Why I voted "Undecided"? (Tag separation/combination)

I proposed "822 - British Drama" with "British Drama". 822 is the Dewey number for "British Drama" (http://dewey.info/class/822/about.en). Currently 3 yes and 4 undecided.

Is it that books could be tagged "British Drama" because they are British plays, about British Drama or (e.g.) they are about breeding frogs but are kept in the "British Drama" box, where if a book is tagged with the Dewey number, it means something very specific?

Can only speak for myself. I vote undecided on such things because I don't know what the 822 stands for. You say Dewey, fine - probably, even very likely. But couldn't it possibly also mean something else? So many codes around internationally. Could, though unlikely in this case, also mean a year.

Won't actively vote against these things. But I'm undecided, so I vote accordingly.

Actually, 822 is the Dewey number for "English Drama" (I didn't read my own link!).

2>

There's one person using this tag, who also uses a number of similarly-constructed tags where the numbers also correspond to the Dewey classifications. So I think in this case it's 99% certain that that is, in fact, what the number is intended to refer to.

http://www.librarything.com/tags/BenAndShan

Yes. I think its likely that people will use the Dewey classification as a tag, even though there is a field for it.

In general, would we combine a Dewy classification tag with the description alone e.g. "181 - Eastern Philosophy" with "Eastern Philosophy"?

I'm favouring "No". It is like combining "This is a book mainly about/of Eastern Philosophy" with "This is a book that has something to do with Eastern Philosophy".

Good lord. This should be about creating good connections, not building some ivory tower of ultimate meaning.

Haven't actually voted yet, but I wonder why there's a separation proposal for "Karel V" and "karel v"?

Ah, sorry, forgot to post that one in the please vote against my suggestion thread.

I felt torn about voting "Undecided" for God - Biblical teaching and God - Biblical Teachings. I do, in fact, support their combination, but I've found it tough for future combinations to gain support when the proposed singular doesn't match the winningest plural or vice versa. For example, the combination of neighbourhood into neighborhoods is currently 7+ to 4-, even though "neighborhoods" contains "neighbordhood" and "Neighborhood" and "Neighboorhood." (see also my proposals for neighbour into "neighbors" and "Supersticiones into "superstition").

If I were craftier, I would temporarily fill up my library with the necessary singular or plural tag to change the winningest tag and thus get more support, haha, but that doesn't seem right. (I should probably just propose some separations). I imagine for the "God - Biblical teaching(s)" case, it won't matter too much, since it's rather specific and probably won't have too many future combo proposals, and again, I do support its combination, but I think it's something to think about when making both proposals and voting decisions.

I voted "Undecided" on combining viaggio into travel. I don't speak Italian, but if viaggio is like its Spanish cognate, viaje, in addition to the more conceptual "travel", it could also refer to a more concrete "trip", "journey", "voyage". The translation really depends on the context. But I didn't want to vote it down either, because in terms of classificatory tagging, it's probably more likely people are using it in the sense of "travel".

I do not know exactly how to use "travel" in English.

I can say that in Italian has many meanings, I hope to be able to explain:
- Simple movement from one place to another, by train, by plane, by car, also in the subway, but if it has a certain length, not too short.
- Short move, but with difficulty, for example, carrying in hands something heavy. If I bring all my books from one room to another, I will have to do a lot of "viaggi".
- Holiday
- Figuratively: "viaggio" with the imagination, the mind, the feelings
- With drugs
- Time travel
- It also can be used in relation with sound, light.

In Italian, "viaggio" does NOT make sense "to attend", "to join", "associated with".

10> I think you're being too picky. In English, travel can also mean trip, journey, or voyage, and even if there were some minor difference in usage between the languages I don't think that should be a barrier to combining.

11 > Thank you for the detailed explanation.

12 > I guess my follow-up question would be whether it would then be appropriate to combine "travel", "trip", "journey", and "voyage", and I'm guessing that those would end up getting voted down. I think what I fear happening is that "viaggio" will get combined with "travel", "viaje" with "journey", "vojaĝo" with "trip", "viatge" with "voyage", etc., and never shall they meet. I've seen that happen with other tags (e.g. "economia" redirects to "economics" and "economía" goes to "economy", and while those are both probably appropriate translations, "economia" and "economía" should probably have been together in the first place). This is already happening with some plurals: "viagens" is combined with "voyages" and "viaggi" is combined with "travel". Ok, I think I just convinced myself to vote "No" for now instead of "Undecided", haha.

