Age-old practice...time-honored tradition

The concluding characterizes the alphabetical coordination and arrangement of the directory in a series of consecutive clauses.

But there is nothing remotely creative about arranging names alphabetically in a white pages directory. It is an age-old practice, firmly rooted in tradition and so commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course. ... It is not only unoriginal, it is practically inevitable. This time-honored tradition.

(Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., Inc., 1991, p. 363)

‘[N]othing remotely creative’ (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., Inc., 1991, p. 363) indicates a concern with the extreme antithesis to creativity, the extreme of‘the creative spark ... utterly lacking’ (p. 359).

The initial clauses positively delineating the ‘nothing remotely creative’ from age-old practice to expected as a matter of course are, in contrast to previous passages, grouped directly and closely contiguous to one another, with the subsequent clauses, practically inevitable to time-honored tradition, similarly grouped. The clauses represent the most connected positive delineation of the absence of creativity in the decision. The crucial clauses can be extracted, with their sequence preserved.

an age-old practice, firmly rooted in tradition and so commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course ... practically inevitable ... time-honored tradition

(Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., Inc., 1991, p. 363)

Collectively, the clauses constitute the most extensive resource offered by the decision for an exegesis of the antithesis to creativity.

The positive terms in the relevant clauses are not accompanied by immediate citations, or otherwise indicated to have technical or specialized meanings, and must then be understood in their ordinary discourse senses. The absence of other occurrences in the decision offers no immediate resource for elucidation. They are semantically dominated by a historical reference or resonance, incorporating a very extensive chronological reference. ‘[A]ge-old’ refers to a very long duration, not confined to any particular historical period, and transcending historical variation and periods. The particular practice of alphabetic arrangement, to which reference is made, has a very long history, embodied in the term, alphabet (alpha, beta; Harris, 1986). ‘[A]ge-old’ could then be understood as reaching to at least the emergence of written alphabetic literacy. ‘[F]irmly rooted in tradition’ implies repeated over historical time and could even be read to imply the arbitrary nature of the ordering, in which the initially arbitrary becomes the traditional. ‘[S]o commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course’ reveals the historical becoming the everyday, a process which has been understood as naturalization (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). With ‘practically inevitable’, the historical is beginning to merge into the natural and the inescapable. The repetition of tradition and its presence in the concluding clause - ‘time-honored tradition’ - is suggestive of the significance attached to tradition for characterizing the absence of creativity'. Long duration and transcendence of particular historical periods are then central to the characterization of the absence of creativity'. Semantically, the clauses are complementary, although not identical to one another and could be conceived as overlapping.

The relation between clauses and their most appropriate logical translation also needs to be considered. The initial clauses are separated by a comma or by and and subsequent clauses are in separate sentences. The expressive structure is suggestive of parallelism between clauses, consistent with their similarity in meaning. The single referent, of the absence of creativity, continues. On the basis of their overlapping semantics, the suggestions of the parallelism conveyed by the expression, the continuity of a single referent, the relation between constituent clauses can be read as fully equivalent to logical OR, in the modern inclusive sense. Other passages in the decision containing clauses separated by commas can also plausibly be read as embodying an OR relation between constituent clauses. The single referent and the semantic overlap of the clauses yields the further expectation that real-world instances of the absence of creativity would be describable by more than one clause (corresponding to the conjunction, or AND, contained within inclusive OR; see Figure 4.6).

Figure 4.6 Logical representation of an age-old practice ... time-honored tradition

The relation of the clauses to the ‘so mechanical or routine’ can also be considered. Semantically, the clauses are closer to the routine than to the mechanical and can regarded as further amplifying ‘routine’, giving it a historical scope and resonance. In an analogy to the understanding established for the ‘entirely typical ... the most basic information’ the series of clauses, ‘age-old practice ... time-honored tradition’, can be regarded as a further, and still not necessarily exhaustive enumeration of species, conceived as overlapping rather than sharply differentiated, of the genus, routine. Their historical resonance exposes the ‘entirely typical’ and its associated clauses as semantically ahistorical although with a contemporary reference, in a standard directory.

The historical clauses in the opinion are separated from ‘so mechanical’ by ‘routine’ and by subsequent clauses, implying that they are indirectly connected to ‘so mechanical’ (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., Inc., 1991, p. 362) and also may relate to ‘so ... routine’. In terms of the order of words within the opinion, ‘routine’ in ‘so mechanical or routine’ mediates between ‘mechanical’ and the historical. The mediation could be understood as revealing how mechanical processes can become routine as commonplace.

The routine now emerges as mediating between the mechanical and the historical, with particular mechanical processes becoming routine through their recurrence over time. The mechanical, routine, and historical can then be understood as points along a continuum, counter to the commonly encountered opposition of the mechanical, conceived as industrial machinery and studied by engineering disciplines, to history, with history understood referentially to include preindustrial periods and as part of the human sciences. ‘[R]outine’ (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., Inc., 1991, p. 362) which combined with ‘mechanical’, can now be understood as mediating between the mechanical and the historical.

The concern of the paragraph is primarily with the process of alphabetization, with the concern with process revealed by the verb forms, ‘alphabetizing’ (p. 363) and ‘arranging’ (p. 363).

In summary, then, the conclusion to the characterization of the antithesis to creativity offers the richest resource for exegesis. Terms within clauses could be understood in their central ordinary discourse senses and had an extensive historical scope and very strong historical resonance. Clauses could be understood as complementary and overlapping. They primarily amplified ‘routine’ in ‘so mechanical or routine’ and could be understood as species of the routine. They exposed the ahistorical semantics and contemporary reference of the previous amplification of the routine. The routine further emerged as mediating from the mechanical to the historical and the primary concern was with process.