36. Terminology — the dictionary and the index
A reader who meets three phrases for one object concludes there are three objects. The calculus names many objects that are close neighbors — several graphs, several tiers, several boundaries — and a document that drifts between phrasings for any of them costs the reader the very distinction the calculus was built to keep. So the vocabulary is managed the way the requirements and the templates are: as data, rendered here, and gated.
Three rules govern it. One defining site: each term is defined by exactly one
{deftech} in the blueprint, under the section the dictionary names, and every other
mention is a {tech} link to that site or plain prose in the same words. Canonical first,
short after: a chapter, a module docstring, or a plan document uses the canonical phrase at
a concept's first mention and may use the sanctioned short form afterward. Retired means
refused: a phrasing the dictionary lists as retired fails the build's documentation gate
wherever the gate reads — every blueprint chapter and every root plan document — and is
counted in the library's own docstrings by a ratchet that may only fall.
The dictionary is PropertyKindCalculus.Terminology.dictionary. The table below is rendered
from it, sorted by canonical phrase; the Defined in column links to the section whose
prose explains the term, and the declarations column is checked, at blueprint build, against
the environment — a renamed declaration fails the render rather than surviving as a stale
name. A new concept gets its entry before its first use, so that the entry, the defining
site and the gate move together.
The dictionary carries 39 terms: 8 with a sanctioned short form, 5 with retired phrasings the gate refuses, and 49 declaration citations that the blueprint build checks exist.