El Mundo — The Methodology Itself
Six canonical steps for constructing generative metaphor vocabularies, applied to El Mundo as worked example. The recipe transfers across
platforms and domains; the vocabulary it produces does not. Diagram 7 — The Methodology Itself.
Method canonically described in: R. Rodriguez and M. P. Graña, "Constructing Generative Metaphor Vocabularies for Distributed System Architecture," draft-rodriguez-graña-metaphor-vocabularies-00 (2026), §§4–5.
The Method — six canonical steps (I-D §4)
1
Characterize
target architecture
Write down the system's principal
commitments (immutability, prov-
enance, audit, federation, etc.).
Inventory components — recognized
and anticipated. Output is the
basis for Step 3's mapping test.
2
Identify candidate
source domains
Multiple candidates, not one.
Each evaluated on four properties:
internal richness, structural
articulation, historical depth,
connotational vitality.
Comparison sharpens Step 3.
3
Test source-target
mapping
For each component, does the
candidate offer a defensible match?
Three failure modes:
· coverage failure
· strain
· inversion
4
Adopt or reject
Adoption is a substantive
commitment — vocabulary used
throughout, no translation drift.
Rejection is legitimate. Defer
vocabulary if no candidate is
strong; document the reasoning.
5
Apply iteratively
Ongoing practice, not one-time
renaming. New components consult
the source domain for their
institutional name. Repeated
generation failure suggests the
source domain may be wrong.
6
Document the
lexicon canonically
Versioned, single canonical
location, conventions for use.
Each term: source institution,
target component, rationale,
nuances. Derivative documents
reference the version they reflect.
parallel
Steps 3–5 are iterative — early candidates may be rejected after substantial work.
If reject: return to Step 2 with new candidates, or defer.
Worked Example — El Mundo (I-D §5)
Commitments listed
Append-only preservation;
original timestamps + units
verbatim; full provenance;
conflicts-as-conflicts (not
silent reconciliation); SOC 2
as natural expression; multi-
tenant cloud + on-prem +
optional federation.
11+ component categories
inventoried (sensors, ledgers,
notary, archive, exchange, etc.).
Candidates considered
Generic-city geography
Medieval European guilds
19th-century railroad ops
Post-industrial logistics
Rural Spanish-American pueblo
All five tested in Step 3.
Connotational vitality matched
team's bilingual context
(Argentine Spanish; oilfield
engineering practice).
Mapping validations
append-only ↔
pulpería + cabildo
provenance ↔
posta (relay+authority)
conflict-as-conflict ↔
careo + árbitro
notarization ↔
escribanía
accumulating identity ↔
cartilla
No coverage failure, strain, inversion.
Decisions
Adopted: rural pueblo.
Rejected:
· generic-city — coverage
OK but flat connotation
· guilds — connotation rich
but field/center coverage
failure
· railroad, logistics —
less defensible across the
component inventory
Reasoning recorded in §5.2.
Generative episodes
v2026-05-03 (D-015):
Methodology versioning
demanded a corporate ledger;
colonial accountancy supplied
Contaduría, Asiento, Cierre,
Plan de Cuentas.
v2026-05-07 (D-021):
Lifecycle-state model surfaced
in Diagram 5 design session;
no new terms — three primitives
absorbed the new commitments.
Generation succeeded each time.
Lexicon today
v2026-05-07
31 terms, 7 versions in 5 days.
Append-only history; every
refinement carries rationale.
Decisions tracked separately
(D-014, D-015, D-016, D-019,
D-021).
Conventions explicit:
· holism by default
· natural-Spanish keepers
· no customer-facing usage
Anti-Patterns to Recognize and Resist (I-D §4.8)
Decoration over commitment
Colorful names adopted without architectural commitments encoded. Test: would removing the chosen name
in favor of a generic English equivalent change anything about how engineers think about the component?
If not, the term is decoration. Names must be load-bearing.
Blending under pressure
When stranding occurs in Step 5, the team borrows from a second source domain rather than rejecting the
strand or revisiting Step 4. Coherence degrades; the vocabulary returns to a conventional blended state.
Resist by going back to Step 4.
Preciousness
Treating the lexicon as inviolable; resisting necessary revision when the architecture evolves or a term
proves wrong in practice. Lexicons should be respected but not frozen. Step 6's versioning allows evolution.
Translation drift
Translated equivalents allowed into code or docs as a courtesy to readers unfamiliar with the source domain.
Translations strip the connotational weight that motivated the choice. Defense: refuse translation as a
discipline, accepting adoption friction on new readers.
Scope and Applicability (I-D §4.1)
Small group, not solo or crowdsourced
The method is intended for a small group of architects and engineers working together. Step 3's mapping
judgments require collective reasoning about both the target architecture and the candidate source
domain, and the judgments are partly aesthetic. Fully individual application produces brittle vocabulary;
fully crowdsourced application produces incoherence.
Architecture must be characterizable
The method assumes the target architecture is sufficiently stable that its principal commitments can be
characterized. Applying the method to an architecture still in flux produces vocabulary that may need
substantial revision once the architecture stabilizes. Deferring vocabulary construction until the
architecture is settled is generally preferable.
Connotational preservation as a secondary argument
Vocabularies drawn from non-dominant linguistic traditions can preserve architectural commitments that
the dominant technical English vocabulary has worn smooth. The trade-off is adoption friction on readers
unfamiliar with the source domain. The I-D treats this as a feature, not a bug — connotational weight
is what makes the names load-bearing rather than decorative. Translation drift (anti-pattern, left) is
the principal threat to this property; teams should refuse translation as a deliberate discipline.
The Recipe Transfers; The Vocabulary Does Not
El Mundo's specific names — Pulpería, Cabildo, Posta, Diligencias — belong to this platform's metaphor and should not be lifted into other platforms. The methodology that
produced them, however, transfers cleanly: characterize the target, identify candidates honestly, test mappings rigorously, adopt or reject deliberately, apply iteratively, document
canonically. A different team in a different domain — healthcare records, supply chain, scientific instrumentation — applies the same six steps and arrives at its own coherent vocabulary,
drawn from whichever source domain its Step 3 finds defensible. The methodology is what survives. The lexicon is the artifact this methodology produced for this platform.
El Mundo lexicon, version 2026-05-07 — Roderick Consulting Inc. and RGC Argentina S.A. — Diagram 7 — The Methodology Itself — Per draft-rodriguez-graña-metaphor-vocabularies-00 §§4–5