistic elitism to insist that the only "right" usage of a word is the one written down in a dictionary. Dictionaries do not create language, they merely describe it. They are catalogs of standard usage at the time of their publication. And since language is constantly evolving, dictionaries are usually behind the curve.
Besides, the distinction you're griping about is so trivial as to be simply not worth the amount of irate verbiage you're devoting to it.
As to defining words based on their use by the "general public." Is that appropriate to this context? Are we talking about the "general public?" How do you define "general public?" Do you mean NBC's definition? Or a politician's? Or on the internet? Or readers? Or a specific generation?
The topic was one of the word choice that publishers or advertisers would use to communicate concepts to their readership. It's only logical that if you're trying to convey concepts to a particular audience, you convey them in the same terms used by said audience. I have no idea why you'd think NBC or politicians would have anything to do with that.
Don't you identify yourself as a writer? I'd have thought a writer would be a proponent of dictionary use?
I'm not saying dictionaries are useless. I'm saying that you misunderstand their purpose if you assume that they are proscriptive rather than descriptive. They are not the source of meaning, they merely catalog usage at the time of their publication. They are references for the state of the language, not laws handed down from on high.
For what it's worth, I share your distaste for trilogies that are one long story split into three. I think that each volume in a trilogy should have its own beginning and ending, its own closure; that if a story is done as a trilogy, then it should be structured to take place in three parts. But I believe that because I believe it makes for the best reading experience, not because of some kind of prescriptivist, legalist attitude about the label "trilogy" itself. A label describes a thing; it does not dictate its nature.
Be that as it may, you avoid the issue... Do you disagree that it would be win-win?
That's begging the question. I reject the initial premise of your question, that anything is being hidden, so naturally I have no answer to the invalid question of whether it would be better to "stop" hiding.
Please define "modern usage." Does a publisher using it make it "modern usage?" Is "modern" ascribed to a specific age group? Or time frame?
Language is a creation of human beings. They use it every day to communicate with one another in every situation. That's what usage is. And that usage is a living, breathing, constantly evolving thing, just like the human community that generates it. Written language is merely one facet of language; its usage is generally more formalized and less dynamic than that of spoken language, depending on the context (the written language of instant messages and texting would be an exception). It can influence spoken language but is more often influenced by it.
Although, I've never heard of using previously and widely accepted dictionary definitions of a word (especially in the context of literate people), being described as "narrow preconceptions" before! Is that an attempted insult?
Again that elitist attitude -- if people don't share your rigid assumption about the meaning of the word "trilogy," that makes them non-literate in your mind? Now
that's an insult!
I daresay I qualify as "literate," and I have never in my life believed that the word "trilogy" couldn't apply to a single extended three-book tale. I may not prefer that format, but I never had a problem with the
label being applied to it.
We're not debating vocabulary, we're debating a specific word and it's definition.
That's like saying "We're not debating geography, we're debating a specific mountain and its location." The latter is a subset of the former.
As another aside: I remember reading in a book about books, that a (Trek!) publisher purposely sold a single story in several parts because they weren't sure it was going to sell at all. The implication being that if the first book, (or books?) didn't sell, the end of the story would not have been published.
That's a false conclusion -- and a false premise, I believe. You're probably misremembering the fact that John Ordover favored publishing duologies because they sold better than single-part stories. But you're totally wrong to assume that the sale of part 2 of a duology would be contingent on the success of part 1. For one thing, many of these duologies were published simultaneously, both parts coming out together. A gimmick to be sure, but obviously the publication of part 2 was not dependent on the success of part 1. For another thing, a publishing schedule is locked down months in advance. Even in cases where the consecutive parts of a duology or trilogy come out in consecutive months, the publisher is still committed to meeting its release schedule. If they've scheduled a book to come out in May, if they've printed up a whole run and spent money on ads and convinced bookstores to buy the copies, then if they suddenly cancelled it in April, there'd be hell to pay. They'd lose tons of money pulping all those books, they'd have to repay the bookstores and probably pay a penalty for defaulting on their contract, etc.
The only possible circumstance where a later book in a series might not be published due to poor sales of the previous book is one where the two come out more than a year apart, because a publishing schedule is usually locked down a year to eighteen months in advance. The only case where I'm aware of that happening is with the latest William Shatner novel,
Academy: Collision Course. A sequel,
Trial Run, was said to be forthcoming, but apparently isn't happening due to poor sales of the first book. But
Collision Course tells a complete, self-contained story, so it's not an example of the phenomenon you're talking about.
The one case where a single multipart story was broken up by a great length of time was Diane Duane's concluding Rihannsu books. She was supposed to do a duology,
Swordhunt and
The Empty Chair, to come out back-to-back. But she got delayed on TEC, so
Swordhunt got broken up into two books in order to fill Pocket's commitment to publish two books in that month. TEC got delayed for over five years. But it still eventually came out.
So there's no deception. If an ST duology or trilogy is a single continuing story, the installments almost always come out back-to-back and are labeled as parts of a single story. The only exception was a case where the second part was unavoidably delayed.
Side question: I don't "hang out" here and you identify yourself as a writer. Does any of the debate specifically affect and/or apply to your work somewhere? Could it in the future? Do you have a vested interest in this particular debate? (I freely admit I do have a vested interest... I buy books and have been caught on this by internet purchases)
Now you're being insulting again. And quite silly. I have no vested interest in some pointless, anal-retentive quibble over the definition of the word "trilogy." There is no great amount of money to be gained or lost over whether I convince one guy on the Internet that he's wrong about the meaning of the word. You're making a mountain out of a molehill.