Actually, I have a hard time figuring out how a travel book and a trip book would differ and may well vote to combine them. The same goes for journey, but voyage has a connotation of ocean travel.

Am I correct that the Italian word ebraico can mean either Hebrew or Jewish?

> 16

According to my Italian-English dictionary, you are correct.

The words Hebrew and Jewish don't always have a clear distinction in English, either. The modern usage is fairly distinct, but not always.

I hadn't known that about English, prosfilaes, though I wouldn't use that as a reason to combine Hebrew and Jewish, of course. I am concerned with whether the Italian distinction is less used or nonexistent.

I did some more digging, and the last part of the last paragraph of this section of an Italian Wikipedia article seems to indicate that the terms ebrei and giudei or ebraismo and giudaismo became inexact synonyms, while also noting that other languages make a clearer lexical distinction between the language (Hebrew) and the people/religion (Jewish). This seems to be confirmed by the English Wikipedia article on Hebrews which mentions its use in Italian specifically, amongst other languages.

Anyway, it's probably clear by now that I'm voting no on ebraico.

Does it matter that the only two members using the tag are using it exclusively to mean the Hebrew language?

20 >
I had noticed that too. I interpret that to mean "there aren't yet many Italian taggers." There will eventually be more. And I fear that future ones will use 'ebraico' to mean 'Jewish'. (Part of my fear, yes, may stem from how unnecessarily difficult I believe tag separation is to achieve currently.)

Not sure if "100" should really be combined with anything. Seems to me it could just as easily be a Dewey sign as the number. It is however, a fairly eclectic tag.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/100

It's definitely different from ".100", at least it was when I took math!

I think it most likely that "psychological suspense defective fiction" is a typo and that it should be combined, but I'm posting it here because either way, it's amusing.
http://www.librarything.com/tag/psychological+suspense+defective+fiction

Possibly. But I'm still interested to know how you managed to track your own proposals ;-)

Thanks. Learn something new every day ;-)

I did? Please look at http://www.librarything.com/tag/Brazilian+art for that one. But, seriously, sometimes proposals go wrong. I even voted against that one myself. Maybe I should have posted in the "please vote against my bonehead suggestion", only I wasn't aware I was the one who apparently suggested this combination. Was I drunk (okay, possible), or did something on LT go wrong (also possible)?

There are a couple of combinations suggested for "Nachslagewerk" with "reference" and variations, and it has already been combined with other similar tags. Not sure if this correct. The Swedish word, and my dictionary implies that it is an exact translation, at least implies a sort of dictionary or lexicon: something you go to look things up in, where they are arranged alphabetically, while it seems that "Reference works" could be somewhat more coherent, like handbooks, or have some other ordering. Perhaps someone more proficient in German can confirm this?

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Nachschlagewerk

I'm not sure where the difference lies between 'reference' and 'reference book', but let's NOT combine the German with a misspelled 'refrence'.

Ok, I see what's going on: it has nothing to do with the German. That is the winning label for the 'reference book' tag. So if misspellings are combined, it would make sense to combine the misspelled tag there. The real question is whether 'reference' and 'reference book' should be combined.

For what it's worth 'Nachschlagen' is to look something up - in a Nachschlagewerk.

The Wikipedia pages in English and German seem to indicate that these are books you only look things up in, and don't read through from cover to cover. But I've been reading encyclopedias as long as I can remember, so I'm not a good person to judge these things.

No problem. Yes, I do see I suggested that separation - must have been some slip of the mouse. (I really have voted against the proposal myself though).

I don't think we even actually can separate tags that only have capitalization differences. I'm not 100% sure though.

Just posting this to get people to think about it properly, and not just assume this is a simple case of singular/plural:

Isle of Man Railway is the name of one of the three railways on the Isle of Man (the other two being the Manx Electric Railway and the Snaefell Mountain Railway), and it seems every use of the tag at present is referring to this.

This is somewhat complicated by the fact that the Isle of Man Railway is one of the Isle of Man Railways, and the tag "Isle of Man Railway" could in theory be used as a generic term to describe any railway on the Isle of Man. To make matters worse, "Isle of Man Railways" is currently only used on one book, which is also about the Isle of Man Railway.

