Re: [office] Proposal for Index, Combining Entries, pp and passim

[Michael Brauer <Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM>]

Bruce,

Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> 
> On Nov 24, 2006, at 7:31 AM, Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - 
> Hamburg wrote:
> 
>> It seems to me that the "45pp" example in section 7.8.1 in fact is a 
>> translation of the German "45ff".
> 
> No. As I mentioned last week "ff" is also used in English (so it must be 
> Latin).

You are probably right. "ff" seems to be Latin, but it is used in 
German. I've verified that in the German "Duden", and "ff.", in German, 
is the abbreviation for "folgende Seiten" (following pages). But I 
believe you that is it also used in English.

> 
> Note, however, this is really bad practice (why, after all, remove 
> information gratuitously like this?), and most major style guides 
> discourage their use for that reason. To quote the most recent Chicago 
> Manual of Style (section 18.12):
> 
> "The abbreviation ff. or et seq. should never be used in an index."

That's okay. The fact that OpenDocument allows to use "ff" or "pp" does 
not mean that someone has to use it. The other option, to specify a page 
range, exists as well.

> 
>> Unfortunately, it is not sufficient to  change the example to either 
>> "XML 45-48 passim" or "XML, pp. 45-48", because the description of the 
>> "text:combine-entries-with-pp" states
>>
>> "As the start number with a pp label, or the appropriate label for the 
>> chosen language, using the text:combine-entries-with-pp attribute"
> 
> This is a different kind of example though. Note also that I don't ever 
> recall seeing indices with "page" or "pp" prefixes. Seems quite strange.

This may apply to the English language. I randomly took a scientific 
German book (about medical science) from our bookshelf at home and 
checked the index. It uses "782 ff." in its alphabetical index. So the 
problem we actually seem to face here is that "782 ff." is used in 
German (what does not mean that it is recommended to use it), but that 
the OpenDocument specification is in English. If we translate a German 
example into English, it looks strange.

One solution for this may be to provide a German example. Should we 
provide an English example in this case additionally? How could it look 
like?

> 
> Bruce
> 

Michael