Explaining Difficult Things, page 7

Working With Precision, continued

Of course, many good explanations and descriptions do not contain all of these elements. Or, at least, they are not present at any great length. For example, grammars and taxonomies often are part of the “back story” rather than included in an actual description.

To truly describe your subject matter, you must know it with clarity and precision.

You must be able to describe all the details related to your subject.

To know it, you must understand where it fits within a grammar and taxonomy, and everything else about it--even if much of what you “know” about the subject never makes it into the final description.

To practice this, check out the Stretch Your Brain excercises.

Dividing and Conquering

Grammars and taxonomies are used to identify and locate subjects in relationship to the rest of the universe.

When it comes to a language, as you probably know, a grammar is a system of rules that explains the forms and structures of words and the arrangements of words in phrases and sentences.

More generally, a grammar is a codification of the relationships between the elementary concepts in a field of knowledge.

A taxonomy is a system for classifying objects. Perhaps the best known taxonomy is the Linnaean system for categorizing plants and animals using a genus and a species.

If you understand where your subject fits in a relevant grammar and taxonomy, you are well along the way towards an accurate description.

Continued next page

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