It's an awkward situation where the tags have different meanings but where anything that is used for one will automatically be viable for the other. As such I have voted undecided.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/Isle+of+Man+Railway

It is pretty clear that the one book tagged Isle of Man Railways refers to the single version of the tag, as the book is about steam locomotives and the two other IOM railway are electrically operated. That being said, there is only one book so tagged, so the tag itself is a rare one, and not a mispelling. I frequently do not propose single use tags for combinations, as I don't think they add a whole lot of value to book information, unless all versions of the tag are really infrequent. But I did vote for the combo, as the difference between plural and singular seems too subtle to worry about.

It is also interesting that the Isle of Man Railway and the Manx Electric Railway are linked by a fourth "railway", namely The Douglas Horse Tramway, which runs on rails just like the other 3 mentioned.

The tag "Belletristik" (https://www.librarything.com/tag/Belletristik) includes Belles-lettres in it at present, which would want combining with "Belles Lettres" (https://www.librarything.com/tag/Belles+Lettres). I'm not familiar with either term, so looked both up.

From the wikipedia pages, it doesn't look like they are the same thing - indeed the pages seem to be specifically stating that they aren't.

On the other hand, as stated I'm not familiar with either term so it could just be my misinterpretation (or a misleading wikipedia article), and I don't want to vote no if that's the case, and I want to say something as if they don't want to be together there will need to be separations made from the existing tag.

Is anyone able to elucidate this?

The wikipedia pages in question: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belletristik and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belles-lettres

Reread can be telling oneself to reread something, or past tense saying that the thing has been reread.

Can rileggere be used for both of these things? I don't know any Italian so I don't know myself.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/Rileggere

Finnish speakers: äitiys is currently up for combination with maternity. The latter is mostly on books about pregnancy, giving birth, etc. (not much about the later years of raising kids, etc.). I know in Spanish, maternidad could mean both maternity and motherhood. I wonder if äitiys might be better suited for combination with motherhood (or not quite either)?

I'll leave it to German speakers to decide whether Wissenschaften and science ought to be combined, but I've previously understood that German "Wissenschaften" was broad enough in meaning to include the humanities, which aren't normally called "sciences" in modern English.

That's why I voted 'no'.

41 & 42
I wasn't sure about this, so still have it as not voted upon.

Some of the books in Wissenschaften

https://www.librarything.com/work/11854229 - The Medieval history of the Arabs

https://www.librarything.com/work/7959119/editions-The History of Reading

http://www.librarything.com/tag/The+Lord+of+the+Rings+Vol.+1 would combine The Fellowship of the Ring with http://www.librarything.com/tag/Lord+of+the+Rings+%231 The Hobbit

http://www.librarything.com/tag/The+Lord+of+the+Rings+2 combines usage on the book with http://www.librarything.com/tag/Lord+of+the+Rings+Trilogy+%23+2 usage on the movie. Actually, the former contains other tags that specifically mention "book", so I'll probably change my vote to no to be consistent with my other no-votes on the "LOTR #N" with "LOTR book N" combos.

I'm not sure about this, but it looks possible that Feelings - Character is used for books about moral character (including nonfiction), while character feelings is used for fiction that emphasises the feelings of its characters.

My understanding is that French "histoire" can mean "story" as well as "history". However, I'm not sure whether it would be used with that meaning as a single-word tag, so I've voted Undecided.

I think histoire in French is pretty much history. English sometimes uses story to mean history, as in Van Loon's Story of Mankind. This book has been translated into French and, Spanish and German. See this list of editions: https://www.librarything.com/work/58747/editions . I think the English word history is sometimes not used for popularizations of history, but work ok in other languages. I don't that is enough to not want to combine. But on the other hand, histoire and l'histoire are not really commonly used. By the way, 'short story' in French is frequently translated as nouvelle, but occasionally as histoire courte.

>48 vpfluke: Thanks, that's interesting.

What's Russian for electronica? As электроника would be a direct transliteration of the English.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/%D1%8D%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD...

Why is paranormal-vamp proposed for combination with paranormal-vampires and not with Vampire Paranormal (which already includes paranormal-vampire)?

I'd be happy for all three tags to be combined, as I don't mind combining singulars and plurals where there isn't a visible difference in usage. But most voters seem to disagree with me about that, and if "vamp" can only be combined with "vampires" or "vampire" I don't know why it should be the former.

