Comments on: The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name http://trans.ambroseli.ca/2013/01/05/the-beginning-of-wisdom-is-to-call-things-by-their-right-name/ Copy editing and Chinese–English translation Tue, 14 Jan 2014 01:22:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: michelle http://trans.ambroseli.ca/2013/01/05/the-beginning-of-wisdom-is-to-call-things-by-their-right-name/#comment-3693 michelle Tue, 14 Jan 2014 01:22:37 +0000 http://trans.ambroseli.ca/?p=1148#comment-3693 I love this proverb and have had it hanging over my desk (in English) for years. As a technical writer/editor in the 80s, it became my personal motto, since so much of good technical writing depends on only calling a thing by one name and never calling different things by the same name. From what you say, it seems that it is not the beginning of wisdom but any perception of truth that depends on calling things by their correct name. So a more fluid version of your literal translation could be “Wisdom depends on calling things by their right name”? or “The pursuit of wisdom depends on calling things by their right name”? or possibly “The truth of things cannot be understood without precise language.”

Thanks for this post. I only found it because I was trying to prove to someone that the source of the expression was Confucius, not Socrates as some seem to think.

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