I was hiking with housemates yesterday, and we chanced across the San Francisco Discovery Bay site. Someone erected a monument to commemorate the Portala Expedition; apparently about a year ago someone else defaced the monument to remove the year, name, and the phrase “discovered”.
Which made me wonder: what would a more neutral name be? Clearly they did something, even tho there were already humans living in the area. A housemate suggested “were surprised by” as a replacement for discovered, and I found it amusing how well it fit. (Especially other cases, where one might talk about a child ‘discovering’ something, in a way that really doesn’t imply that no one else knew that if you let a cup go, it would fall down.)
I was hiking with housemates yesterday, and we chanced across the San Francisco Discovery Bay site. Someone erected a monument to commemorate the Portala Expedition; apparently about a year ago someone else defaced the monument to remove the year, name, and the phrase “discovered”.
Which made me wonder: what would a more neutral name be? Clearly they did something, even tho there were already humans living in the area. A housemate suggested “were surprised by” as a replacement for discovered, and I found it amusing how well it fit. (Especially other cases, where one might talk about a child ‘discovering’ something, in a way that really doesn’t imply that no one else knew that if you let a cup go, it would fall down.)
Perhaps “reported to Europe” as a description? I think it’s different from a child’s learning, or about the internal state of the sailors’ beliefs.
Though honestly, I don’t object to “discovered”—it’s a common enough usage that I don’t think there’s any actual ambiguity.