Talk:Hazard and Operability Study

WP has an article of the same name

But this article was written from scratch. It is not a WP import. Milton Beychok 21:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly the same name. WP's is called 'Hazard and operability study'. Ro Thorpe 02:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the WP title correct? Hayford Peirce 02:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Hayford and Ro, I thought about that for quite a while before I chose the title of this article. There is no "official" title. I know that we should not use capitalized words (other than the first word) in titles unless the official name for the title subject uses them (as in American Institute of Chemical Engineers or Anti-Defamation League or Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). However, since there was no official title available in this case, I made my decision as outlined below.

In about 75 percent of the time in the literature (even in the first sentence of the WP article), the acronym "HAZOP" is used (as is also used in the first sentence of this article). In the other 25 percent of the of the time, the acronym "Hazop" is used. On that basis, I decided to capitalize the first letter of Operating. In other words, if we use the acronym HAZOP as a contraction of "HAZard" and "OPerating", then it is logical (at least in my opinion) to capitalize the "O" in Operating.

Then I thought that "Hazard and Operability" was looked incomplete and that "Hazard and Operability study" looked inconsistent ... so I decided on "Hazard and Operability Study".

Since there is no official name for a HAZOP, then neither the WP article title nor this CZ article title is "correct". In fact, there is *no* correct title, but at least mine has a carefully thought out rationale. Milton Beychok 03:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I will certainly defer to you on this. Hayford Peirce 03:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Milt, you are too clever by half. I notice that at first you inadvertently named the article 'Hazop and Operability Study'. Why not call the article HAZOP, since that seems to be the usual name? Ro Thorpe 14:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

(Unindent) Ro, I wasn't trying to be "clever by half". I was trying to be clear and not use an acronym for a title ... but to spell out the title. As for "HAZOP" or "Hazop", both of them have been made redirects to the article, for those who can only remember the acronym. That is no different than was done for these and many other CZ articles:

• International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and a redirect from the very often used IUPAC
• International Organization for Standardization and a redirect from the very often used ISO
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with redirects from the very often used EPA, U.S. EPA and other acronyms.

Milton Beychok 15:04, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

It's normal for an association to use capitals in its name, such as the above Union, Organization and Agency, but this is something else, a study. I see that you wanted to reflect the acronym in the title, but the only clear way to do that would be to put 'HAZard and OPerability study'. Capitalising 'Study' as well defeats the object, even though it looks better. So it remains my opinion that there should not be capitalisation here. Sorry! Ro Thorpe 16:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)