Leo,
While I agree with you that the word conversation is technically being used incorrectly, I think this is just one of those times when we can see the evolution of a word.

As a lover of diction, words change all the time. The OED was created to chart those changes. Though the overuse of the word, for which I am guilty as well, is becoming commonplace, the content of the use does not bother me.

Well, I'm happy to wait till it hits the OED in all its manifestations!

I don't think it will -- or perhaps not in the way its abusers think -- but where there's life there's conversation!

In any case, thanks for the note.

Hi, Sorry, but I posted this tot he wrong post the first time...apologies.

We didn't choose the word randomly, nor casually. It comes from the precepts of Conversation Theory framed originally in the 1970's. It talks about how knowledge is created through interchanges, a back and forth to arrive at common understandings and meanings. Of course academia, like many other fields is guilty of extending or abusing terms, but it seems to fit here.

We also went around a few rounds with some commentors on the topic and thought hard about it. In the original draft we used the term more expansively (a conversation with a book), but restricted it in the final drafts to human discourse (in-person or mediated by some sort of technology). We ended up sticking with it not only because of the conversation theory origin, but also because it reflects an equal partnership between the parties involved in the interchange.

However, we also decided to push the "participatory" term in front of conversation (participatory networks, participatory librarianship). The point of the paper is that knowledge is created, and therefore should be organized around how people come to understand topics, not the artifacts created through the process.

So my question back to you...is this a conversation we are having? How do you bound the definition? What term would you suggest in its place?

Thanks for thinking about this.

Hi David,

First thanks for the response. And I'll remove the comment on the other post.

To be honest, I didn't approach the word "Conversation" in your paper from the context of the 1970's. I didn't need to. I approached it, not surprisingly, from how it's used (and abused) in 2007.

I think my original post makes that clear.

Words change meaning all the time. Certain words get overused and fall out of fashion. I don't want to be the human thesaurus to your use of language, but replacement words with far less baggage are easy enough to find.

I reread the post, and I see you think the word is over used and is loosing its meaning, but I don't actually see your definition. What is the definition of conversation that everyone is varying from?

Here's my definition: it's overused to imply sincerity and engagement beyond anything warranted in the material itself. It's self-consciously pretentious and routinely distorts the type of communication actually taking place.

Now I can find a hundred examples of where it's used in this way.

It's hard then to avoid these associations despite the efforts of people like you. It's just the English language in its current usage.

Leo, I agree with 10000000%. If that is possible. You are a good word spotter and a better word maven. I love this blog, which I just stumbled upon here in... Taiwan. Go figure.

by the way, Leo, wonder what you might think about my new coinage, neologism is what Alex Beam calls it in his June 19 Boston Globe column, titled "I screen, you screen, we all screen" google it, hint hint.... -- i want to call reading on screens as "screening" in order to differentiate it from real reading which i feel only takes place on paper surfaces? agree or disagree? and ask me why I am doing this so publicly and am trying to get the NYTimes to cover me on this idea?