>51 Edward: I would call that a full 'no'. Vamp has other meanings besides being short for vampire.

>51 Edward: well paranormal-vampire is singular. Shouldn't be with paranormal-vampires anyway.

>50 kuuderes_shadow: Some words are really that close - in this case because it comes from Greek into both languages. электроника is the correct word in Russian for Electronics (the science) :). Looking at this tag, all of those books are about the science.

Electronika/Elektronica/Электроника is also a Soviet brand name for calculators and similar things (the Latin names are transliteration of the Russian one and not the other way around). None of the tagged books are for it though so I would not think of it...

In English, read in 2015 could mean "[this was] read in 2015" or "[to] read in 2015". Wiktionary defines luettu as the Finnish past passive participle of a verb meaning "to read", which suggests that luettu 2015 could only have the past meaning.

I'm voting Undecided as I can't read Finnish, and it's possible that the English tag is rarely used with the future meaning anyway.

According to Wikipedia there is a Saint Bridget of Sweden as well as a Saint Brigit/Brigid of Kildare, Ireland. At least some books tagged St. Bridget seem to be about the Irish saint, but is this tag really equivalent to Saint Brigit?

>56 Edward:

See http://www.librarything.com/topic/223816#5787259

Regarding the proposal to combine metaphysis and metaphysics: the "metaphysis" tag is used only for Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy, so I suspect it is a typo for "metaphysics" in this case. However, the OED defines "metaphysis" as (a) part of a bone, or (b) an obsolete word for transformation or metaphorphosis. I'm hesitant to combine a tag against the dictionary meaning based on a single apparent usage.

Can Théologie évangélique mean "Gospel theology"/"theology of the Biblical Gospels" rather than Evangelical theology? The only book with the French tag is the proceedings of a conference about the Gospel of John, organised by two Catholic universities.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/Dresden+files+%23+3

I've got a strange thought going here.
There's the TV show, so saying Book with non book is a no to me. There's also discussion of continuing the TV show.
There's discussion of a possible movie, or several movies.

So I want to say no to combining just the number and the book #. (Which also means I'd need to separate these.)

Opinions?

>60 gilroy:

I generally vote "no" on those combinations if I know there is a film or TV series based on the books. If I'm not sure, I vote "undecided".

Regarding Hudson River Valley (N.Y and N.J.) and Hudson River Valley, there is also a Hudson River in the US state of Georgia (Wikipedia). Is the NY-NJ river so much better known that the name would always refer to it unless otherwise specified?

>62 Edward: I would say yes (as someone who briefly lived near that part of Georgia and must have crossed over that river a dozen times without noticing). Even the photo on the Google Maps page for Hudson River, Georgia has the NYC skyline in it.

Regardless of that, the river in Georgia is not in a valley so I think any tag with the word "valley" in it is definitely safe to combine.

>62 Edward:

I wouldn't combine them. The Hudson River Valley Heritage Area is in New York State only.

>62 Edward: Let me point out that Hudson River Valley already includes Hudson River Valley (NY and NJ) and a number of other such tags.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/Brossura is up for combination with
https://www.librarything.com/tag/paperback
When Googling for "Brossura", I came upon its Italian Wikipedia page which, in the Other Languages section, links to the hardback page on English Wikipedia. But some other sources seem to translate Brossura as paperback, so I'm not sure. I wonder if perhaps it's a type of binding that doesn't quite overlap with the English divisions, or if we're before some of other kind of taxonomical difference. Or maybe Wikipedia's just wrong?

>66 omargosh:

The Italian Wikipedia article describes "brossura" as a binding with a cover of paper or cardboard, which sounds more like our "paperback".

>67 lilithcat: It sounds to me more like neither paperback or hardback. Most hardback books I have have covers of paper-covered cardboard.

I thought searching for images of "brossura" might help, but the top images in Google seem to be focusing on the attachment of the pages near the spine area, not the relative thickness of the cover, so I'm wondering if it means neither paperback nor hardback and is referring to something else.

>68 prosfilaes:

Of course, you're right. I was thinking of the thin cardboard, not book board.

>69 omargosh:

Just did an image search, too, and I see that the images used are both paperbacks and hardcovers.

