Designating Certain People

There are six related concepts here. You must have a clear understanding of how the program treats them in order to use them effectively. Compared to the natural and fluent way most dancers and callers use these ideas, the program may seem idiosyncratic and ignorant in its handling of them. See section Linguistic Idiosyncrasies.

The six concepts are

   <ANYONE>
   <ANYONE> disconnected
   <ANYONE> in your distorted setup
   <ANYONE> do your part
   ignore the <ANYONE>
   own the <ANYONE>

In general, be aware that the choice of words and punctuation that the program uses for these concepts is determined by the need to avoid ambiguity, and may not be the words that you should use when calling.

Also, the program is very fussy about using the designators correctly. A large number of designators are provided to help you with this. Some are quite obvious, and some are intended for dealing with difficult situations.

Some of these designators will not be understood by dancers below high challenge levels, but the program will allow them at any time. You will need to use your judgement in calling. For example, you may need to use sideliners to get some particularly tricky effect. Below C4, you would need to read the card as something like `those facing the side walls'.

The available designators are:

heads / sides

boys / girls

centers / ends

center 2 / center 6

very centers

(center 2 and very centers are the same.)

outer 2 / outer 6

very ends

(outer 2 and very ends are the same.)

leads / trailers

beaus / belles

head corners / side corners

head boys / head girls / side boys / side girls

lead ends / lead centers / trailing ends / trailing centers

headliners / sideliners

those facing

everyone

all

everyone and all are the same. In practice you should hardly ever need to use them to the program, though in some situations you may need to use them when calling.

no one

The following ones are unsymmetrical:

near line / far line

near column / far column

near box / far box

those facing the caller

those facing away from the caller

#1 boy / #2 boy / #3 boy / #4 boy

#1 girl / #2 girl / #3 girl / #4 girl

#1 couple / #2 couple / #3 couple / #4 couple

couples 1 and 2 / couples 2 and 3 / couples 3 and 4 / couples 1 and 4

center 4

This is intended for use in a parallelogram or offset lines or columns. It designates the center triple box, or center triple line/column, respectively. Just saying centers will not be effective here.

outer pairs

This designates the people that are not in the center 4. In a parallelogram, it designates the pairs of people in the outer triple boxes (the "wings"). In offset lines or columns, it designates the the pairs of people in the outer triple lines or columns.

center diamond

This is intended for use in a setup with a wave between, and perpendicular to, two miniwaves. (This is the setup that results from a 1/2 circulate from waves.) In this setup, centers means the center wave. If you want the center diamond instead, you must say so.

center 1x4

This is intended for use in things like 3x1 diamonds. (This is the setup that results from a 1/2 acey deucey from waves.) In this setup, centers means the center diamond. If you want the center wave instead, you must say center 1x4. The program uses the designator center 1x4 as a catch-all for the center line or the center column. When reading the card, you probably ought to be more specific.

center 1x6

This is similar, but refers to a line or column of 6. It is intended for use in things like 3x1 diamonds, when you want the center wave of 6 to do, for example, a grand swing thru. Another situation in which this is necessary arises after a sets in motion but hold the column. If you get a column of 6 and you want them to do something, you must identify them as the center 1x6. The designation center 6 is not correct for this--it would include the person not in the column, and exclude the ends of the column.

outer 1x3s

This may be used to designate the outer lines or columns of 3 in such setups as an `H' or a diamond between two couples (`heads circle the tag to a diamond'.) You will often need to use the `disconnected' concept with this.

ANYONE

The concepts are

   <ANYONE> <call>
or
   <ANYONE> <call> while the others <other call>

If the designated people are centers or ends, the program will do the call(s) according to its best judgement of what the calls mean. Otherwise, it will find the maximal connected undistorted subsets, and do the call in those subsets. For example, from boy-boy-girl-girl waves, the boys are in two miniwaves that have nothing to do with each other. The boys can do 2-person calls, such as trade or hinge, in those setups. If the others are told to do a second call, they do it in their connected undistorted subsets. For example, we could say boys, hinge while the others shazam. The results will be reassembled as a 2x4, a C1-phantom setup, stars, or something similar.

