Revision C

2022-01-08

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – C – canon & cannon

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Dictionary.com:

ออกเสียง canon & cannon = “KAN-uhn”

Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms

Canon

 = a collection of rules or laws

= a set of mathematical tables;

= a collection or list of books of the Bible 

accepted as genuine and inspired

any set of sacred books; 

a piece of music with different parts taking up the same subject 

successively in strict imitation. 

See also code.

Examples: 

canon of laws; of mathematical tables; of monastic rules; of rules; of saints.

 

Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary:

canon & cannon

“Canon” used to be such a rare word 

that there was no temptation to confuse it with “cannon”

a large piece of artillery

 

The debate over the literary canon (a list of officially-approved works) 

and the popularity of Pachelbel’s Canon (an imitative musical form related to the common “round”) have changed all that—confusion is rampant. 

 

Just remember that the big gun is a “cannon.” All the rest are “canons.”

Note that there are metaphorical uses of “cannon” 

for objects shaped like large guns, such as a horse’s “cannon bone.”

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Choose the Right Synonym for canon

Noun

LAW, RULE, REGULATION, PRECEPT, STATUTE, ORDINANCE, CANON.

mean a principle governing action or procedure. 

 

LAW implies imposition by a sovereign authority 

and the obligation of obedience on the part of all subject to that authority.  

obey the law  

 

RULE applies to more restricted or specific situations.  

the rules of the game  

 

REGULATION implies prescription by authority in order to control an organization or system.  

regulations affecting nuclear power plants  

 

PRECEPT commonly suggests something advisory and not obligatory communicated typically through teaching.  

the precepts of effective writing 

 

STATUTE implies a law enacted by a legislative body.  

statute requiring the use of seat belts  

 

ORDINANCE applies to an order governing some detail of procedure or conduct enforced by a limited authority such as a municipality.  

a city ordinance 

 

CANON suggests in nonreligious use a principle or rule of behavior orprocedure commonly accepted as a valid guide.  

the canons of good taste 

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

What is the difference between cannon and canon?

Noun

Cannon and canon are occasionally confused by writers

but the two words have independent origins

and do not share a meaning. 

Cannon is most frequently found used in the sense of "a large gun,"

and can be traced to the Old Italian word cannone

which means "large tube." 

Canon, however, comes from the Greek word kanōn, meaning "rule." 

Although canon has a variety of meanings

it is most often found in the senses of "a rule or law of a church,

"an accepted rule," or "a sanctioned or accepted group 

or body of related works." 

A loose cannon is "a dangerously uncontrollable person or thing." 

There are no loose canons.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Words We’re Watching: ‘Headcanon

From the church to your imagination

 

What to Know

Headcanon generally refers to 

ideas held by fans of series 

that are not explicitly supported by sanctioned text or other media. 

Fans maintain the ideas in their heads, outside of the accepted canon.

 

As books and movies are made into sequels and franchises

it can be fun to keep track of how characters grow and change

how their timelines intersect, who is related to whom, and all that. 

For all that is explained in a book or on a screen, 

there is often the urge to imagine aspects of beloved characters 

beyond what is seen or read. 

That’s part of being a fan. 

Fan lore encourages us to read deeply and analyze 

even the smallest detail of every character, 

and sometimes make up what we don’t know, 

all as a way to celebrate our love for the characters with other fans.

 

As part of this kind of intense fandom, 

one learns the distinction 

between what is canon and what is headcanon.

 

The Origin of 'Canon'

The two terms are separated by about 900 years of use. 

Canon originated in the church, dating from before the 12th century. 

In its earliest English use,

the term referred to a regulation or dogma decreed by a church council.

 

Other canons expressly forbade clergymen 

to party, frequent taverns and inns, and play dice 

(medieval people loved games of chance). 

It was made clear that clergymen should never attempt 

to imitate laymen in any way.

They also could not live, breathe, or die like laymen

They were special and distinct from the rest of the population

They had been ordained.
— Joëlle Rollo-Koster, The Providence Journal, 15 Aug. 2019

 

The Church of England has dropped 

a centuries-old requirement for all churches 

to hold weekly Sunday services

 

Its general synod, meeting in London this week, 

formally approved a change to canon law to relax the requirement for morning and evening prayer in every parish church every Sunday.
— Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, 21 Feb. 2019

 

Also in contexts of religion, canon refers to the texts that religious authorities accept and regard as scripture.

As centuries passed, 

angels' biblical roles moved beyond their responsibilities as messengers, and angels of judgment and angels of death began to appear. 

