Talk:Formal comma

Why mapping comma not formal comma?

For pedagogical reasons. To the average person without a math degree, "formal" refers to formal clothes, formal speech, etc. It has connotations of stiffness and awkwardness, quite misleading. And the expression "merely a formality" implies something even more misleading. Whereas "mapping comma" captures the essence of the concept fairly well. We mentally map 5/4 to a major 3rd, not a minor 3rd or a diminished 4th. Because even though 5/4 isn't 81/64, it's only a comma away. --TallKite (talk) 04:45, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

You shouldn't assume people intuitively define major thirds with respect to 81/64, but in general I see your point. -- VectorGraphics (talk) 09:15, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

But also, I do think the page should be called formal comma, as it is the primary term in use on the wiki, just as with "monzo". -- VectorGraphics (talk) 09:19, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

The wiki should be descriptive of what ppl use. Not to mention how ambiguous mapping comma is. FloraC (talk) 09:57, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree with FloraC here. -- VectorGraphics (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

To my knowledge, "formal comma" comes from FJS, and it was later used to describe similar features of other notation systems, but their authors did not necessarily use the term "formal comma" to describe them. On the other hand, I agree that "mapping comma" isn't quite clear and I'm not sure if there's anything better, either in clarity or in frequence of use. For what it's worth, the HEJI reference document doesn't seem to use any word to specify the role of the comma in the definition of the notation. --Fredg999 (talk) 03:42, 17 July 2025 (UTC)