I'm not swayed by this proposal
\partial to me seems like \time
the info being conveyed is how long the "measure" is
and so it should not require a music _expression_
If you are using global with spacers, this would not be too big a deal,
but for more casual usage with structure and notes interspersed,
it forces you to specify a distinct musical _expression_
just for the part of the phrase that happens to be before the bar,
which seems like an awkward pattern to enforce on note entry.
In terms of US English usage
"partial" means "less than whole" and is pretty clear and neutral,
and thus I think a good name for this usage.
"partial" may also refer to a specific overtone of a note,
(as in "E3 is the 4th partial of C1")
but I don't think there is any confusion with this usage.
"upbeat" is used a few different ways
which makes it not such a good candidate.
It can mean the beat before the down beat,
so in 4/4 beat 4, or in 2/4 beat 2.
But "upbeat" can also refer to subdivisions, like counting "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and"
the numbers are "beats" or "on the beat" or sometimes "downbeats",
whereas the "and"s are the upbeats.
It is further confusing in compound time as you might,
in line with 2/4, consider the second dotted quarter in 6/8 as the upbeat.
But, if there are syncopations happening,
you might consider the first subdivision after the downbeat as the upbeat,
so in 6/8, subdivisions 2 and 5 would be the upbeats.
Likewise, in a 3/4 waltz you might consider beat 2 as the upbeat,
whereas in other 3/4 contexts you might consider beat 3 as the upbeat,
in line with how we count 4/4.
"anacrusis" is a term all musicians learn, but no one ever uses,
unless you are an academic.
It generally refers to the same thing as "pickup".
For a lilypond term it might be fine since it is basically descriptive,
but probably less guessable than "pickup".
"pickup" generally refers to notes leading into a barline.
Whether it is singular or plural depends on the context.
If it is a single note, it is a pickup.
Multiple notes may be either pickup as referring to the entire phrase,
or pickups referring to each of the notes.
"Let's take it from letter B, with pickups"
There is also a practice--and I'm sure there are a great many opinions
on the wisdom of this practice, but nonetheless it exists--
that if a pickup starts on an offbeat,
the partial measure may include the preceding rest that occurs on the beat.
In which case, the partial measure length is not the same as the length of the "pickup",
which is understood musically only as the notes played.
So, use of "pickup"/"anacrusis" to describe the length of the measure
would not always semantically be accurate.
So, I suggest we keep \partial as is
If the motivation is just to eliminate having to type a single duration,
which typically is used at most once per piece,
I'm really not seeing the urgency of the problem it is solving.
It seems like something that should more appropriately be syntactic sugar,
and not change the core features, which seem appropriate to me.
Elaine Alt
415 . 341 .4954 "Confusion is highly underrated"
elaine@flaminghakama.com-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-