Knowing >the purposes each field is used for does NOT divulge the purposes for which the field <i>might be used for in the future.</i> Storing the title, e.g. Miss, MS etc is data: this activity belongs to the data tier of the application. Equating Miss to <i>child</i> and MS to <i>adult female</i> is business/application logic: this belongs to the business logic of the application. The data tier cannot anticipate the business logic tier, let alone the business logic of the future; with the business logic, <i>garbage in, garbage out</i> applies very succinctly. How do you store the field SURNAME in a database? And, what does it mean? While thinking of an answer, imagine this scenario: <i> a female gets married and adopts her husband's surname, gets divorced and reverts to her maiden surname, gets re-married and adopts her second husband's surname, gets divorced and reverts to her maiden surname, emigrates and finds her surname has undesirable connotations and adopts another surname etc. etc. </i>