omittebatis

Omittebatis is a concept used in linguistics, information theory, and world-building to denote a formal mechanism for the deliberate omission of elements in text or data. It serves as a framework for analyzing how omissions affect meaning, coherence, and memory.

Etymology: The name combines omittere, Latin for "to omit," with a suffix reminiscent of taxonomic nomenclature, chosen to suggest a framing device rather than a biological entity.

Concept and scope: Omittebatis distinguishes between two types of omission strategies. Soft omit removes optional modifiers and redundancies while preserving essential propositions. Hard omit targets core content according to predefined rules, often used in compression or summarization simulations. The concept can be applied to natural language text, data schemas, and even narrative world-building.

Measurement and evaluation: Researchers using omittebatis define information loss as a function of omitted elements, and assess readability, recall, and task performance. They may employ human judgments or automated metrics.

History and use: The term emerged in theoretical discussions and experimental studies in the 2010s and 2020s as a way to model controlled omission. It has been used in studies of readability, machine summarization, and fictional world-building.

Example: Original: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Omittebatis soft omit yields: The fox jumps over the dog. If hard omitted, it might produce: The fox over the dog.

Related topics include text simplification, information theory, and data compression.