Talk:Temperament naming
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Who is John Negri
I can not find any info on this man. I hope this is not a joke.
-- Sintel (talk) 20:43, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
- He is real. Please see the first bullet of my reply to Xenwolf here: https://en.xen.wiki/w/Talk:Marvel_temperaments#Relation_between_.22Negripent.22_and_Negri
- --Cmloegcmluin (talk) 17:30, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Origin of "sensi"
I set out to add notes about this whole negripent, negrispet, sensipent, sensisept, dimipent, and dimisept issue (see discussion here: Talk:Marvel_temperaments#Relation_between_.22Negripent.22_and_Negri), but quickly stumbled across a related problem, which I'll bring up here.
The Sensipent page currently states, "The name 'sensi' is a play on the words 'semi-' and 'sixth.'" But this is not quite compatible with the statement on the Temperament names page: "Originally semisixths ... contracted to sensi." My concern is that contracting is not a play on words, but rather a form of abbreviation. We should be consistent with this description across these two pages. However, I'm not sure which one of these two things is true, because I have searched the Yahoo Groups! archives, and I find no evidence one way or the other.
The link in the footnote that is currently provided here (to https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning/topicId_97722.html#97733) positions itself as if it provides evidence toward the contraction, however, it does not. It only provides evidence for part of the sentence the footnote is attached to, and so I suggest that the link to the footnote should be placed at the end of that part of the sentence, not at the end of the whole sentence. Specifically, it only provides evidence for the part that reads "it was decided that 'bi' or 'semi' should be half for periods and 'hemi' should be half for generators", and it does not provide evidence for the remaining part of the sentence, where it says "[semisixths] was contracted to sensi".
To me, it is not clear that semisixths was contracted to sensi, nor that this hemi/semi issue is the reason why.
I note that Gene had been using sensi alongside semisixths for many years before this:
- 7/5/2004 "sensi/semisixths" https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning-math/topicId_10734.html#10734
- 8/2/2004 "sensi (semisixths)" https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning-math/topicId_10866#11194
- 8/18/2004 (here he gives "semisixths" as the name for a 5-limit temperament, and "sensi" for a 7-limit extension as well as an 11-limit extension, and "semsi" for a different 11-limit extension; this is to this day documented on Tonalsoft here: http://tonalsoft.com/enc/s/semisixths.aspx) https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning-math/topicId_10458#11352
- 9/13/2004 (refers to sensi without reference to semisixths) https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning-math/topicId_11511#11513
- 7/4/2005 (gives sensi as the 7-limit extension) https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning-math/topicId_12362#12362
- 7/4/2005 "sensi (semisixths)" https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning/topicId_59247.html#59255
- 10/6/2005 "'sensi' (semisixths)" https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning/topicId_60752.html#61222
So I think the relationship between these names may be a bit more complicated than we previously thought. And the true origin of "sensi" might be lost to time, though there does seem to be something going on in bullet 3 above, w/r/t the existence of both "semsi" and "sensi". The only other place "semsi" is ever mentioned is here, on 12/7/2007, by Manuel Op de Coul: https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/tuning-math/topicId_16872.html#16872
--Cmloegcmluin (talk) 20:54, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I'm not enlightened on the exact difference between play on words and contraction. To me contraction is a specific type of play on words.
- Let's note that the entry of sensi was Gene's own edition and that should be key evidence for its authenticity, altho the reference I added later only provided partial proof for it. FloraC (talk) 00:55, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
- A play on words is a pun, or a joke that takes advantage of words with similar sounds or spellings. It is usually somehow amusing, and adds new meaning beyond the meanings of the individual words that were combined. "Sensi", and other mere contractions like it (e.g. "can't", "they're", "semver"), do not meet that definition. A proper example of a play on words would be the name of my friends' company "Cinapse", which combines the words "cinema", "synapse" (and perhaps even the word "apps", too) all together into one word, and this name conveys how their company adds brain-like tooling to movie productions.
- Thank you for pointing out that Gene added that information himself. Alright, I accept its authenticity as it is. --Cmloegcmluin (talk) 01:34, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
I removed the bit on the Sensipent page for now. Previously I wrote that I wasn't sure whether "sensi" was a play on words or a contraction. I realized that I definitely know it's not a play on words, because that doesn't make any sense. So it's either a contraction, or something else. --Cmloegcmluin (talk) 18:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
I found the same statement on the Sensamagic clan page and removed it there for now, for the same reason. --Cmloegcmluin (talk) 22:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)