Talk:Minor

US education
Need to have a definition for the use of the word minor in US higher education. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.72.109.215 (talk) 00:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Academic minor datese from more than three years ago (first 2010 version). I think it does belong down there in section Other (cf. Majors) rather than in the lead where we have list it now. --P64 (talk) 22:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation of minor and major
wiktionary: minor lead covers law and US education -6 1 Mathematics 2 Surname -1 3 Sports -4 4 Vehicles 5 Geography -2 6 Arts and culture -5 7 Biology -3 8 Other 9 See also Major (disambiguation)
 * Contents, Minor

wiktionary:major lead makes the military rank WP:PRIMARYTOPIC 1 Music -5 2 People -1 3 Places -2 4 Species -3 5 Sport -4 5.1 Golf 5.1.1 Men 5.1.2 Women 5.2 Tennis 5.3 Other sports 6 Other -6 7 See also Maior, Majorat, Majority, Mayor, Minor
 * Contents, Major (disambiguation)

Observations 7. analogy to Majorat suggests See also Minorca and Majorca
 * 1) Surnames are a subset of People
 * 2) Geography contains Places
 * 3) Biology is here identical to Species —namely, template SpeciesAbbreviation
 * 4) Sports is identical to Sport
 * 5) Arts and culture contains Music
 * 6) law and US education are in Major#Other

Do style guidelines urge any changes here/left or there/right?

Offhand I would expect Minor (law) as primary topic, covered alone in "section 0", with academic minor and Minor v. Happersett relegated to Other.

Offhand I would expect the contellations Ursa minor and Ursa major to be here, as Other, same as the Vehicles which are three automobile brands of the form X Minor.

--P64 (talk) 22:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I made several revisions in both pages, extending only the See also sections which are now quite similar. My revisions changed the Table of Contents only here (illustrated above left), making it similar to the other (above right).
 * --P64 (talk) 23:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Revisiting a 2010 version
The first 2010 version, for instance, includes the observation (quote) --followed by some people called "X Minor". I agree with deletion of those names but it makes sense to include this observation, probably in section People. At Majors we now say That is similar, perhaps derived from the Roman practice. It seems appropriate, although in section People rather than Other.
 * Roman children repeated the names of the parents or the elder siblings, and minor refers to the next one.
 * Major, an older sibling, when two British Public school students have the same surname

The first 2010 version also leads with the etymological observation (quote) Something like that seems appropriate to me for it lends unity to many of the entries.
 * Minor means "not important", and in Latin "smaller". It may also may refer to an underage child and:

--P64 (talk) 22:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Music
My revisions (, both pages) eliminated section 6 Arts and culture because I promoted Minor (music) to the shared lead --in place of a US legal case-- and relegated the other, obscure Arts and culture entries along with the legal case to section Other. --P64 (talk) 23:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)