I won’t bother to identify the source for today’s post’s title, but it does serve a valuable purpose in trying to understand what words mean. I just finished How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, and found it to be exceptional, not just because at one time I thought I wanted to be an astronomer. It’s a book that I think everyone would enjoy. In it the author discusses the challenge in trying to determine a meaning for the word “planet,” and seeks the help of a philosopher friend who says that words mean what we think they mean. Not very helpful.

In A History of Reading I encountered the following: “It would seem that, in order to read at even a skin-deep level, the reader requires information about the text’s creation, historical background, specialized vocabulary and even that most most mysterious of things, what Saint Thomas Aquinas called quem auctor intendit, the author’s intention.”

Picking up from the “planet” example, there are some aspects of GIPS(R) (Global Investment Performance Standards) which could benefit from some eluci’dation (i.e., to be made clearer). I was recently engaged in a discussion about the meaning of “model fees.” The term was introduced in the 2010 edition of the standards but without any explanation. Was it because the framers assumed that everyone would know what it means? Was it because they couldn’t arrive at a definition themselves? Or, perhaps was it because it didn’t occur to them that a definition was in order? I have no idea; but what I do know is that I don’t know what the term means. Risking the possibility of being called pedantic, I will say that to me clarification is in order. I have opined on this in the past, and bring it up again, as my recent readings have once again caused me to reflect upon this matter.

The standards aren’t designed to answer all questions and interpretation is often in order. But when the standards require a compliant firm to disclose if model or actual fees are used in their net-of-fee calculations (see ¶ 4.A.6), clarity is in order.Hopefully it will be forthcoming.