From boy-girl-boy-girl waves, the boys are in 4 1-person connected undistorted setups. Using this concept, the boys can quarter right, but they can't trade or hinge.

Now it is commonly accepted practice to say `boys trade' when the boys are looking out, and have them effectively trade the wave. This is because the call `trade' is a special case, not because calls in general can be done from that setup. To see this, consider the call roll away. It, and two-person calls in general, are not legal unless the people are adjacent. The special property of the call trade, that it can be done by designated people who are not adjacent, is simply an idiosyncrasy that everyone knows. The Sd program recognizes this by having a call in its database <anyone> trade as well as the call trade. Use that call, not the <anyone> concept, to get the appropriate people to trade down the line when in waves.

If you really want non-adjacent people to roll away, use the disconnected concept.

Incidentally, this is why concepts are capitalized. Otherwise, the line boys trade appearing on a printed sequence would be ambiguous. The Sd program is designed to make it possible to determine unambiguously, by looking at the printout, how an action arose.

ANYONE Disconnected

The concepts are

   <ANYONE> disconnected <call>
or
   <ANYONE> disconnected <call> while the others <other call>

This is like <ANYONE>, but finds the maximal undistorted subsets, whether they are connected or not. This is a recognized C2 concept. It is generally intended to be used from grand (1x8) setups, in which the designated people leave the room and compress themselves into a 1x4 setup. After doing the call they come back and place themselves in the same four spaces that they had vacated. Shape-changing calls are permitted. In this case, whichever set of people occupied the centermost spots prior to the call will occupy the center of the result, in accordance with accepted usage for this concept.

ANYONE in your Distorted Setup

The concepts are

   <ANYONE> in your distorted line <call>
or
   <ANYONE> in your distorted wave <call>
or
   <ANYONE> in your distorted column <call>
or
   <ANYONE> in your distorted diamond <call>
or
   <ANYONE> in your distorted box <call>

The designated people are identified in a geometrically distorted setup. If the result of the call has a different shape and orientation from the beginning setup, those dancers may nevertheless be able to go back to the same collective spots, or may be able to maintain the same general location in the total formation.

Be aware that the program requires you to use the most specific concept in each case. The distorted concept requires that the setup be geometrically distorted in shape, not just disconnected. Do not say distorted when disconnected will do, and do not say disconnected when just telling the people to do the call will do.

This concept has been set at C2. You can use it at lower levels if you issue the toggle concept levels command.

ANYONE Do Your Part

The concepts are

   <ANYONE> do your part <call>
or
   <ANYONE> do your part <call> while the others <other call>

This means that the non-designated dancers leave the room and re-form their own setup in another room. The setups are not shrink-wrapped--they stay the same size in each room, with phantoms where the other people are. The appropriate call is done in each room. The non-designees come back, and the two setups are merged. This merging operation is similar to that used for <ANYONE>. It may result in things like C1-phantom setups. From boy-boy-girl-girl waves, boys do your part, hinge will leave C1 phantom setups, just as boys, hinge will. In fact, the difference between these concepts is rather subtle in many cases. The important point is that, in each room, the dancers work in the entire setup. For example, from facing lines, if the centers do their part of right and left thru, they work on their own side, with the nonexistent ends, rather than working in the center.

From boy-girl-boy-girl waves, boys do your part, hinge creates a mess. No sensible dancer would consider it acceptable. Do not use such things.

The second form of this concept will be printed in the final transcript as do your part, <ANYONE> <call> while the others <other call>. You must still enter it as shown above, with the designator first and the phrase `do your part' second.

Ignore the ANYONE

The concept is

   ignore the <ANYONE>, <call>

This means that the designated people do nothing, while the others do the call in the distorted or disconnected setup that remains. From the standpoint of the non-designated people, the spots occupied by the designated people do not exist.

This concept has been set at C1. You can use it at lower levels if you issue the toggle concept levels command.

Own the ANYONE

The concept is

   own the <ANYONE>, <call> by <other call>

This is similar to the <ANYONE> do your part concept, except that the result setups are reassembled according to strict matrix positions. That is, instead of a C1 phantom setup, a 4x4 matrix may result. This is a recognized C3A concept.

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