I hate to make a comment just to be pedantic with a definition, but it honestly confused me the first time you used the word “dichotomy” in this post to refer to a division into three, rather than two, categories, and then disturbed me every subsequent time. It’s possible that this is informed by my training in biological taxonomy, where we also use the contrasting word “polytomy”, meaning a division into more than two parts. In this case, you could use the less common “trichotomy”, meaning division in exactly three, including the same nuance as “dichotomy” that the division is absolute and idealized. Alternatively, “taxonomy”, “classification”, “categorization”.
Despite those three moments of confusion, I really enjoyed the post; more so because I had not previously seen the original.
You are both pedantic and correct. Despite the prefix “di” being right there, I had not until today realized that dichotomy would mean exactly two, or that obviously other words would exist for other numbers. I’ve replaced it with “taxonomy” which scans about the same, since I suspect I would not be the only one to not know trichotomy on the first reading. Thank you!
I hate to make a comment just to be pedantic with a definition, but it honestly confused me the first time you used the word “dichotomy” in this post to refer to a division into three, rather than two, categories, and then disturbed me every subsequent time. It’s possible that this is informed by my training in biological taxonomy, where we also use the contrasting word “polytomy”, meaning a division into more than two parts. In this case, you could use the less common “trichotomy”, meaning division in exactly three, including the same nuance as “dichotomy” that the division is absolute and idealized. Alternatively, “taxonomy”, “classification”, “categorization”.
Despite those three moments of confusion, I really enjoyed the post; more so because I had not previously seen the original.
You are both pedantic and correct. Despite the prefix “di” being right there, I had not until today realized that dichotomy would mean exactly two, or that obviously other words would exist for other numbers. I’ve replaced it with “taxonomy” which scans about the same, since I suspect I would not be the only one to not know trichotomy on the first reading. Thank you!