Talk:anticlinal

RFC discussion: July 2013–August 2017

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

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anticlinal

rfc-sense: "In a spine, the anticlinal vertebra has a dorsal-pointing neural spine towards which the spines of all the other vertebrae are inclined." While this may be true, it provides no definition of the word 'anticlinal'. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:54, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I've had a go at this. It now reads "The spinal vertebra which has a neural spine towards which the spines of all the other vertebrae are inclined; the vertebra at which the spine orientation changes." I think that about captures it but feel free to improve. SpinningSpark 11:32, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I think images would help both a user and a definer. This is not the only sense that needs cleanup. DCDuring TALK 14:07, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

MW 1913 has as a run-in entry: "Anticlinal vertebra (Anat.), one of the dorsal vertebræ, which in many animals has an upright spine toward which the spines of the neighboring vertebræ are inclined"

MWOnline has a definition for this behind its paywall.

They seem to think that the sense has no use apart from this particular collocation. They don't seem to think it can be readily understood from the other definitions of anticlinal either, a conclusion I don't find hard to accept. DCDuring TALK 22:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree that we should move the anatomical sense to anticlinal vertebra and change it back to a noun. As for a diagram, it could be marked on this picture. Apparently, the human anticlinal vertebra is usually at T11 (eleventh from the top of the thoracic vertebrae). However, it is not clear from this picture, or any other diagrams or photographs of spines I have looked at, why it is anticlinal. This only really becomes clear when looking at images of individual vertebrae such as [1] (note this is cat, not human). That book also calls the neural spines neural processes which might be a good idea for our definition, avoiding as it does the use of spine in two different senses. In my view, the best way of describing this with an image would be with a stick diagram so all superfluous information could be removed. I can produce one if it is agreed that it is needed. I would propose to draw it flat (ie, with no spinal curve) to avoid the natural tendency of the reader to think that it has something to do with the curve by comparison with the geological meaning. SpinningSpark 10:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Your approach seems right. Keep up the good work. In my short-attention-span way, I added images to two of the linked entries, (chemistry) torsion angle (not too good because concept is 3-D, video would help) and (geology) anticline (perfect for the job) and didn't immediately find what would be needed for anticlinal vertebra.

If you can produce an image by whatever (legal) means and enjoy doing so, there are many opportunities to do so. I hope you upload to wikicommons so that the most advantage can be taken from your efforts.

We have conflated {{rfphoto}} and {{rfdrawing}} into {{rfimage}}. Either we ought to use the Wikicommmons request process more when we can't find what we need or we should have some kind of explicit request template for new images that suit our purposes when nothing seems to be available at Commons. DCDuring TALK 12:59, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Wait a minute. By my reading of your linked text. One can't have an anticlinal vertebra without curvature, which curvature is most intuitive in a quadruped with a basically horizontal spine. One could presumably have a synclinal vertebra, too. On a sway-backed animal the geological metaphor is obvious. DCDuring TALK 13:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

No, that's not right. I thought the same thing too when I first saw the term but the anatomy books say different. It has nothing to do with the curve of the spine. It is all about the spines (processes, protusions, or, as I will call them to make it clear, sticky-out-bits) of the vertebra. The upper vertebrae have sticky-out-bits pointing towards the rear of the animal. The lower vertebrae have sticky-out-bits pointing towards the head. The vertebra at the transition between the two, that is, the one with a sticky-out-bit perpendicular to the spine, is the anticlinal vertebra. It is not the curve of the spine which makes the sticky-out-bits point in different directions, each vertebra individually has them set at different angles relative to the body of the vertebra, and hence the local line of the spine. This book [2] (dog) maybe has a better description and this one [3] (horse) has a pretty clear photograph at figure 1.7 of what is going on. SpinningSpark 15:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I take your point. But it is not accidental that the low point in a swaybacked animal (See picture there.) — or a youthful, vigorous animal —is approximately the location of the anticlinal vertabra. From the point of view of sense development, they must originally have focused on the superficial geometry, before focusing on the detailed geometry of the vertabrae, which allows them to define a location even on a young, healthy animal without the sway that makes the location easy to identify in middle-aged and older animals and even on animals whose spine is more or less vertical. DCDuring TALK 15:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I doubt that you can substantiate that assumption with cites. Or can you? The oldest quote that I can find for the term is 1818 where it is still being defined in terms of the slope of the spinous processes. It may coincidentally coincide at the bottom of the curve in horses, but that is certainly not true in human anatomy and probably many other mammmals. This anatomy book [4] (1898) explicitly states that the term is borrowed from geology, but still has a definition in terms of spine slopes:

