Re: [dita-translation] DITA Translation Subcommittee

[Andrzej Zydron <azydron@xml-intl.com>]

Hi JoAnn,

As far as I can tell, there is no DITA element specifically designed for 
acronyms/abbreviations. Please correct me if I am wrong. Acronyms 
feature very often in technical documentation and their treatment in 
translation poses some interesting issues.

I have the following proposal for the main DITA TC:

A new <acronym> element that can occur anywhere
within PCDATA. The acronym will have an 'id' attribute that will be the
acronym itself, e.g. <acronym id="ABS"/>. The <acronym> element will be
resolved via a conref attribute to the full acronym text, e.g. acronym
id="ABS" conref="aconyms.dita#abs"/>. The entry in the aconyms.dita file
will be:

<acronym name="abs">Anti-lock Break System</acronym>

At compose time, when you are putting together the publication you can
print the full form the first time around, but in parentheses to get
around any potential problems when translating into inflected languages:

<p>The <acroym id="ABS" conref="aconyms.dita#abs"/> facility will
prevent the car from skidding.</p>

This will be published as:

The ABS (Anti-lock Break System) facility will prevent the car from
skidding.

This is in reverse to what would normally be printed, e.g.

Anti-lock Break System (ABS)

But this is perfectly acceptable and gets around translation problems
with inflected languages.

Best Regards,

AZ

JoAnn Hackos wrote:
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