- From: Řistein E. Andersen <html5@xn--istein-9xa.com>
- Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:15:33 +0100
On 11 Jan 2007, at 5:33PM, H?kon Wium Lie wrote: > The term "hypenation dictionary" is quite common, but I see your > point. What would be a better name for the property? > hyphenation-pattern > hypenation-list > hypenation-resource Liang's paper `Word Hy-phen-a-tion by Com-put-er', in which the concept was first introduced, used the term `hyphenation patterns'. Unsurprisingly, Liang's supervisor, Knuth, used the same term in the TeXbook, and this expression seems to have become the generally accepted one amongst TeX users. `Hyphenation dictionary' is also common, but this tends to mean something slightly different. To exemplify, the first five lines of what I would call a hyphenation dictionary looks like this: > a cap?pel?la > a for?ti?o?ri > a go?go > a pos?te?ri?o?ri > a pri?o?ri [Interestingly, this particular dictionary contains multi-word expression, but most hyphenation engines, as well as spelling checkers, cannot take advantage of these, as each word (according to some definition) is typically treated in isolation.] In contrast, the first five hyphenation patterns in TeX82 are the following: > .ach4 > .ad4der > .af1t > .al3t > .am5at It think it is useful to keep the distinction and would suggest to rename the property in question `hyphenation-patterns'. (TeX's exception dictionary falls within this narrower definition of a hyphenation dictionary.) http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/hyphenation says: > HYPHENATION: Breaking words that extend beyond the right margin. > Software hyphenates words by matching them against a hyphenation > dictionary or by using a built-in set of rules, or both. http://www.answers.com/topic/hyphenation-dictionary is more specific: > HYPHENATION DICTIONARY: A word file with predefined hyphen locations. http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/definition.html?lookup=2188 gives a more generic definition: > A file, usually in a word processing or desktop publishing program, > which defines where hyphens will be placed for common words. Google returns about 21,200 results for /hyphenation dictionar(y|ies)/ and 148,100 for /hyphenation patterns?/, so the latter should also be fairly common. To me, a `hyphenation list' suggests something rather like a hyphenation dictionary, whereas `hyphenation resource' probably should be reserved for a more comprehensive source of hyphenation information ? unless the same property is supposed to be able to refer to different kinds of hyphenation data. >>>> [In TeX], hyphenation can [also] be indicated locally. >>>> This is needed in order to hyphenate words like >>>> rec-ord/re-cord and is the only level that deals with >>>> spelling changes. > ­ is probably the best way to encode this. However, it can be done through CSS as well: > Dont's wait for <span style="hypenation-dictionary: rec-ord.dic">record > </span> companies, <span style="hypenation-dictionary: re-cord.dic"> > record</span> yourself. Right, I did not get your point at first. This does indeed cover the first reason to use explicit mark-up in TeX. Concerning spelling changes, Petr Sojka's `Notes on Compound Word Hyphenation in TeX' [1], section 3.2, describes how a minimally extended version of the TeX algorithm can deal with irregular hyphenation without any extraneous mark-up, i.e., without any unnecessary burden on the author. Perhaps an idea for Prince7? Anyway, the preliminary conclusion seems to be that a <hyph> element in HTML is unnecessary, so this discussion should probably continue somewhere else. [1] http://www.fi.muni.cz/usr/sojka/papers/tug95.pdf -- ?istein E. Andersen
Received on Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:15:33 UTC