Forum for Big Eye
vote for restoring the "ordinary usage" [#152]
In the past this page dissociated between two meanings. MAsterdam raised a vote to remove the "more than one point" (dame) meaning in favour of "four of more" (capture metric).
Now it seems that at least unkx80 raised a (late) vote against such removal. I suggest to restore the page as it was before, referring to both meanings.
What do you mean by ordinary usage? The only references I can find in English, except the clearly incorrect one on Yahoo, have the meaning given here.
I think we should have a page on the Chinese term, but the English term means something different.
I thought "big eye" referred to 4 or more, due to the fact that the number of internal points and the number of moves to capture do not match. It's a distinction, at least.
Welcome to the discussion, everyone.
Currently, "big eye" is defined in contrast to small eye. A big eye is four or more points (the size above which it takes more moves to fill in than there are points in the eye), and small eyes are three points or less.
In this case, of course, it is correct, but incomplete to say that a big eye beats a small eye in a semeai (all else being equal). After all, a 5-point big eye beats a 4-point big eye, and so on. So the idea that having "big eyes" and "small eyes" gives rise to easy-to-understand semeai rules is oversimplified at best.
More importantly, if we define big eyes and small eyes in this way, then what is the general term encompassing both? Clearly, just "eye" does not work. Basically, what we are looking for is the equivalent of the Japanese nakade. If the consensus is that we should just go ahead and use "nakade", then the proposed WME for that page? needs to be completely rewritten. Right now, it's totally based on the presumption that "nakade", although of course it's used (even widely) in English, should be positioned as a Japanese term with a better/preferred? English translation of "big eye". In this scenario, "big eyes" and "small eyes" are both "big eyes". I guess "small eyes" would be "small big eyes".
From a pedagogical standpoint--remember, this is so basic that it's something 30-kyus need to learn and know--it would seem an English term is preferable, and "big eye" makes sense to me, although I admit to not having done a thorough analysis of the existing English literature to see how it's actually used.
If we don't use "big eye", other than going back to "nakade", we need a term. I semi-jocularly suggested "monoculus", but of course that won't really fly. See the thread under the nakade discussions; I hope people thinking about this will read that.
If we decide to use "big eye" for "nakade", then the current big eye page will need to be completely rewritten to describe the nakade concept, along with many other proposed pages such as KillableBigEye?, CenterOfTheBigEye?, DeadBigEye?, BigEyesInCapturingRaces?, and so on, many of these subsuming existing pages, many duplicative. On the other hand, if we decide to use "nakade", then the current proposed nakade WME would need to be completely rewritten to describe the concept, with related pages such as NakadePlay?, DeadNakade?, NakadeinCapturingRaces?, and so on. If we decide to use some other term (what?), then that page (just as an example, Monoculus?) will be where the concept is discussed, with related pages such as DeadMonoculus?, and so on.
As discussed in the forum posting, there are problems with one obvious candidate--eyeshape--but "eyespace" also has problems--we need it for the more general concept of futokuro?. So what do people prefer?
Here is where we will use the (non-existent) SL voting mechanism:
I vote for:
- Use "nakade". (Big eyes are 4-plus points, small eyes are 3 or less.)
- Use "big eye" for "nakade". Position "small eye" as "small big eye".
- Use other term for nakade:
- eyeshape
- eyespace
- monoculus
- other.
John F. 2005-11-10. I find this new SL format incredibly confusing, so prior apologies if I've posted in the wrong place. Also, apologies for coming into this late but I've been overseas, viewing the Shosoin board amongst other things.
Just some semi-random notes, based on the evergreen Hayashi.
1. He says oome kome is an alternative for oonaka konaka, so "big eye" has some support there. (BTW someone has incorrectly put ounaka on the base page).
2. He also uses the phrase konakade, so it is not obsolete.
3. He says nakade is an abbreviation of naka no te, the original phrase. But, as I have reported before, he says nakade has two meanings now: the move (usually oki) and the shape. In the latter case he uses the adjectives ookii and chiisai, which obviously wouldn't make sense of a move.
4. In the move sense he notes that the usage is nakade suru.
An extra note from me alone: I think it's being overlooked that at a deeper level oonaka konaka means bigger eye beats smaller eye, rather than big eye beats small eye.
As to big eye meaning >=4, did Richard Hunter not use that definition in his Counting Liberties?
I think any Chinese connection is likely to be a red herring as they borrowed all this sort of terminology from the Japanese.
I suspect nakade and big eye are are too entrenched to give way to a new English term, but if one's needed maybe we should be looking at new words that get away from the slightly misleading eye, e.g. space on its own? or cavity. The Koreans use the phrase chuk-eum-eui kung-no, i.e. death eyespace. Living space, life space?
I vote for eyeshape to indicate surrounding empty points in a way that eyes become recognizable, in particular small eyes and big eyes and to use big eye and small eye in their capturing race meaning.
But, I still favour a big eye page that indicates for the term to be (mis)used for eyeshape, while favouring the capturing race sense. After all, we want to indicate ambiguity (but not create it, agreed Bill) and be clear with ourselves.
I shall abstain from voting, but I should point out that there are other people who use (or misuse) the term "big eye" to refer to eyes that have two spaces or more.
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![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
http://www.ukgochallenge.com/tips/bigeyes.html
- http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~bate/BIG/Sect5p2.html
- http://www.numin8r.us/numin/2000/JAN00.HTM
(Maybe the authors referenced the definition I used at http://unkx80.netfirms.com/weiqi/howtoplaygo/howtoplaygo06.htm, but I suppose I put up my pages sometime in 2001...)
I am actually fine with having "big eye" to mean four spaces or more. If this is the case, then clearly "nakade" should not use "big eye" in its "definition" since it would introduce a big consistency problem. In this regard, I think Dieter has an acceptable solution. Meanwhile, I will see how I should properly translate the Chinese terms related to big eyes.
Thanks for the references. :-)
While I basically favor a descriptive approach for terminology, I do think that prescriptive definitions have their place for go terms. Otherwise we may end up endorsing the misuse and misunderstanding of terms. I think that a good guide is the one used by the Oxford English Dictionary, to reflect published usage.
What about Web publications? They can just reflect the author's personal usage and understanding. We sometimes see people coining go terms here on SL, for instance.
But in this case we have a BGA page. So I think that's authoritative enough to have a second definition for big eye.
I have been teaching Go for 30 years and don't think I have ever used the phrase "big eye". If I did then it probably just slipped out because others use it - apparently ambiguously from this thread. I just simple refer to 3-point shapes, 4-point shapes and 5-point shapes, emphasizing that usually the bigger the better.
Based on the discussion above, is the consensus that we should just use "nakade" for the overall concept?
Concerning the comment about "eyespace", I still have a problem with this. It's a superset of nakade. In other words, there are eyespaces which are not nakade. For instance, in a typical life-and-death problem on the edge, say, there may be an empty area inside which is eyespace but has none of the specific attributes of nakade.
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