Are we using the right word when we wish to photograph tiny things and make them look bigger?

Should not we educate younger generations on using the right terminology?

Don,

I believe the dividing line is 1:1.  If the magnification is greater than 1:1 - with the subject being larger on the sensor than it is in reality, then the photo is considered to be 'microphotography'.  There's a third term  . . . . 'micrography', for photographs made with a microscope.  

. . . .  Steven T.

Don, Steven, et al,

OK... this is the problem with the English language. 

Examples:

"Herbal or Fruit Tea" - when "tea" means a drink from the camellia bush, All other such drinks are infusions (as, indeed, is tea but a particulatr one.)

"Cam" slang-short for "Camera," which is actaully a corruption of "Camera Obscura" (Itallian for a closed room / chamber).

"Gay" - has been adopted by homosexuals, which is rather annoying for those of us who love this old English word in its opriginal context - bright, jolly, happy. The link is obvious but the word is now seldom used in its original meaning.

"Essential" - now merely important; "Awesome," - rather impressive.

The English language is forever being basterdised, alas. And, yet it is this flexibility and renewal which keeps it so alive. I hate all the above changes but, when I die, the language will endure because it is flexible not brittle. 

And so to Micro / Macro.  I find this strange. From my own field - When teaching Macroeconomics, I was teaching about the economics of the world and the country - topics such as Money-Supply, Inflation, Interest, Employment, Stag-flation Recession and so on. When I taught Micoreconomics, I was discussing individual industries / firms, demand and supply, markets and so on.

[NB: For any fellow economists reading this, yes Lord John Maynard Keynes did, indeed, put the emphasis upon this micro / macro division and both classists and neo-classists regarded it as an aid to teaching at best and a significant undermining of the concept of inter-related economics at t'other end of the scale - sorry all non-economists for that mumbo-jumbo].

So to me it is simple: Micro = Examining the small; Macro = Examining the large. I port this into my understanding of photography. Oops! Looks like photography has it wrong (Well, Economics cannot be wrong, can it? ;) - anyway it pre-dates photography by a few centuries). I suppose, in photography the idea is that Macro gives big magnification, rather than it is the study of big things.

Hope that makes sense. Then again, this is the English language wot we is talking of.

Cheerio.

Woad,

I had no idea the the word 'macro' was from 'makros' in Greek, meaning long or large.  Language is a living thing.  Hopefully it will survive the internet. 

Here's a song about it  . . . . .    Word Crimes . . . Al Yankovic

I recall a comedian once telling a story about a couple he knew.  One was an Entomologist who knew the names of every insect in the world, and in Latin too!   The other was an Etymologist who could tell you the origin and history of any word you could think of.    The comedian let the audience wonder for a moment where he was going with this story before delivering the punch line . . . .  "And they had no friends." 

I found this at Merriam-Webster suggesting that a 'macro' lens was called that because its focal length was longer than a normal lens. 

Hello Steven,

Many thanks for your rejoinder: most interesting. (Luckily, it was not "All Greek to me.")

So we are talking, in togging, about "macro" meaning greater magnification (bringing small things to appear closer), as opposed to photography of larger things per se. Makes photographic sense - though I still think (in Economics terms) that photographing mountains should be macro and photographing a mouse's whiskers should be micro... as you indicated in your original post (microscope).

Then again, if this "wrong" use of the term "Macro" was only coined in my 1961, I am not so impressed - I prefer words to pre-date me! (Thanks for the US dictionary 1961 date - NB The OED has the reference even later, in the 1970s, from "Amateur Photographer" but the OED is reference-cautious and the word may-well have been in photographic circulation a decade earlier). I prefer to trace words back to Shakespeare, at least. Besides, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players," so one might need something like opera glasses (yet to be invented, methinks) to see them from up in the gods. Now, is that micro or macro? Microscope - big magnification for apparently small things... or macro - big magnification for apparently small things... Don! You have opened the proverbial "can of worms!" Then, again, I think Stephen's joke actually describes my wife and I (she's into biology; I'm into words)... now, where is everyone else?

Thanks - I have tried a couple of times to listen to that song; will try again - just have to overcome the music.

OED (Macro):

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/macro_n2?tab=factsheet#13550218

FWIW, Nikon calls a 1:1 reproduction ratio "micro", others call it macro. Pick your favorite.