Defactoring terminology proposal: Difference between revisions

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# Again, it does not have any obvious musical or mathematical meaning in this context. It's a word that was invented specially for RTT in 2002. The prefix co- or con- is sometimes used to form terms for things that are the duals of others (e.g. vectors and ''co''vectors), so the term "con-torsion" was coined to refer to the dual concept of torsion. But "torsion" already has a couple problems as described above, so "contorsion" just compounds those. So the authors here believe it would be best to banish the term "contorsion" from the RTT community altogether.

# A word with the same spelling was also coined with a different mathematical meaning outside of RTT, in the field of differential geometry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contorsion_tensor<ref>In this field, it does definitely represent twisting, like in a Möbius strip. Also, DG contorsion is related to DG torsion by subtraction, not duality.</ref>

# It is prone to spelling confusion. People commonly refer to temperaments with contorsion as "contorted". But contorted is the adjective form of a different word, contortion, with a t, not an s. The proper adjective form of contorsion would be contorsioned. It also exerts confusion back on usages of "torsion"; would you use "torted" instead of torsioned? Or would people prefer "torsional" and "contorsional", even though that suggests only of or pertaining to in general rather than having the effect applied.<ref>If it was meant to most strongly evoke duality with torsion, it should have been spelled "cotorsion". Naming it "contorsion" is ~~an annoying~~ step toward "contortion" but stopping halfway there. But this isn't a strong point, because duality with torsion was the false assumption mentioned above.</ref>

# It is prone to spelling confusion. People commonly refer to temperaments with contorsion as "contorted". But contorted is the adjective form of a different word, contortion, with a t, not an s. The proper adjective form of contorsion would be contorsioned. It also exerts confusion back on usages of "torsion"; would you use "torted" instead of torsioned? Or would people prefer "torsional" and "contorsional", even though that suggests only of or pertaining to in general rather than having the effect applied.<ref>If it was meant to most strongly evoke duality with torsion, it should have been spelled "cotorsion". Naming it "contorsion" is a step toward "contortion" but stopping halfway there. But this isn't a strong point, because duality with torsion was the false assumption mentioned above.</ref>

# Due to its similarity with the word "contortion", the word contorsion evokes bending, twisting, and knotting. But there is nothing bendy, twisty, or knotted about the effect it has on JI lattices or tuning space, except when you attempt to understand them as if they were periodicity blocks, as criticized above.

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 # Again, it does not have any obvious musical or mathematical meaning in this context. It's a word that was invented specially for RTT in 2002. The prefix co- or con- is sometimes used to form terms for things that are the duals of others (e.g. vectors and ''co''vectors), so the term "con-torsion" was coined to refer to the dual concept of torsion. But "torsion" already has a couple problems as described above, so "contorsion" just compounds those. So the authors here believe it would be best to banish the term "contorsion" from the RTT community altogether.
 # A word with the same spelling was also coined with a different mathematical meaning outside of RTT, in the field of differential geometry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contorsion_tensor<ref>In this field, it does definitely represent twisting, like in a Möbius strip. Also, DG contorsion is related to DG torsion by subtraction, not duality.</ref>
-# It is prone to spelling confusion. People commonly refer to temperaments with contorsion as "contorted". But contorted is the adjective form of a different word, contortion, with a t, not an s. The proper adjective form of contorsion would be contorsioned. It also exerts confusion back on usages of "torsion"; would you use "torted" instead of torsioned? Or would people prefer "torsional" and "contorsional", even though that suggests only of or pertaining to in general rather than having the effect applied.<ref>If it was meant to most strongly evoke duality with torsion, it should have been spelled "cotorsion". Naming it "contorsion" is an annoying step toward "contortion" but stopping halfway there. But this isn't a strong point, because duality with torsion was the false assumption mentioned above.</ref>
+# It is prone to spelling confusion. People commonly refer to temperaments with contorsion as "contorted". But contorted is the adjective form of a different word, contortion, with a t, not an s. The proper adjective form of contorsion would be contorsioned. It also exerts confusion back on usages of "torsion"; would you use "torted" instead of torsioned? Or would people prefer "torsional" and "contorsional", even though that suggests only of or pertaining to in general rather than having the effect applied.<ref>If it was meant to most strongly evoke duality with torsion, it should have been spelled "cotorsion". Naming it "contorsion" is a step toward "contortion" but stopping halfway there. But this isn't a strong point, because duality with torsion was the false assumption mentioned above.</ref>
 # Due to its similarity with the word "contortion", the word contorsion evokes bending, twisting, and knotting. But there is nothing bendy, twisty, or knotted about the effect it has on JI lattices or tuning space, except when you attempt to understand them as if they were periodicity blocks, as criticized above.