Jim Lewis wrote:

There's a rather silly discussion on the gallery about a bonsai
event somewhere that is having a "Yamadori Boxwood" workshop.
Someone mocked that that meant they were all collected
(presumably in the wild) from the mountains.

This seemed to me to be another example of people insisting that
the shades of meaning of a word don't change over time (and
geography).

snip

Thoughts? Purists vs. loose constructionists. Liberals
(thinkers ;-) versus conservatives (if it wasn't done that way
yesterday it ain't right! ;-).

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - The phrase
'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron. - Stephen Viederman


I guess I'm on the liberal end of the discussion. The only languages that don't
evolve are dead languages.

There are many examples in English of changes in word usage. This occurs
particularly when new technology introduces concepts into a culture which didn't
exist before. One example is the term used for operating an automobile--"drive,"
used originally to refer to the way in which animals are led. Another
automobile-related term is the term used in many states on rental cars and
limos--"livery," referring originally to the rental of horses and/or wagons.

In terms of collected trees, I have no problem using "yamadori" to refer to any
collected tree. I did a search in the archives for the term "suburban yamadori"
which I've used to refer to collected shrubs from people's yards, and found that
the earliest use of that term on the list is by David Bockman in 2000.

Craig Cowing
NY
Zone 5b/6a Sunset 37

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