Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
It appears, however, that while the newly outfitted term responded to and exemplified
the epistemological perspective of the mid-eighteenth century, the term also was not
fully required by it. Moreover, for all of the scientific achievements of the nineteenth
century, the term “data” was still not of broad cultural importance. In effect, after its
invention, the term went through a period of cultural latency.Though its usage expanded
constantly within certain domains, throughout this period it played only a small role in
the general culture. Ironically, this long period of latency may partly account for the
great usefulness of the term in the twentieth century. In the twentieth century, when
“data” reached its point of statistical takeoff, it was already a well-established concept,
but it remained largely without connotative baggage. The arrival of computer technol-
ogy and information theory gave new relevance to the base concept of data as established
in the eighteenth century. At the same time, because the term was still relatively uncom-
mon, it was adaptable to new associations.
Fourth: the
OED
is right and Google is wrong. Or at the very least, Google is not
yet particularly helpful on this question. There are definitive quantifiable trends in both
the currency and usage of the term “data” in the eighteenth century. It took some fairly
heavy work with the ECCO data to make these trends visible, but having done it, it is
clear that the
Oxford English Dictionary
account of the history of the term is mirrored in
the quantitative results.
There are a number of reasons why raw Google Books results do not quite do the
job for “data.” First, Google Books is not yet very good or representative for periods
before the nineteenth century. And even as Google Books advances, differences in the
source base are still likely to pose thorny problems for quantitative comparison before
the modern period. Lack of proximity search, wildcards, and other tools that aid such
work as distinguishing Latin from English usages create challenges as well.
The difficulty in recognizing the true lexicographic issues in eighteenth-century
English—regardless of the database one uses—is further heightened by the fact that the
rise of the English-language usage of “data” during the eighteenth century coincides
precisely with the decline in the general use of Latin in the Anglophone world. Without
sorting, the raw numbers are highly ambiguous since the rise in the usage of “data” in
English is largely offset by the decline in the use of Latin altogether. This effect is not
strictly limited to the eighteenth century, but it is most significant in that transitional
period.
The problem of investigating the history and semantics of “data” points to another
considerable blind spot: unless search engines are full-featured, permitting good tech-