I don't know if this helps, but the cardboard ("cartoncino") in the Italian Wikipedia article refers to thin cardboard or cardstock (it literally means "little cardboard"). The thick cardboard used in a hardcover would be "cartone." "Brossura" in Italian typically refers to a paperback, as opposed to "cartonato" or "rilegato," which would be hardcover. I'm not sure why it's linked to the hardcover Wikipedia article in English. Here is a link with a picture comparison: https://www.webnauta.it/wordpress/le-parti-del-libro/

>71 mmseiple:

That does help. And that link also describes it as having a "copertina morbida" which would be our "softcover".

http://www.librarything.com/tag/advice+collum

I just want to say that I misread that as "advice gollum", which . . I would certainly read a few of.

(There's no topic for "combinations: odd thoughts that have nothing to do with voting". Is there?)

There's no topic for "combinations: odd thoughts that have nothing to do with voting". Is there?

Not that I know of. But you could start one!

I don't read German, but Wiktionary suggests that the nouns in Mütter und Töchter are plural. If this is correct, wouldn't it be better combined with mothers and daughters than mother-daughter? (Combination.)

>76 lilithcat:

I think you are right. It appears that the umlaut makes all the difference.

> 75: That is correct

I've voted Undecided on the proposal to combine questions and answers with QandA (proposal page).

The tags questions and answers and question and answer are currently separate, and I suspect any proposal to combine them would fail. If they are going to be separate, I don't see any way to decide that QandA should be combined with one and not the other.

"The Graphic Hovel" was the name of a store opened by Homer and Bart Simpson in an episode of the TV show. However, the tag is used just once, for Sandman Midnight Theatre (which I haven't read).

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Graphic+Hovel#combinations

So, actual use is clearly a typo, but the typo'd phrase has its own meaning. Argh!

(Also, now I kind of want to refer to my own place as a graphic hovel.)

Lex Luther is at least sometimes a misspelling of Superman's enemy Lex Luthor. However, there are about 15 books tagged "Lex Luther" that don't seem related to Superman – are we sure there isn't a character actually called Lex Luther? (Combination proposal)

>80 Edward:

Combination proposal is here: https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Lex+Luther#combinations

>81 lilithcat: Thanks. I've corrected the link in #80.

>80 Edward: The member who most uses Lex Luther also has several other name tags that don't seem to be related to book content.

https://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=SRReaders&tag=Lex+Luther&c...

All books entered from Sept 2012 to Feb 2013. My best guess is that this was a teacher's attempt to keep track of class reading.

Books certainly have nothing to do with Lex Luthor.

>83 MarthaJeanne: Good detective work. I've changed my vote to No.

>83 MarthaJeanne: I *really* hope it's a teacher with a pupil named Lex Luther!

There seem to be various buildings called Plymouth Theatre or Plymouth Theater. I can't tell whether the tags are being used for same building or not. (Combination proposal)

>86 Edward:

They're the same building. The only items tagged "Plymouth Theater" are reviews of a 1974 production of Equus, which was at the Plymouth Theatre in NYC in 1974 (it's now the Schoenfeld Theatre). Both reviews are by New York theater critics.

>87 lilithcat: Thanks! Happy to vote Yes on this one, then.

>87 lilithcat: Thank you. This is why we sometimes need explanations. Voted yes now.

I've added >87 lilithcat: to the combination page: https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Plymouth+Theatre#combinations

There's a proposal to combine works of art and oeuvres d'art. However, the English tags works of art and artworks aren't combined, and I wonder if this is because the former might be considered as implying a positive evaluation? If we're distinguishing the two English terms, it isn't clear to me which of them corresponds with the French.

Proposal for tag Karikaturen to be combined into political cartoons

My German is non-existent, but Google Translate says "karikaturen" is "cartoons", not specifically "political cartoons".

Would a German-speaker please clarify?

>92 lilithcat: Pretty sure it's not just political cartoons, but any caricature cartoon, usually any public figure can be drawn in such a way. But perhaps German speaking people will correct me, mine German is basic and we just imported their word, perhaps widening the denotation in the process

>93 SandraArdnas:

Thanks, that helps!

>92 lilithcat:
Originally a Karikatur is a picture where you exaggerate features of a person. So if a person has big ears or bushy eyebrows, you draw them even bigger than they are. Which results in a cartoonish style.
The word is also used for a one picture comic where people are drawn in that way. Those are political, mostly satire. But the style is important. You can always recognize the persons. If they are just random figures, I would call it comic or cartoon.