[xtm-wg] Re : Style Guide for XTM specs

["Bernard Vatant" <bernard@universimmedia.com>]

Sam, and other brave editors

A general practical suggestion for editing prose style.

The main difficulty is the constant mix-up of technical terms defined in
the spec and used in the syntax, and meta-terms, often very close to and/or
identical/synonymous of the previous ones. That is we have a constant
mix-up of language and meta-language, the first one being itself as much
and maybe more "meta" than the second,  and hence the risk that only
veteran topic map hackers will see which is which ... and so much for the
external communication, promotion and marketing.

So, for the reader (and writer) to be able to make the distinction, the
spec terms should be typed in a characteristic {style} like bold red or
italic blue or something, in a coherent way all along. Any word not in that
style is "meta", even if the same words are used at both level, which is
bound to occur with e.g. "names" or "subjects" , even if it should be good
to avoid it for clarity of discourse. Keeping the *meta* vocabulary to the
minimum core is a *meta* guideline. That's the only way : stick to the
concise, clear and absolutely boring style of good maths litterature.

Such a guideline would be particularly useful when translating the spec
into other languages, like French (au hasard). The spec terms will not be
translated, of course, only the meta prose, since the patiently built
english terminology - which is not only a terminology, but an ontology -
will find no exact match in any foreign language or culture, which means
not only the syntactic terms are of course non-translatable for obvious
technical reasons, but the spec users will have to "build knowledge" about
it, by understanding what is the *subject* of every *element* in the
specification. And my hunch is this knowledge is somehow deeply rooted in
the original language and cultural background of the spec authors, and not
as universal, intuitive, and straightforward in any other
linguistic/cultural background that some would think to begin with. Users
will have to learn what "association" or "subject" means, the same way
maths students learn what "vector" or "mapping" means.

For example, the French for Topic is "Sujet", and the French for Subject is
"Sujet" ...  (çà commence mal !). So we'll have to keep "Topic" in red bold
in French prose, such as in the following excerpt ( *underlined terms*
should be red bold )

[ In the example below, *scope* is used to differentiate the *base names*
of the *topic* "Hamlet" (the play) from "Hamlet" (the character)]

Would translate in French :

[Dans l'exemple ci-dessous, *scope* est utilisé pour différencier les *base
names* du *topic* "Hamlet" (la pièce), de "Hamlet" (le personnage)]

So much for the "sauvegarde de la francophonie" - but we have no choice !
Even with such guidelines, the translation will be a tricky exercise (count
me in for some help)

BTW feel like all that has something to do with noodles, knowledge and
wisdom, but what is this something ?

Bernard


Bernard Vatant
bernard@universimmedia.com
www.universimmedia.com




-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
Big News - eGroups is becoming Yahoo! Groups
Click here for more details:
http://click.egroups.com/1/10801/0/_/337252/_/976804724/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->

To Post a message, send it to:   xtm-wg@eGroups.com

To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: xtm-wg-unsubscribe@eGroups.com