Editing Lumpers and splitters (section)

=== History ===
{{main|Periodization}}

In history, lumpers are those who tend to create broad definitions that cover large periods of time and many disciplines, whereas splitters want to assign names to tight groups of inter-relationships. Lumping tends to create a more and more unwieldy definition, with members having less and less mutually in common. This can lead to definitions which are little more than conventionalities, or groups which join fundamentally different examples. Splitting often leads to "[[Distinction without a difference|distinctions without difference]]", ornate and fussy categories, and failure to see underlying similarities.

For example, in the arts, "[[Romanticism|Romantic]]" can refer specifically to a period of [[Germany|German]] poetry roughly from 1780 to 1810, but would exclude the later work of [[Goethe]], among other writers. In music it can mean every composer from [[Johann Nepomuk Hummel|Hummel]] through [[Sergei Rachmaninoff|Rachmaninoff]], plus many that came after.