snowdrop is a snowdrop
We can use that word ('snowdrop') and understand we are not talking about a 'snowflake' (Leucojum and Acis species). Scientists may further develop our understanding of snowdrops without causing an evolutionary mutation of the genus Galanthus. So to, haiku.
If a snowdrops, over millions of years of environmental pressure, mutate into the form of a deep sea frog, then that would be a new species and deserve its own name (for classification purposes which serve common understanding). Similarly, 'haiku' can be defined, and that definition may be elaborated in the light of any new understandings. Nevertheless, unless a new species is generated, as we have demonstrated, haiku will remain haiku. What a haiku is, is not rocket science.
If a snowdrop is not a thistle then why explain why? I mean, one you can eat and the other is poisonous. So, useful to distinguish the one from the other. This is the value of clear definition, you see. It got us out the caves.
If we're fuzzy about the edibility of a snowdrop compared with, say, a nettle, then this would be an example of the value of accurate definitions being quite useful. Fuzzy is what happens when a drunk pilot crashes an aeroplane, you see, or an experimental ethnobotanist walks off a mesa. 'Flexibility' (which is, clearly, the word we're looking for here) is one thing - 'fuzzy' is quite another.
I'd say that a snowdrop was a still a スノードロップ [ Japanese for 'snowdrop' ], no matter the language used. No fuzzy there. Also, the map of rainy England, here, undergoes constant updates - mainly to cover infrastructure changes. England is still England, though (a clearly defined country on Google Earth). A map of Texas wouldn't help us find Paris, France. 1+1 simply does not equal 3. Synthetic food is not organic food (although the food industry would have us believe there was no difference). And so on...
Think of it in the sense of DNA. Or a recipe for apple crumble compared with a recipe for disaster. Without criteria all we have is chaos. People are kidding themselves, through lack of a proper understanding of what a haiku is. This needs sorted out. To sort it out we need gudelines. After all, a snowdrop is not a thistle, although they are both frogs [ sic ].
jp
05-09-11