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“Rose
& Knowledge are the only things in the world that can smell like
what it is.”
Information
as a concept bears a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage
to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of
information is closely related to notions of constraint,
communication, control, data, form, instruction,
knowledge,
meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and
representation.
Many people speak about the Information Age as the advent of the
Knowledge Age or knowledge society, the information
society, the Information revolution, and information
technologies, and even though informatics, information science
and computer science are often in the spotlight, the word
"information" is often used without careful
consideration of the various meanings it has acquired.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest
historical meaning of the word information in English was the
act of informing, or giving form or shape to the mind, as in
education, instruction, or training. A quote from 1387:
"Five books come down from heaven for information of
mankind." It was also used for an item of training, e.g. a
particular instruction. "Melibee had heard the great skills
and reasons of Dame Prudence, and her wise information and
techniques."
The English word was apparently derived by adding the common
"noun of action" ending "-ation" (descended
through French from Latin "-tio") to the earlier verb
to inform, in the sense of to give form to the mind, to
discipline, instruct, teach: "Men so wise should go and
inform their kings." (1330) Inform itself comes (via
French) from the Latin verb informare, to give form to, to form
an idea of. Furthermore, Latin itself already even contained the
word informatio meaning concept or idea, but the extent to which
this may have influenced the development of the word information
in English is unclear.
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