There’s a project that I and collaborators have been working on for a fairly long time now. It is almost finished, at least the first stage of it, and I will have more to say about it once we have posted the paper on the arXiv. In the meantime, though, there is a very important question that we need to consider.
Would it be well received in the community if we referred to a certain class of sets appearing in the paper as “non-parasitic lampreys”?
For all we know, the community does not currently harbour any particular feelings towards such sets. They have come up in a couple of places over the years, but their possible parasitic behaviour has not really been investigated until now. We can prove that certain particular lampreys of interest are indeed non-parasitic, which is good for us. By way of contrast, “eels” are somewhat more straightforward than lampreys. That makes them easy to manage when they’re small, but otherwise they’re still troublemakers.
This would be a radical departure from the naming conventions established in, say, physics or algebraic geometry. While those of course abound in colourful vocabulary, much of it refers to various forms of enchantment, awe, amazement, pleasure and wonder, not necessarily the feelings that lampreys tend to inspire. But… our unofficial terminology fits so nicely, I’d be quite reluctant to part with it.
What do you think?
