[Bug 15786] "an idiomatic phrase from another language" doesn’t cover non-idiomatic transliterated foreign words in English prose

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15786

--- Comment #1 from Oli Studholme <w3.org@boblet.net> 2012-01-30 14:34:54 UTC ---
The spec for the i element currently includes “an idiomatic phrase from another
language” as an example usage, for idiomatic phrases like “de facto” that are
commonly italicised in English prose. However transliterated foreign languages
are also typically italicised in English prose, and now that the spec doesn’t
include the comment “(content whose typical typographic presentation is
italicized)”, there’s no mention of this other foreign language-related use
case.

My sloppy phrasing in an HTML5 Doctor article[1] has led to some confusion
about whether the spec says foreign words should always use the i element. I’d
like to correct the article, but the spec currently doesn’t seem to cover
transliterated foreign words. Also, while I assumed “idiomatic phrase” referred
to definition 1 in the American Heritage dictionary[2], definitions 2 and 3
were also possible interpretations, and 2 would make the current wording apply
to transliterated foreign language.

1. “A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to
itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of
its elements, as in keep tabs on.”
2. “The specific grammatical, syntactic, and structural character of a given
language.”
3. “Regional speech or dialect.”

I also suspect that this use case only applies to transliterated languages in
prose in a European language, as for example Japanese doesn’t even have italics
(the Japanese equivalent is katakana).


In The Chicago Manual of Style (15th Ed.) italicising foreign words is covered
in Chapter 7 (“Spelling, Distinctive Treatment of Words, and Compounds”)
7.51-7.56, and Chapter 10 (“Foreign languages”), especially 10.93. Here are the
relevant quotes…

# Chapter 7, under the subtitles “Italics, Capitals, and Quotation Marks” and
“Foreign Words”:

7.51 “Italics. Italics are used for isolated words and phrases in a foreign
language if they are likely to be unfamiliar to readers.”
“An entire sentence or a passage of two or more sentences in a foreign language
is usually set in roman and enclosed in quotation marks.”

7.54 “Familiar foreign words. Foreign words and phrases familiar to most
readers and listed in Webster are not italicized if used in an English context”
“If confusion might arise, however, foreign terms are best italicized and
spelled as in the original language. ”
“The decision to italicize should not be based solely on whether a term appears
in Webster.”

7.55 “Italics at first occurrence. If a foreign word not listed in an English
dictionary is used repeatedly throughout a work, it need be italicized only on
its first occurrence. If it appears only rarely, however, italics may be
retained.”

7.56 “Scholarly words and abbreviations. Commonly used Latin words and
abbreviations should not be italicized. [Examples:] ibid., et al., ca., passim.
Because of its peculiar use in quoted matter, sic is best italicized.”

# Chapter 10, under the subtitle “Languages Usually Transliterated (or
Romanized)”:

10.93 “Italics versus roman. Transliterated terms (other than proper names)
that have not become part of the English language are italicized (see
7.51-7.52). If used throughout a work, a transliterated term may be italicized
on first appearance and then set in roman (see 7.55). Words listed in the
dictionary are usually set in roman (see 7.54).”

Under the subtitle “Classical Greek”:

10.131 “Transliterated Greek words or phrases are usually italicized unless the
same words occur frequently, in which case they may be italicized at first
mention and then set in roman.”


# Suggested change

s/an idiomatic phrase from another language/an idiomatic phrase or short span
of transliterated prose from another language/
…or something conveying these two uses, as yes this is a little cumbersome.

[1] http://html5doctor.com/i-b-em-strong-element/#comment-21939
[2] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Idiomatic+phrase

Aside: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/de%20facto ;)

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Received on Monday, 30 January 2012 14:35:02 UTC