Editing 2518: Lumpers and Splitters

{{comic
| number    = 2518
| date      = September 20, 2021
| title     = Lumpers and Splitters
| image     = lumpers_and_splitters.png
| titletext = Anna Karenina is a happy family lumper and unhappy family splitter.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CATEGORIZATION META-PEDANT CHUNGUS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
It is common to categorize groups of people into certain categories. "Lumpers" lump what might at first seem to be distinct categories of people into the same categories, while "Splitters" do the opposite: split what seems to be a cohesive group of people into smaller categories. The comic itself categorizes [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] into those two types of categorizers. [[Megan]] describes herself and [[Cueball]] as as both being categorization pedants, lumping the two distinct categories of people into one, while [[Cueball]] subcategorizes [[Megan]] into a specific type of lumper: a meta-lumper, since the people Megan was categorizing were themselves lumpers.

The opening line of the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy reads, “ Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In the title text, Randall is drawing a parallel between this line and the lumper/splitter distinction because the line talks about a group of things being similar (happy families) and another group being different (unhappy families).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan and Cueball are shown with labels below them saying "Lumper" and "Splitter", respectively]
:[Megan]: Really, we're both just categorization pedants.
:[Cueball]: Ahh, so you're a ''meta''-lumper.

:[Caption below frame:]
:Anna Karenina is a happy family lumper and unhappy family splitter.

{{comic discussion}}
@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-It is common to separate groups of things — species, people, languages, software models, etc. — into {{w|Lumpers_and_splitters|categories}}, but different people may do this in different ways. "Lumpers" work from the ground up by focusing on similarities among individual things to create larger categories, while "splitters" do the opposite, taking larger categories and trying to find characteristics that are not shared by all members of the group to further divide them into smaller subsets.
+{{incomplete|Created by a CATEGORIZATION META-PEDANT CHUNGUS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
+It is common to categorize groups of people into certain categories. "Lumpers" lump what might at first seem to be distinct categories of people into the same categories, while "Splitters" do the opposite: split what seems to be a cohesive group of people into smaller categories. The comic itself categorizes [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] into those two types of categorizers. [[Megan]] describes herself and [[Cueball]] as as both being categorization pedants, lumping the two distinct categories of people into one, while [[Cueball]] subcategorizes [[Megan]] into a specific type of lumper: a meta-lumper, since the people Megan was categorizing were themselves lumpers.
-The comic points out the {{w|meta}}-ness of categorizing people based on how they categorize. It labels [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] as those two types of categorizers. Megan, the lumper, describes herself and Cueball as both being "categorization pedants", lumping the two distinct categories "lumpers" and "splitters" into one. Cueball, the splitter, subcategorizes Megan into a more specific type of lumper: a "meta-lumper"—since the things Megan was lumping includes lumpers themselves—thereby splitting off lumpers from meta-lumpers. If Cueball further categorized himself he would be a meta-splitter.
+The opening line of the novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy reads, “ Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In the title text, Randall is drawing a parallel between this line and the lumper/splitter distinction because the line talks about a group of things being similar (happy families) and another group being different (unhappy families).
-The title text references the opening line of the novel ''{{w|Anna Karenina}}'' by Leo Tolstoy, which reads (as translated into English), "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Randall is drawing a parallel between this line and the lumper/splitter distinction because the line lumps one group of things (happy families) while splitting another group (unhappy families).
-Additionally, this may be a reference to the podcast episode "Lingthusiasm Episode 60: That's the kind of episode it's - clitics" [https://lingthusiasm.com/post/662535562508517376/lingthusiasm-episode-60-thats-the-kind-of], published a few days before the comic, wherein the hosts separate people into lumpers and splitters of clitics.
 ==Transcript==
-:[Megan and Cueball are standing looking at each other. There are boxes beneath each of them with a label.]
+{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
-:Megan: Really, we're both just categorization pedants.
+:[Megan and Cueball are shown with labels below them saying "Lumper" and "Splitter", respectively]
-:Label: Lumper
+:[Megan]: Really, we're both just categorization pedants.
+:[Cueball]: Ahh, so you're a ''meta''-lumper.
-:Cueball: Ahh, so you're a '''''meta'''''-lumper.
+:[Caption below frame:]
-:Label: Splitter
+:Anna Karenina is a happy family lumper and unhappy family splitter.
 {{comic discussion}}
-[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
-[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
-[[Category:Language]]
-[[Category:Fiction]] <!--Title text ref of book-->
-[[Category:Pedantic]]