<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 2:51 AM, Ian Hickson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ian@hixie.ch">ian@hixie.ch</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div class="im">On Thu, 13 Aug 2009, Kevin Benson wrote:<br>> On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 10:10 PM, Ian Hickson<<a href="mailto:ian@hixie.ch">ian@hixie.ch</a>> wrote:<br>> > On Thu, 6 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:<br>
> >><br></div>> >> "This specification defines an abstract language for describing<br>
<div class="im">> >> documents and applications, and some APIs for interacting with<br>> >> in-memory representations of resources that use this language."<br>> >><br></div>
<div class="im">> >> The phrase "abstract language" concerns me. It's not clear to me that<br>> >> a language can be abstract, nor is it clear to me what this phrase<br>> >> refers to, especially since it seems to be distinguished from the<br>
</div>> >> "concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use<br>> >> this abstract language, two of which are defined in this<br>> >> specification."<br>> >><br>
> >> Perhaps there's some sort of abstract data model or information model<br>
<div class="im">> >> here; but I don't believe that the word "language" is appropriate to<br>> >> describe this. Language as normally understood is a collection of<br>> >> actual words or symbols, written or spoken. It is not a collection of<br>
> >> abstract concepts, at least not in any definition of the term I was<br>> >> able to find.<br>> >><br>> >> <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define%3Alanguage&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define%3Alanguage&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10</a><br>
> ><br></div>
<div class="im">> > What term would you recommend rather than "language" that is more<br>> > understandable than "data model" or "information model"?<br>> ><br>> > Would "vocabulary" be ok?<br>
><br></div>
<div class="im">> Rather than changing the word "language", how about changing the the<br>> word "abstract" instead... ...to an adjective such as "prescriptive" or<br>> "normative"... in order to describe the usage of the word "language"<br>
> more purposefully ?<br><br></div>
<div class="im">On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:<br>><br>> "Vocabulary" may be an an improvement over "abstract language"--I'd need<br>> to think further about that--but I think Kevin's suggestion is likely<br>
> better. The spec defines a language (not abstract) with two syntaxes (or<br>> dialects, or variants).<br><br></div>The word "abstract" is there to lead people away from thinking of HTML as<br>being a concrete language in the sense that, e.g., C++ is a "language" or<br>
BibTex is a "language". I agree that "abstract" isn't really the right<br>word, but omitting it I think would cause more confusion here.<br>"Vocabulary" is wrong too, since it implies just a lexicon of words,<br>
rather than a grammar, content models, etc.<br><br>If anyone has any ideas for a better term than "abstract language" that<br>conveys all the richness that language does but without implying a syntax<br>exists, please let me know.</blockquote>
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<div>From reading your latest response, the applicable term that _first_ popped into my mind was:</div>
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<div>corpus (plural corpora or corpuses)</div>
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<div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_corpus">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_corpus</a></div>
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<div>but I'll certainly think about alternatives in the context you/ve conveyed</div></div>
<div></div><br>-- <br>-- <br> --<br> --<br> ô¿ô¬<br> K e V i N<br> /¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\<br>