ABSTRACT
Genre can usefully be understood as one of many forms of classification, rather like maps. Different maps (road, geological, consumer research) always have to leave out many features, and to emphasise only some parts of an area, in order to be useful, usable. Similarly gardeners and farmers may classify plants into ‘weeds’ and ‘proper plants’/‘crops’. Using another system of classification, asking other questions of them, all of these are simply ‘plants’ rather than, say, ‘animals’. Classifying systems like this often use a binary ‘either/or’ division, when we might think in terms of a spectrum of varieties.
