Re: When is a Quaker a Quaker?

"Engineer" wrote,

> e: ...Yet a Catholic is not a particular sort of Christian
> : whose identity is tied to membership in the Roman Catholic
> : Church.

Quite so. All traditional Friends (Quakers) are Catholic, for
example.



> e: Clearly you yourself admit to the existence of identifiers
> : that are always tied to membership ("Jesuit"), identifiers
> : that are often but not always tied to membership
> : ("Catholic") and identifiers that are rarely tied to
> : membership ("Christian").

"Jesuit" is tied to membership because it is a reference to a
formally-organized capital-S Society, the Society of Jesus. Were
there not such a Society, "Jesuit" would not be so tied.

Similarly, "Quaker" is tied to membership because it is a
reference to another formally-organized capital-S Society, the Society
of Friends. Were there not such a Society, "Quaker" would not be so
tied.

"Catholic" (a word which means "inclusive") is the opposite.
Precisely because it means (in the Christian context) "inclusive of
the whole community of the faithful", it cannot be so tied. When
people say "Catholic" in a sense that ties it to membership, it is
because they are using it as a shorthand for "Roman Catholic".

"Quaker", however, is not a word that means "inclusive".

"Christian" is indeed tied to membership in the body of the
Church. It is not tied to membership in a *specific denomination*
because the body of the Church has split as a result of schisms. But
that should not obscure the Gospel fact that one must be a member of
the Church to be a Christian. The testimony of Christianity, all the
way back to the apostles, is clear on that point.



> e: Given the existence of the three classes of identifiers
> : above, how does one determine what class to put the
> : "Quaker" identifier into? The usual way is with an appeal
> : to common usage.

That is certainly one important way, though not the only important
way. Precise technical meanings are at least as important as common-
usage (or "general usage") meanings in particular fields. For
instance, in the field of physics, it doesn't matter that the most
common lay usage of "force" is to mean "compulsion"; the more
pertinent and valid meaning of "force" *in the field of physics* is
that which allows it to be quantified in a laboratory setting. And
within the field of religion, common- or general-usage outsiders'
understandings of what terms like "Catholic" and "Quaker" (not to
mention "justification" and "convincement") mean are often less
pertinent than their technical meanings within the specific tradition
to which they reply.

Nevertheless, common or general usage *is* very important, just
as you say. And if one wants to know what common or general usage is
for a particular word in the English language, the place to look is in
a dictionary.

Dictionaries of English are assembled by teams of lexicographers
who have studied the surveying, analytical, and statistical methods
needed to ascertain what common or general usage is, and who spend
weeks, months, even years using those methods to ascertain what actual
common or general usage is for the particular words they are studying.

What a professional lexicographer does is thus quite different
from the impressionistic approach Ian Johnston has taken -- an
approach in which he notices many times when people use "Quaker" in
ways he likes, but fails to factor in the times when people use the
word in ways he doesn't agree with.

The better the lexicographers, and the more skillful and thorough
their use of methods for ascertaining actual common or general usage,
the better the resulting dictionary. At the top, the Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) and Merriam-Webster have very fine and skillful
lexicography teams. I was pleased to see you quoting an article
praising Merriam-Webster's and the OED's "descriptive" approaches --
i.e., their focus on capturing common- or general-usage meanings
correctly -- just yesterday.

Let me therefore encourage you to ascertain what common or
general usage is by looking in dictionaries, particularly better
dictionaries such as the OED and Merriam-Webster, rather than by
jumping to impressionistic conclusions based on limited personal
experience.

** The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says that "Quaker" with a
capital Q means "a member of the religious society (the Society
of Friends) founded by George Fox...."

** Merriam-Webster says that "Quaker" with a capital Q means a
capital F Friend, and that "Friend" with a capital F means "a
member of a Christian sect that stresses Inner Light...."

Ian Davis recently posted, in this same thread, a list of web links
to dictionary definitions available on the Web. You might want to
look at those as well.



> e: Multiple users of this newsgroup have reported that they
> : have experienced usage of "Quaker" to refer to non-RSOF-
> : members.

But this is Ian Johnston's impressionistic approach. The mere fact
that a word is *sometimes* used in non-standard ways, does not elevate
a non-standard way to common or general usage. To rank as common or
general usage, it must be *commonly* or *generally* used in that way.
Your "multiple users of this newsgroup" who have reported this, amount
to fewer people than one can count on the fingers of one's two hands,
and we have already seen how they tune out evidence contrary to what
they want to believe. This is not a sufficient database, or a
sufficiently objective source, to give us a clear picture of what
actual common or general usage is. A good dictionary is both founded
on a better database and compiled by more objective sources.

All the best,
Marshall Massey <mmassey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
.