We are all painfully familiar with bureaucratic moods, which are often conflated with " policy.
In the following stemma M and N are "mixed" or "conflated" MSS., being formed by the blending of readings from the "pure" or "unmixed" codices A, B and D, E respectively.
The "genealogical" method, as we may call it, cannot in strictness be applied to conflated MSS., as their mutual relations can rarely be with certainty disentangled.
A special value attaches to a conflated codex when one of the MSS.
Despite these distinctions, responsibility is frequently conflated with liability.