terms

I was just looking at the English locale file, and noting this problem:

 <term name="volume" form="short">vol</term>
 <term name="issue" form="short">no</term>

I know why you changed this, Simon, but it’s not really correct in the
grand schema of things. Most styles use “v” and “n”.

The question is, how to fix this? Maybe we need an “initial” form?

Bruce

Maybe. It’s also possible that, when styles use “v” or “n,” we
shouldn’t be localizing it in the first place.

Simon

Simon Kornblith wrote:> On Jul 7, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Bruce D’Arcus wrote:

The question is, how to fix this? Maybe we need an “initial” form?

Maybe. It’s also possible that, when styles use “v” or “n,” we
shouldn’t be localizing it in the first place.

Why?

Bruce

A native speaker of another language who sees the first letter for
"volume" in that language won’t necessarily know what that means in a
bibliographic style. Yet, for the style to look right, this may have
to be a one-letter abbreviation (i.e., v123n8, not vol123no98).

Simon

Simon Kornblith wrote:> On Jul 7, 2007, at 5:39 PM, Bruce D’Arcus wrote:

Simon Kornblith wrote:

On Jul 7, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Bruce D’Arcus wrote:

The question is, how to fix this? Maybe we need an “initial” form?
Maybe. It’s also possible that, when styles use “v” or “n,” we
shouldn’t be localizing it in the first place.
Why?

A native speaker of another language who sees the first letter for
“volume” in that language won’t necessarily know what that means in a
bibliographic style. Yet, for the style to look right, this may have
to be a one-letter abbreviation (i.e., v123n8, not vol123no98).

Call me dim. but I’m still not following. Can you try again?

Bruce

What is going to be the localized equivalent to “v” or “n”? Are we
sure that these localized equivalents will make sense to native
speakers of other languages?

Simon

Simon Kornblith wrote:

Call me dim. but I’m still not following. Can you try again?

What is going to be the localized equivalent to “v” or “n”? Are we
sure that these localized equivalents will make sense to native
speakers of other languages?

No, but not something I’m worried about in the absence of evidence that
it’s a real problem.

Unfortunately, this is the consequence of going with
language-independent styles; every language string has to be localized.

If it ever does become an issue, if probably suggests allowing:

<if locale="en"/>

… or perhaps it simply means that the localized term might not look
the same in some other languages.

Bruce