As many of us know, a misnomer is the instance of incorrect naming. And as the late Richard Mitchell has stressed and I have repeatedly mentioned, the first step to solving a problem is to correctly identify it… in others words, to call it by its correct name.
The following reference provides a great discussion of how misnomering can affect thinking. I strongly recommend reading it:
Misnomer: Definition and Examples by Marko Ticak
I herein focus on Ticak’s opening points:
A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly applied to something.
Misnomer is often confused with other kinds of mistakes, such as misconceptions, faulty statements, or incorrect perceptions.
Mitchell’s thrust is about Ticak’s first point. However, Mitchell notes that misnomers often lead to the “other kinds of mistakes” (misconceptions) Ticak mentions in his second point.
By reflecting on the points by both Ticak and Mitchell, it is now clear that proper naming comes first in any intellectual process as improper naming can result in so many kinds of downstream misconceptions. The downstream misconceptions might indeed occur with proper naming, but are less likely. Also, correcting downstream misconceptions are more difficult if we are required to swim upstream to correct a misnomer.
Ticak’s second point alludes to the common practice of misnaming non-misnomic misconceptions misnomers.
For example: In my late teens, I worked a job aligning three-foot-diameter concrete pipes. Each six-foot-long section weighed about 1,000 lbs. My boss deliberately made the nonsensical remark that, “Messing around with these concrete pipes causes one to have naked babies.”
I have encountered seemingly educated people who would identify such a ridiculous association as a misnomer. Incorrect: It is not a misnomer, but it a misnomer (misnomic) to label it as a misnomer.
So what might be a word for this? If there is one, I don’t know of it. [Please make suggestions.] I already have several candidates:
Double misnomer
Misnomic misnomer
Layered or Double-layered misnomer
Of course, beneath the deeper misnomer is the misconception, which can take many forms as we have mentioned.
And then, additionally, there is the possible case of a misconception that involves both misnomering and faulty associations as separate discrepancies (errors) compounded in the same nonsensical assertion.
The Myth of Diaphragmatic Breathing
One of my favorite examples of what I’m calling a compound error involves the diaphragmatic breathing myth that has been authoritatively taught by almost all wind musicians for centuries. This myth persists in spite of the advances in medicine and knowledge of human biology. It’s almost as if these musicians live in another dimension that lies outside of modernity. They, almost universally, teach this gibberish as if it is a symbol of the elite sophistication of their profession. I suppose that there have been numerous PhDs awarded for dissertations on this foolishness.
Of my published books, my personal favorite is Music and Dance—Critical Factors for Practice and Conditioning. We originally listed this book by its main title, Music and Dance, and soon learned that a substantial share of its potential readers disregarded it as they assumed it was a book only for dancers and musicians. So we now ALSO list the exact same book by its subtitle, Critical Factors for Practice and Conditioning. [Of course, we warn everyone not to purchase both titles… available from baye.com.]
In Music and Dance, I highlight many misnomic and non-misnomic misconceptions within the so-called fitness and music communities. I also show how these blunders often lead to many faulty practices that abound within—as well as show how they often overlap between—the two communities.
Some of these are related to:
Aerobics activity versus aerobic metabolism: a grammatical miscarriage
The corruption in the origins of exercise physiology
The failure of steady state activity to meaningfully effect cardiac perfusion
The faulty pedagogy surrounding so-called diaphragmatic breathing
Intrinsic musculature conflation with intrinsic muscular function
The diaphragmatic breathing myth provides a rich and layered array of faulty concepts. In Music and Dance, I provide a detailed discussion of this while, herein, I merely employ a sketch of the myth to show its misnomic qualities.
Although I wrote Music and Dance six years ago—wherein I mentioned the incorrect proclamations by the late Luciano Pavarotti and the late Joan Sutherland—so-called diaphragmatic breathing remains an excellent example of faulty conclusions that have become sacrosanct dictums that are partly due to misnomering. Please partake:
Luciano Pavarotti Speaks About Diaphragmatic Breathing
In the gross perspective, diaphragmatic breathing is real. What is not realistic is non-diaphragmatic breathing.
In general, there is no such thing as non-diaphragmatic breathing. None of us can breathe—at least not adequately—without engaging our diaphragms, even IF the negative pressure to inspire is created majorly by the external intercostal muscles of the chest.
In a more specific analysis, the wind musicians point to, punch around on, and refer (with elaborate lingo) to the abdominal muscles of the outer trunk—which are NOT the diaphragm—as “the diaphragm.” With such behavior, they assume that they are feeling (sometimes even palpating) the diaphragm in action [Good luck with this one… Ha]. This, of course, is a misnomic anatomical mistake.
Additionally—and critically important—in a muscular function analysis we encounter another misconception. It is almost impossible for the diaphragm—located deeper into the trunk than the abdominals—to produce expiration. The diaphragm is almost entirely a muscle of inspiration, NOT expiration. [I mention rare and impractical examples of when this is excepted in Music and Dance.]
So, with this confusion about the diaphragm, the wind musicians—and perhaps some of the athletes and their coaches (I can’t say for certain)—are faced with a compound error. While they refer to the musculature—the abdominals—that controllably expires air as the diaphragm, they commit a misnomer.
And simultaneously, they are completely incorrect about the function of the diaphragm. With this, they commit a non-misnomic error.
[A great example of a misnomer is Spanish Flu. It’s origin was Ft. Riley, Kansas, not Spain.]