User talk:Andrewa/Precision and ambiguity

Why this page

See User talk:Andrewa/P T examples and scenarios#Longer and shorter names. Andrewa (talk) 23:37, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Four cases

(For those trained in formal logic the following may be a bit unsettling... I am going to take some liberties with punctuation and not consistently distinguish "A" from A, but I think it will simplify the phrasing without disaster. We shall see. Disasters such as "My name is Vic Dudman, Vic Dudman likes beer, therefore my name likes beer" for which example I am indebted to the aforesaid logician.)

When considering an article name N for an article A on a topic (we will not use T as it could be topic or title) there are just three possibilities:

N covers A and no other topics, and A covers N and nothing else.
N covers more than A.
N covers less than A.
N covers more than A but also less than A.

Obviously, we want a title that exactly matches the topic... the first case. The others are to be avoided.

The problem is... who says? For some football means Soccer, for others Rugby or Australian Rules, for some it includes Rugby Union and Rugby League but no other code, for others any of those codes, and so on.

More to follow. Andrewa (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

N and A match

Gibson Explorer is an example of this. There's no need to lengthen it, and no opportunity to shorten it. Andrewa (talk) 11:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

N > A

This is extremely common. Paris, two... an enormous number of obvious TTPs. These are the controversial ones.

In fact, maybe all likely TTPs potentially fall into this category. If a topic is notable enough for an article, then generally it's only a matter of time before someone writes a song about it, names an album or tour after it, writes a book using the title... Andrewa (talk) 11:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

N < A

Perhaps rare. Maybe snowman? Andrewa (talk) 11:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

N and A merely overlap

Perhaps even rarer. Andrewa (talk) 11:21, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The eye of the beholder

Chimpanzee is problematic, because to any student of biology or ecology etc., it's a genus, but in the more popular view it's a species. Which group has priority?

See Talk:Common chimpanzee#Requested move 22 January 2019 and Talk:Chimpanzee#Requested move 24 January 2019 and several related discussions. Andrewa (talk) 16:52, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

TTP

As wp:TTP is currently available, I'm going to call the ordered pair (article name, article subject) (or (N,A) for short) a Title Topic Pair or TTP. Andrewa (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]