SUMMARY: Ockham vs. Occam
Lutz Prechelt
> The british 14th century philosopher William of Ockham formulated
> the principle that of all possible models that explain something,
> the simplest one has to be prefered.
>
> This principle is known today as "Occam's razor".
> Ockham himself is known today as "Occam", too.
>
> Does anybody know where this change in spelling comes from ?
> Differences between 14th century English and modern English ?
> Or what ?
This is the summary of the answers I received.
Thanks to all who responded.
The quintessence of the replies seems to be the following:
1. At Ockham's time, english spelling was not at all standardized,
so it is not suprising to find different spellings of the same name.
2. Occam is most probably a latinized version of Ockham.
Latinizing names was common at the time, since Latin was the
language used in science.
The individual answers contain a few more bells and whistles.
Here they are:
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From: Michael Jampel <jam...@cs.city.ac.uk>
Two things: firstly, spelling in England variead a lot until relatively
recently. This is because, for 500 years or more, educated English
people did not speak English. So the only people who spoke the language
did not have much understanding of writing (or grammar, hence the lack
of grammar, conjugations, declensions etc).
So it could be that there are a few different spellings around.
Also, you cannot trademark someones name (maybe). Certainly you cannot
trademark a word like Quick (so there is an English supermarket called
KwikSave -- Kwik is not in the dictionary and so can be trademarked).
So maybe Inmos wanted to use their own name?
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From: ajp...@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk
Don't know how relevant this is, but Ockham, in Surrey, is still known
as Ockham. A few years ago they put a small stained-glass portrait of
the man in their Parish Church - I have always seen him referred to as
William of Ockham, but this is just in literature relating to Ockham
rather than philosophy.
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From: Randy Hudson <r...@kc.camb.inmet.com>
I'll say right off that I don't know for sure. I strongly suspect
that the Occam form is a Latinization (Occamus) of the English form Ockham.
I've seen both forms, and the dictionary I consulted gave Ockham as
the primary form.
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From: David Casseres <cass...@apple.com>
I believe the original spelling of William's name was "van Ockeghem." This
doesn't exactly answer your question, but it may suggest that it's the
wrong question...
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From: Matthew McDonald <ma...@parma.cs.uwa.oz.au>
Not quite right. The *principle* is known as "Occam's razor."
*William* of Ockham is still referred to as "Ockham." I'm under the
impression that Americans often use `Occam' for both.
As far as I know, nobody but analytic philosophers (who are
generally pedantic about language) really cares.
>Does anybody know where this change in spelling comes from ?
Tradition. I was told that the phrase "Occam's razor" was used
more widely than Ockhams name on its own, and so the spelling was
corrupted. Once it was corrupted it stayed that way.
I'm not sure how good the explanation is. The different
spellings are fairly well known (at least among philosphers) but I've
never heard somebody explain the reasons for it convincingly.
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From: John Beaven <j...@sharp.co.uk>
English spelling wasn't standardized at the time. Everyone spelt
things in the way they liked.
This state of affairs continued at least until Shakespeare's time.
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From: Mueller Beat <mue...@iwf.mabp.ethz.ch>
1) im 14. jahrhundert war die rechtschreibung ueberhaupt nicht
standardisiert, es konnten alle die worte mehr oder weniger
schreiben, wie sie wollten. im englischen (und noch mehr im
franzoesischen) setzte sich diese tendenz frueher als im
deutschen durch, vor allem weil london bzw. paris das macht-
zentrum des landes bildeten.
[spelling was not standardized in 14th century]
2) wenn du 'ockham' und 'occam' vergleichst, dass ockham viel
'germanischer' toent, wird also am ehesten der originalen
schreibweise aehneln. occam sieht wie eine latinisierte version
aus. ist auch kein wunder, da zu dieser zeit latein die
wissenschaftssprache war, und alle die etwas auf sich hielten,
latinisierten ihre namen. ockham/occam war da keine ausnahme.
und 'occam' wird die version des namens sein, die am bekanntesten
ist, also ist's einsichtig, dass die programmiersprache auch so
heisst.
[Occam is latinized version which was common since Latin was the
standard language in science]
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From: "larry a. taylor" <lta...@cs.ucla.edu>
I believe that the spelling, `Occam', is from
Latin. 'K' is foreign to Latin, having come
to us directly from Greek, kappa. Latin `caesar'
became German `Kaiser', und so weiter.
Latin, at the time, was the language of the Church
and learning, particularly philosophy, and was
the language in which William of Ockham wrote.
Here is a good example: who is Nicholas Koopernigk
better known as ? Copernicus.
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Lutz
--
Lutz Prechelt (email: prec...@ira.uka.de) | Whenever you
Institut fuer Programmstrukturen und Datenorganisation | complicate things,
Universitaet Karlsruhe; 76128 Karlsruhe; Germany | they get
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