Later authors of ancient texts that are not part of the canon 

began to expand on the idea of the fallen angels introduced in Genesis.
— Tim Townsend, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10 Dec. 2011

 

"This holiday [Hanukkah] is rabbinically ordained, 

meaning it was established by rabbis," [Rabbi Arthur] Lavinsky said. "Interestingly, it is found in the Book of Maccabees in the Christian Bible, but not in the Jewish canon," he said.
— Maria Polletta, The Arizona Republic, 15 Dec. 2016

 

In literary studies,

the meaning of canon has broadened to encompass 

the works of a writer or any group of writings 

considered as sanctioned or accepted within a circle

 

The books and writers that are considered as belonging to the canon 

are almost always the subject of argument 

and tend to change with the times

In The Western Canon (1994), for example, the literary critic Howard Bloom identified 26 writers that he felt were central to western intellectual and artistic thought, from William Shakespeare to Samuel Beckett and including writers such as Jane Austen, Miguel de Cervantes, and Franz Kafka.

 

A notion behind canon is that 

conversations about literature rely on shared reading experiences

—so long as everyone reads the same books

readers will know they are talking about the same ideas

Naturally, this use of canon 

extended to fan circles, referring not just to the books and movies 

that concern the same group of characters, 

but to the narrative universe that exists inside those works.

 

While non-aficionados may have heard of the likes of Spider-Man, 

The X-Men and The Hulk, Daredevil is a lesser-known crime fighter from the Marvel canon.
— Darryl Webber, The Essex Chronicle, 14 Feb. 2003

 

"Attack of the Clones" offers darker tones, more assured storytelling and more intriguing ties to the already-known facts of the "Star Wars" canon. We're shown the roots of such key characters as bounty hunter Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker's eventual step-parents, Uncle Owen and Aunt Baru.
— Jack Garner, Gannett News Service, 14 May 2002

 

The idea of canon as a term for what is codified by a text 

is often attributed to Ronald A. Knox, an English Catholic priest who, 

in addition to his writings on Christianity, 

wrote detective fiction and contributed many writings of literary analysis on Sherlock Holmes. 

However, there is no evidence that Knox himself used the term. 

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories, published in periodicals, 

encouraged analysis of the works as a canonical universe because they offered reliably consistent information about the characters across different episodic arcs.

 

As fans of the detective later wrote their own stories, 

canon became a useful term for distinguishing the information that Conan Doyle provided in the stories from that which was inserted by someone else into the Holmes universe.

 

From 'Canon' to 'Headcanon'

Since the idea of canon is critical to fan lore

it’s understandable that a distinguishing term 

has emerged for those ideas we have about a character 

that is not supported by the text or film in which the character appears. And so we have headcanon.

 

Even though James and Lily were married, some fans suspected that Harry's biology was not that simple. Given the amount of history between James, Lily, and Snape, many headcanons suggest that James is not Harry's father, but Snape is due to an affair Lily and Snape had.
— Lindsay Press, Screen Rant, 29 Oct. 2015

 

And then there are the things that will always be our headcanon whether they happen or not, like Finn and Poe’s love in Star Wars and countless other non-heterosexual relationships—things that tend to upend the conversation on accepted canon and demand more than just unofficial hints and extratextual confirmations, as they well should.
— Dan Van Winkle, The Mary Sue, 26 Mar. 2018

 

There are a lot of competing interpretations of the reality or otherwise of Fleck's story as his grip on the world loosens. These are the most popular, though given how hard it is to say what actually happened, you're completely at liberty to bodge together your own headcanon from the bits you like of each. Joker might be the first ever choose-your-own-adventure blockbuster.
— Tom Nicholson, _Esquire_ (UK), 10 Aug. 2019

 

As an autistic writer who spends a lot of time online, I find the act of forming and discussing autistic headcanons to be a fascinating look into the way that autistic people can use pop culture to better understand ourselves and the world around us. What I find most interesting, though, is how little overlap there is between the characters that are ostensibly created in our image by others, and the characters that we choose for ourselves.
— Sarah Kurchak, Pacific Standard, 22 Feb. 2018

 

Headcanon refers to something that a fan imagines to be true 

about a character even though no information supporting 

that belief is spelled out in the text. 

Sometimes that involves filling in your own explanation for a character’s strange motivation, or projecting aspects onto a character that make them more relatable to you. 

If you choose to believe, for example, that the Federation vessels in Star Trek malfunction so frequently due to Federation engineers simply being overmatched by the technology; or that Dumbledore and the Weasleys are evil conspirators, then you’ve created a headcanon

—essentially, a canon that exists only in your head.

 

The term headcanon is purported to have originated among memes shared on Livejournal and fan blogs around 2007. 

This kind of deep immersion into fictional universes—and the desire to keep spending time with characters after all the books have been read and movies have been watched—is also manifested in fan fiction, in which fans create whole fictional narratives based on another writers’ characters. Another term, fanon (a portmanteau of fan and canon) applies when someone’s headcanon is shared with and becomes widely accepted by members of a fan community.