Need a name, please

No not me - I do have a name. In fact I have several that I answer to :)

A recent thread got hijacked over a gardening term: dibber. (As best I can tell, it's a British vs. American terminology difference; we call them dibbles.) Not only was it fun reading, but it made me think about all the terms we gardeners use. And how strange some of them must seem to a newbie (or someone from another country.)

What if we had a gardening terminology database where we can add terms and our individual definitions? If there are a dozen ways to make compost tea or prevent dampoff, then let's have a dozen different defintions or recipes. And if a dibber is the same thing as a dibble, you could find that out pretty quickly with a keyword search.

I've sent Dave a starter list of terms, but in the meantime, what should we call this feature?

Tomato-Tomahto, potato-potahto

A rose by any other name still smells as sweet... but that's too long

Different Meanings for Different folks

Hmmm, perhaps I didn't explain my idea very well. Here's an A-Z sampler of the list I gave to Dave, to give you an idea of what you would be able to look up and define (or read someone else's definition):

Aerate
Bare-root
Chilling requirements
Double-dig
Ethnobotanical
Feed store
Greensand
Heading back
In situ
Juglone
Knot garden
Limbing up
Mycology
NPK ratio
Own-root
Pass-along plant
Quick lime
Rooting hormone
Seed drill
Taxonomist
Understory
Vermiculture
Weeping form
Xeriscaping
Yard waste
Zen garden

I hope this tool will be unique in a couple of ways:

1. Easy to use - searchable. Most of the glossaries I found are just a list of words, in roughly alphabetical order. Which works as long as you know the term and just want to look up the defintion. But if you kinda know what something means and want to find the word or phrase, you're out of luck.

2. Most importantly - a compilation of all our knowledge and opinions. Most glossaries have a single defintion for each word or term, put forth by an "expert". But who says one person knows what every gardening term means, in every part of the world?

So, would you call this a glossary? An index? A dictionary? A [fill in the blank]???

Sort of like synonyms? Or a botanical Thesaurus?

This message was edited Tuesday, Feb 5th 11:19 AM

Aimee, not synonyms (guess I shouldn't have used the dibber/dibble story, huh?) More like a glossary, I suppose.

But I'm counting on ya'll to come up with something more creative than "Gardener's Glossary" (which is what I dubbed it when I was compiling that initial list.)

And I should make this point very clear - this is NOT a list of botanical names of plants. We have a separate project for those; the results will be part of the plants database.

I envision this as a tool to help us create common definitions for those basic (and complex) gardening terms we use.

Gardener's Glossary sounds good...why mess with a good thing!

...how about......."Double Talk"? Short and sweet!

"eyes"

And it's clear what it is by the name. I agree.

Double talk carries negative connotations, and isn't really descriptive of the feature.

We generally use descriptive and not very creative names for our stuff, like the ubiquitious "Plants Database" and "Gardener's Journal". In fact, the name of the site is "Dave's Garden"!. Garden Watchdog, etc.

They all have gardening somehow in the name, and I believe something like "Gardener's Glossery" is on the right track, because it's impossible to be confused as to what it is when you hear the name.

"Growing Glossery" is another good name, sort of a play on words (being that it's about gardening, and it's always growing from the members who contribute). Other ideas on this line are "Growing Dictionary" and "Dave's Dictionary". There's also "DG Dictionary" or "Vols and Co. Dictionary and Glossary of Common Garden and Horticultural Terms".

(chuckling)

Dave

Agreed with, all of Dave's post.

..or...Garden Conotations.......or "Terry's Terminolgies"?

"eyes"

Oh my. The only thing worse I could think of is something like "The Encylcopedic Compendium of Horticultural and Agricultural Terminology" (also known as sure-fire cure for insomnia, LOL)

Gardener's Glossary is sounding better by the minute. But I'm still hoping for something a bit more "gritty" :)

.....Garden Talk Synonyms......

THE TRUE GRIT GLOSSARY

Well, vols, I actually kinda like it. We can call it "ECHAT" for short. The definition will be a funny inside joke.

Dave

Oh dear. I even made an acronym. I couldn't have done that intentionally if I had tried. Ever. Sheesh, this is rapidly plunging from bad to worse.

Okay, here are some words in no particular order, but maybe somebody will come up with a good combination, or think of something entirely different:

garden, gardener, gardening
terms, terminology, language, words, lingo, phrases
talk, speak, expression,
glossary, dictionary, definitions
tips, techniques, advice....

Garden lingo lookup? See, I need help. Badly!

Techno Gardening

Global Gardening

Garden Grit

Linger Longer

Words of Wisdom

The Green Machine

..Garden Lingo Difinitions!!

"eyes"

Eureka (meaning"I've Found It")

Gardenology (would peak my interest')

TNT(Tried 'N True)

Dig it

The Well

Cream of the Crop

Gardenology. Now THAT has potential :) Thanks, Sis! Keep up the terrific brainstorming!!!!

Lol Terry,made that up'

The Gifts of Gardenology

Definitive Gardenology

Discovering Difinitive Gardenology

Prepratory Gardenology

Perpetual Gardenology

The Gardenology Geru..

"eyes

Gardenology Guru' Like that "eyes"

Cybergreen Glossary?

how bout just "Gardenology"? if you get too cutsie, the meaning isn't there.

That was my thought, too tiG.

After Sis proposed the term, I did a quick search on the 'net, and found only a few references to the word "gardenology". It was used tongue-in-cheek to describe garden expertise. I don't see it copyrighted, and it would be a unique name for this knowledge base.

What does everybody think? Gardenology is sounding pretty good to me!

...still need the word Guru...as in wise and teacher.

"eyes"

I thought it was original,sorry,lol' Must have came from my subconsious,lol'dang,oh well' I think the word in itself takes in a wide range of everything we're looking for,tongue-in-cheek or otherwise,lol' IMHO

Sis, actually with only three references to it, I would call it VERY original. For comparison, a search for "Garden Glossary" yiels 678 results (some are duplicates, but still.) "Garden Terms" gets 400+ results. Garden + Terminology gets (are you ready?) 58,600 results!

So...I think we may be on to something with Gardenology :)

I like it, good job Sis

YIKES,YIKES,YIKES,LOL'''THAT'S A LOT OF NUMBERS GV,NEVER DREAMED OF THAT MANY,WOW' HOPE WE KEEP IT????

THANKS tiG,APPRECIATE IT'

This message was edited Wednesday, Feb 6th 6:51 AM

I like Gardenology. Cyber was tongue-in-cheek...I administrate our church's e-mail prayer chain and it was with a heavy sigh I saw it had been dubbed the "cyber prayer chain". I dislike cyber-this and cyber-that. :)