it's all about ervs

I've never liked the term "MOS". Here are just a few
of the things I don't like about it:

* Nobody knows whether to pronounce it or say it like
a TLA. And that spills over into the article. Is it
"a MOS" or "an MOS"?

* How do you pluralize it? Is it Moments of Symmetry,
or is it Moment of Symmetries? MOSs or...?

* It could be confused to mean bryophytes (in botany).

* If you have a scale, is it "a MOS", a "MOS scale",
or "one of the MOS of" its generator and period?

* It's confusing to beginners. "Symmetry" is a term
from group theory. I have to look it up every time.

Erv isn't on these lists to protest, so why don't we
go ahead and behave as if we have the right and the duty
to rename this term. I propose the name "erv". An
"erv" is a scale that property formerly known as MOS.
"The diatonic and pentatonic scales in 12-ET are both
ervs."

What do people think? Maybe now would be a good idea
discuss what sort of majority we need to 'pass' these
kinds of terminology changes. Heck, let's forget tuning
theory and take up nomic. I've heard it's a blast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic

-Carl

Carl Lumma wrote:
> I've never liked the term "MOS". Here are just a few
> of the things I don't like about it:
> > > * Nobody knows whether to pronounce it or say it like
> a TLA. And that spills over into the article. Is it
> "a MOS" or "an MOS"?
> > * How do you pluralize it? Is it Moments of Symmetry,
> or is it Moment of Symmetries? MOSs or...?
> > * It could be confused to mean bryophytes (in botany).
> > * If you have a scale, is it "a MOS", a "MOS scale",
> or "one of the MOS of" its generator and period?
> > * It's confusing to beginners. "Symmetry" is a term
> from group theory. I have to look it up every time.

Now this is just ridiculous. "Symmetry" is a perfectly normal word that every literate English speaker is familiar with. "Moment" on the other hand is an obscure term from physics....

Or not.

Besides, everyone knows MOS stands for metal-oxide-semiconductor.

(I seem to recall a good deal of argument over the distinction between MOS and DE, or even if there was a distinction. In the meantime, those of us who just want to discuss tuning and these scales with two different sizes of steps in a particular arrangement are stuck without a word to call them, or go with something like "MOS/DE". I still don't know if that dispute was ever settled, so I still use "MOS/DE" if I'm being careful. Otherwise I go back to using MOS like I did before the confusion started.)

Herman wrote...

>> I've never liked the term "MOS". Here are just a few
>> of the things I don't like about it:
>>
>> * Nobody knows whether to pronounce it or say it like
>> a TLA. And that spills over into the article. Is it
>> "a MOS" or "an MOS"?
>>
>> * How do you pluralize it? Is it Moments of Symmetry,
>> or is it Moment of Symmetries? MOSs or...?
>>
>> * It could be confused to mean bryophytes (in botany).
>>
>> * If you have a scale, is it "a MOS", a "MOS scale",
>> or "one of the MOS of" its generator and period?
>>
>> * It's confusing to beginners. "Symmetry" is a term
>> from group theory. I have to look it up every time.
>
>Now this is just ridiculous. "Symmetry" is a perfectly normal word that
>every literate English speaker is familiar with. "Moment" on the other
>hand is an obscure term from physics....
>
>Or not.

In this case, not. Wilson just means 'point in time'.

>Besides, everyone knows MOS stands for metal-oxide-semiconductor.

Oh No, you're right! I think that predates Erv's use by a decade
or more. It could be a major source of confusion!!!

>(I seem to recall a good deal of argument over the distinction between
>MOS and DE, or even if there was a distinction.

That was not an argument over which word should be used, it was
an argument over *what the concepts were*.

>In the meantime, those
>of us who just want to discuss tuning and these scales with two
>different sizes of steps in a particular arrangement are stuck
>without a word to call them, or go with something like "MOS/DE".

The problem here is that the concept is so important it was
discovered and named many different times, but each time a subtly
different definition was used. There's MOS, DE, Myhill's property,
well-formedness, maximally even, distributionally even, and more.
I have a paper (by Clough I think) which has got a table of all
these and the differences. But the net net is that the distinctions
are too subtle to matter in practice. As we come from Wilson more
than from Clough (and as Wilson was one of the first to talk about
this property), I think it fitting we just say "MOS".

Meanwhile Wilson, I'm pretty sure, would be appalled that anyone
should bother so much about it.

>I still don't
>know if that dispute was ever settled, so I still use "MOS/DE" if I'm
>being careful. Otherwise I go back to using MOS like I did before the
>confusion started.)

We decided on DES (DE Scales I think), and that's what Paul E.
used in the Middle Path paper. But it didn't stick, and everyone
still uses MOS. Which is as it should be (in my opinion).

-Carl

PS- I was being completely facetious in my original message.