Corrections and disputed points

This page records every correction the Brennholt Institute of Applied Taxonomy has made to its published work, and every objection to that work which remains unresolved. Corrections are listed with the date of the error and the date of the correction. Nothing is removed from this page once it is entered, including entries whose subject has since been settled.

The Institute's position is that a classification body with no correction page is either new or not recording. Cormac Brindlecott has written that the page is the only one on the site he considers finished.

Corrections made

DateCorrectionStatus
14 Dec 2024One chapter of Towards a Normal Classification withdrawn by the author. The book is sold incomplete and the chapter has not been reinstated.Closed, chapter not restored
7 Mar 2025Register entry R-009, plastic cable clip, withdrawn: a trade size table published in 1991 had been missed at step one of the method.Closed
22 Jul 202541 units originally counted in the paperclip series were found to have been recorded before the discard rule was fixed. The series total was restated from 1,241 to 1,200.Closed
3 Nov 2025Two class bands in the published gauge scale did not meet at the boundary, leaving a gap between 0.97 mm and 0.98 mm unassigned. The bands were restated.Closed
19 Jan 2026The globe condition scale was published with G-5 described as a degree of damage. The description was corrected to a state.Closed
11 May 2026Population shares for the paperclip series were printed with a total of 100.1 per cent in two issues of the Bulletin through independent rounding. The figures were left unchanged and the rounding method was published instead.Closed, figures unrevised

Objections that remain unresolved

The BR-03 / BR-04 boundary. Raised by a correspondent in 2025. The 0.97 mm to 0.98 mm cut falls inside the tolerance band of ordinary drawing wire, so a single product may fall either side of it depending on which unit is measured. Brindlecott maintains the boundary on the grounds that the observed population is bimodal within the gap. He has not published the histogram, and until he does the objection cannot be tested. The Institute records the objection as open and the answer as unsupported.

BR-07, the empty class. Raised by the Institute's review panel on 3 March 2026. A class with no members is not a class; the range limit should be published as a note rather than as a seventh class. Brindlecott declined. The panel has not withdrawn the note. Open.

The 1968 terminus. Raised by the review panel, same note. Sleeved and coated forms in production after 1968 are changes of the object, not of its surface, and the register's own WF-8 line contradicts the claimed terminus. Brindlecott's answer was that a sleeve is not a bend. Open.

Sample provenance. Raised by the review panel, same note. The 1,200 paperclips were drawn from administrative stock in a single region, which cannot support population shares quoted to one decimal place. Brindlecott has not revised the figures. Open, and the Institute regards this as the most substantial objection on the page.

Register entry R-031. Raised by the review panel, same note. The office elastic band fails the observability criterion, since its classifying properties require destructive testing. Brindlecott holds cross-section and free length to be sufficient. The entry is held open under protest. Open.

Type ST-7. Raised by the review panel, same note. A typology of stands is a typology of contacts and cannot absorb a suspended sphere. Open.

The null case. Raised by the review panel, same note. Four of the five conditions of standardisation are not testable, so the framework explains every absence equally well. Brindlecott accepted the description and did not act on it. Open.

External review. Standing objection of the review panel. A four-person body that reviews its own work is not peer-reviewed, and publishing objections alongside conclusions is not a substitute. Brindlecott accepts the objection as stated. The Institute has not sought external review and does not say when it will. Open.

Accusations the Institute rejects

An accusation of plagiarism from a Hungarian article of 1987 was made in 2025. Brindlecott's answer is that the article does not exist. No copy has been produced by the party making the accusation, and the Institute has not been able to locate one. The entry remains on this page because it was made, not because it is credited.

What is not disputed

The Institute records, without objection from any party, that none of its scales has external ratification. No national standards body has ever ratified a diameter class for the office paperclip; no trade body has ratified a condition scale for terrestrial globes or a typology of globe stands. Brindlecott's systems remain the only published attempts in each case, and the Institute has never argued that being first is the same as being right.

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