Better Here Than Avengers!

[PovertyRow]

Responding to FF's post (he did say it should be here and I agree) from here - if you feel compelled to reply please reply here!

 

The Misplaced Thread

 

Oh come on now...the English language already has over 10,000 words in it, which is around 5,000 too many. Enough people have created new words for the wrong reasons to mean things for which there were already words to describe...between the terms conservation, restoration, and preservation, I'm sure there's some sense to be made. But if you were suggesting coming up with new ones just to redirect tension towards the words and away from potential tension during the discussion, I do appreciate it.

 

No - and don't mean making up new words. Just finding words not applied to the concepts before but that make sense. For example, using "modified" instead of "restored".

 

I debate to learn, not to win.

 

I debate for two main reasons: to insure my point is properly made (it can sometimes take a few tries to fine tune it) and to learn (aka - seek out good arguments from the opposing camp). And to agree when sense of the "opposition" makes more sense than what I thought was sense.

 

Etymologically, the word "preservation" seems best fitted to things done "before" damage occurs. "Pre" means before, so to "pre-serve" is to perform a service before something happens. The etymology of conservation isn't so clear-cut; the dictionary I looked at says "con" can mean either "before" or "to assimilate." The former sense of the prefix could infer preservation, and the latter could infer restoration.

 

I actually LIKE the term preservation. 20 years ago when I started getting into this the word conservation seemed more applied to proper storage, so to me that definition stuck. But preservation is just fine.

 

it's not THAT boring is it?!?!? ****

 

Nope - fascinating topic!

 

 

 

 

[fantastic_four]

Here's the rest of that post with my hypothesis that preservation and restoration are two different types of conservation...let me know if you find anywhere legitimate which describes the relationship between the three words with particular clarity:

 

After a bit more searching around the web, I think I've made some sense of it that both explains how "con" could seem to mean both preservation and restoration, and it also explains the contradictions I found on various web sites. I'm thinking that conservation is a general area beneath which restoration and preservation fall. This fits with the two meanings I found in the dictionary for the prefix "con," and it also explains why some people are using conservation to mean restoration and conservation to mean preservation. It's not entirely wrong to say that preservative techniques are conservation, since preservation is a part of conservation, but using the terms preservation and restoration are more specific than using the more general term conservation.

 

The thing that got me thinking in that direction is when I noticed Tracey uses the word "conservation" more often and more generally on his web site. It's in the title he gives himself, and the names of the courses he taught at a college all had the word "conservation" in them. Since he's been around academics devoted to this topic, I assumed he might have picked up the term as a broader, more general term from them. In browsing museum web sites, I also saw the term conservation used in the titles of curators and of departments they worked for. I found two universities offering courses of studies in conservation, but I haven't found any offering anything specifically in restoration or preservation yet.

 

So...any counterpoints? The idea of preservation and restoration being two different facets of conservation is bringing a lot of things together in the reading I've done.

[PovertyRow]

So...any counterpoints? The idea of preservation and restoration being two different facets of conservation is bringing a lot of things together in the reading I've done.

 

This is actually what I mean by coming up with new words - or, as I said, applying existing words to the concepts. I think the term "conservation" will always have this duality and, as such, it is basically a meaningless term. I am a big believer in words having explicit meanings, especially when we find words encompassing a 10-90% gray scale!

 

This is also reflected in grading, as the same terms have been used, with additions, for decades. But the definitions of these terms have continued to evolve but in a Darwinian way - that is with old schools and new schools at odds with each other.

 

Many years ago I once said on a movie potser forum "I don't care if the grades are Crappy, Not Bad, Fairly Nice, Pretty Keen, Sweet and Superb." My tongue was only halfway planted in my cheek, because coming up with all new terms would mean a definite and distinct re-evaluation of what those terms actually meant. Now we have folks with ideas of the existing grading terms but those terms have spanned more than 30 years of evolution. The old timers have had to struggle with redefinitions while the later arrivals are seeing them for the first time more closely defined to what they are today. And lots of folks in between. It is a mishmash inside a jambalaya stuffed in a hobo stew.

[fantastic_four]

I think the term "conservation" will always have this duality and, as such, it is basically a meaningless term. I am a big believer in words having explicit meanings, especially when we find words encompassing a 10-90% gray scale!

 

If conservation is a broader term than both restoration and preservation, then it's not useless because it's used to categorize them, making it easier to refer to them both under a single term within a broader taxonomy. Maybe conservation falls under "anal retentiveness." Conservators may even have a few more areas of knowledge up their sleeves which fall under conservation.