A previous post tracked and compared generations of computers with generations of blockchain.
Chinese checkers isn’t a form of checkers, nor is it from China. It was invented in Germany in 1892.
The football that Americans play is neither a round ball, nor exclusively played with foot, but the game is still called “football.” And, what used to be a perfect ball kicked with a foot is now “soccer.”
Do you think Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5…) came from the Arabian Peninsula? No, they originated in India.
And, conventional wisdom would have Koala Bear as bear, but they are marsupials, not bears.
Wouldn’t you think fireflies were flies? Wrong again, they are beetles and not flies.
And, how about the Starfish? Isn’t it a fish? Not a chance. It’s an echinoderm.
Is European Union in Europe? No, it isn’t exclusively European — it actually spans across 5 continents.
The list of misnomers that convention entrenched in our vocabulary is long. They are so deeply ingrained in our lives that we will be lost calling Starfish, an Asteroidea, or calling Koala Bear, a Phascolarctos cinereus. So shouldn't we let the convention prevail?
Even courts have little problem letting conventional vocabulary be construed by the meaning or substance it conveyed rather than form it represented. The substance over form doctrine arose from the Supreme Court case Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465 (1935), and is still a good law.
So, as Shakespeare would have it:
What’s in a name? That which we call a blockchain, by any other name would still be a DLT.
We rather let the convention evolve. Only time will tell, if blockhain becomes another starfish that isn’t a fish at all, or a DLT comes along that isn’t a blockchain at all and remains a DLT that does not become a blockchain.
Reference:
- 28 Misleading Misnomers Explained
- Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465 (1935)
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