intentional

[sagehen]

>>  >Sounds like the not-quite precisely synonymous "deliberate" would work
>>>better. "Intentional" sounds plain wrong to me.
>>>
>>>   JL
>>>
>>>Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
>>>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>-----------------------
>>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>Poster: Charles Doyle
>>>Subject: intentional
>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>--
>>>
>>>A syndicated column appearing in this morning's newspaper contained an odd
>>>use (or so it seemed to me) of the word "intentional."
>>>
>>>The writer is Leonard Pitts (and it's an admirable column!): "Have we lost
>>>that much capacity to be serious and intentional about our own lives and
>>>futures?" (_Athens [GA] Banner-Herald_, A6). That sense of the
>>>word--something like 'purposeful'--doesn't quite match any of the meanings
>>>recorded in the OED, though it resembles some esoteric uses in
>>>philosophical discourse.
>>>
>>>--Charlie
>>  ~~~~~~~~~~
>>"Intentional" sounds quite normal to me in this sort of context.  One of my
>>daughters lives in a so-called "intentional community" formed over 50 years
>>ago by Quakers & like-minded people.   I think the meaning is more like
>>'attentive' or 'aware' than 'purposeful.'  Think not 'unintentional.'
>>AM
>>
>Is that what it means?  I always understood "intentional community"
>to allude to the idea that the group in question has agreed
>consciously, with full intention, to live together (usually according
>to various principles and such), rather than just being thrown
>together the way most communities arise.  Here's AHD4:
>
>A small, localized, often rural community of persons or families
>pursuing common interests or concentrating on certain basic values.
>
>If _intentional_ is 'Done on purpose, resulting from intention;
>intended' (OED 2), "intentional community" is reasonably transparent,
>although I would think it has earned an entry or subentry in the OED,
>which it hasn't yet.  (Was the Oneida Community the first to employ
>or fall under this label?  Since there's no OED entry, we can't check
>there!)
>
>LH
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
You are quite right about the intentional community.  I should have
enlarged on that.  Instead, I got to thinking about "intentional" as it
functions in the larger community of  the ethically-focussed, politically
progressive, humanist, unitarian, quakerish  sort of people among whom a
lot of my life has been spent.
AM

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