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?
5 replies on “Folksonomy vs. Fauxonomy”
Inquiring minds want to know what was said…
how did the subject of folksonomy came up?? i was reading the paragraph and trying to look for the point of this blog.
Come on, wake up and smell the decaffeinated coffee beans, it’s not even a Greek-derived neologism, for ****’s sake!
Which one isn’t? Folksonomy? The one built on the word taxonomy, where nomos means convention in Greek?
Very interesting and illustrative etymology. I arrived to a similar conclusion. Your article is short but the connotations are wider.