<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace">Sorry, that list at the end should be "Little Place Whatever-stage", not "Little Bob Whatever-stage".</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Apr 9, 2017 at 9:38 AM, Don Morrison <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dfm@ringing.org" target="_blank">dfm@ringing.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_default"><span class=""><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">On Sun, Apr 9, 2017 at 2:29 AM, Robert Bennett <<a href="mailto:rbennett1729@gmail.com" target="_blank">rbennett1729@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">> As I understand the present rules, they are based on place notation.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">> If new rules were not based on places, what could they be based on?</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div></span><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">I believe that for many of us the problem is not that the choice of "rule" used for extension is the wrong one, and by implication, that all can be made well if we can just work out the right one. It is the whole notion that there is a single rule that works for everything. I don't think there is.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">A simple example is the debacle of Penultimus a few years ago. Undoubtedly a single rule that covered both Little bob and Penultimus could be devised which would solve this specific case. At which point another, slightly different one would rear its head for which that single, slightly more complicated rule didn't work. And on we'd go, round and round forever.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">For those who weren't following at the time, or don't remember:</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Bob extends to all even stages in a way that I believe nearly all ringers find obvious and intuitive. There are probably very few ringers who having been taught Little Bob Major and Little Bob Maximus will have trouble working out Little Bob Royal. The Central Council, in its wisdom, decided that all little methods should extend in the same way. In particular, that if in Mumble Little Whatever Somestage the treble hunts to Nths place, in Mumble Little Whatever Someotherstage the treble also must hunt to Nths place.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">In 1994 a little, plain method was rung and named Penultimus Little Court Maximus. The treble hunts to the penultimate place (11ths) and back again, all the working bells plain hunting throughout, except that the bell above the treble as it makes 11ths necessarily makes four blows behind. This has an obvious cognate at any other stage (>= 3, at least). But according to the Central Council none of them can be called can be called Penultimus Little Court Whatever-stage. Though a completely different treble to eleventh's place method at stages above maximus can, even though that is now a different kind of construction than Penultimus was intended to be (no longer penultimate)*.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">This highlights, in a simple way, the absurdity of thinking that one rule fits all. It is, I believe, clearly wrong to insist that Penuiltimus extends, or more to the point, contracts, according to the same rule as Little Bob. But similarly it would be absurd to say that Little Bob should extend according to the same rule as Penultimus (that would have Little Bob Royal being what we currently call Gainsborough Little Bob Royal and Little Bob Maximus being what we currently call Burford Little Bob Maximus, with what we currently call Little Bob having new names at Royal and Maximus). As mentioned above, I've no doubt some more complex rule for extending little methods could be devised that would encompass both these possibilities. But that would be the wrong solution, simply kicking the can down the road a little bit until the next absurdity presented itself.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">We really should accept that different families of methods extend in different ways. Devising a good, new family of methods, potentially with its own scheme of extension, can be at least as creative as devising a good, new method. Allowing only a single rule for extending methods flies in the face of the Council's own objective (clause 2.(iii) of its rules) "To encourage development of the art of ringing through innovation".</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">* Highlighting the absurdity of all this, the band that was interested in this family of methods rang and named the various contractions (each of which the Central Council insisted on having a distinct name) by a family resemblance-based set of names, which, painful as it is, does have a logic closely corresponding to the logic of how the Council insists methods contract, since the hunt bell gets littler and littler as the contraction proceeds:</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Penultimus Little Bob Cinques</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Little Penultimus Little Bob Royal</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Little Little Penultimus Little Bob Caters</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Little Little Little Penultimus Little Bob Major</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Little Little Little Little Penultimus Little Bob Triples</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Little Little Little Little Little Penultimus Little Bob Minor</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Little Little Little Little Little Little Little Penultimus Little Bob Doubles</font></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">-- </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">Don Morrison <<a href="mailto:dfm@ringing.org" target="_blank">dfm@ringing.org</a>></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace">"Logic could take you only so far, then you had to get out and hop."</font></div></font></span><span class=""><div class="gmail_default"><font face="courier new, monospace"> -- Terry Pratchett, _The Last Continent_</font></div><div style="font-family:"courier new",monospace"><br></div></span></div>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Don Morrison <<a href="mailto:dfm@ringing.org" target="_blank">dfm@ringing.org</a>><br>"After all these years I have observed that beauty, like happiness,<br>is frequent. A day does not pass when we are not, for an instant,<br>in paradise." <br> -- Jorge Luis Borges, _Los Conjurados_, tr Willis Barnstone<br></div>
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