"This process marks the point where a change in the direction of the spinous processes takes place ; the spinous processes of the remaining thoracic and of all the lumbar vertebrae point toward the head. The eleventh thoracic is therefore known as the anticlinal vertebra, a. term borrowed from geology, in which it is used to denote the line from which strata dip in opposite directions."

I would also point out that even the geological senses of syncline and anticline did not originate from the curve of rockbeds. Rather, they originated from what could be deduced about the (often unobservable) shape of beds from measurements made with a clinometer at discrete sites where the beds happened to outcrop. SpinningSpark 18:51, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't have access to the OED so I don't know what the sequence of sense development was across disciplines. I am not proposing to define anything in line with my intuitions, just to make sure that the metaphorical imagery is not trashed in the course of our efforts. Please forgive my conjectural folk etymology in pursuit of understanding. DCDuring TALK 19:21, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

The OED is consistent with my understanding of the geological origin of the term. The etymology is given as,

Greek ἀντί against + κλίν-ειν to lean, slope + -al suffix1. Compare Greek ἀντικλίν-ειν to lean against (each other)

The geological meaning is given as,

Applied to a line or axis from which strata slope down or dip in opposite directions; also said of the fold or bend in such strata, or of a ridge so formed.

And the anatomical meaning as,

(A vertebra) having an upright spine, towards which the spines on both sides incline.

SpinningSpark 09:04, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, here is the diagram. I am going to create anticlincal vertebra now. SpinningSpark 13:22, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Diagram looks good. BTW, does a human have an anticlinal vertabra? DCDuring TALK 21:45, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

See Talk:anticlinal vertebra. DCDuring TALK 22:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Antonyms or coordinate terms

By the way, why do you think that anticline and syncline are not antonyms? SpinningSpark 09:04, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

re: antonyms: Because they are merely different features of a whole, one not existing without the other, like sinus and lobe on a leaf. It isn't entirely a question of what they "are" as much as how we present them. It is no accident that few dictionaries ever have antonyms, though many have synonyms. If we took the trouble to say "antonym with respect to [attribute 1]" explicitly for our antonyms or limit ourselves to "customary antonyms", we might make antonyms a more useful semantic relation. Synonyms usually do not suffer from the same problem. "Coordinate terms" is a more inclusive class, that, for example, permits terms for intermediate points in a scalar range, without squandering vertical screen space on a semantic relation (antonymy) that typically has but one member. DCDuring TALK 12:43, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I cannot agree with that reasoning. An antonym can be preceded by a sense, as is done at good. However, in this case the two meanings are "leaning towards" and "leaning away from" which is quite unambiguous. Those are antonyms in just about the same way as convex and concave which we have no problem calling antonyms. Calling them coordinate terms instead completely loses the semantic relationship. The claim that anticlines and synclines must exist together is just plain wrong. The geology of England more or less consists of one giant syncline (with London at the bottom) with no corresponding anticline. It is true that in folded beds they commonly occur together but there is no compulsion that they must. SpinningSpark 13:22, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I have problems with almost all uses of the term antonym here. I can't speak for others here.

My main problem is that the terms that we slide under the heading do not bear the same relationship to their purported antonyms. DCDuring TALK 16:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I really feel that this ought to be put to the community before going round arbitrarily removing antonym listings. In any case, changing the heading to coordinate term is rubbish, it completely loses the sense that the terms are in opposition. SpinningSpark 20:50, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

An alternative heading that we have is "See also", truly a "residual" category if ever there was one. DCDuring TALK 21:24, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Just because we have an even worse heading available does not justify a bad one. SpinningSpark 11:31, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

• Looks good now --New WT User Girl (talk) 10:32, 27 August 2017 (UTC)