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

[Sam Hunting <sam_hunting@yahoo.com>]

Bernard, thanks for focussing attention on these issues.

[Bernard Vatant]
> We have a constant mix-up of language and meta-language
> So, for the reader (and writer) to be able to make the distinction,
> the spec terms should be typed in a characteristic {style} ... 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. 

I'm having a hard time translating this into a quasi-mechanical
process. 

I see your argument that trying to rewrite prose so that strings that
match spec terms only mean spec terms just may not be possible. But
what is the rule? For example: "All terms that appear in the glossary
shall be formatted distinctively in the text, and if such a term is not
formatted differently, it is not a term but just a word." Yech. Can
anyone with more experience jump in here? This sounds like a classic
editorial problem.

> 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

Thanks for focussing attention on this issue. I hope that we may have
your feedback on the spec *before* we finalize, so as to avoid problems
later?

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

I don't think I'm ever going to live that noodles posting down...

S.

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