RE: Updated Working Draft "Best Practices for XML Internationalization"

I'm just commenting on the English; sorry; and I have only gotten through 
BP1, I will try to get to  look at more of this sometime this weekend or 
something!

(This is for the draft, 
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xml-i18n-bp-20070628/#DevLang)


* * *
Best Practice One
RULE:

"to allow to specify the natural language of the content."


Aggh!  Do not use "to" twice like this without a new subject.
Je dirais ici/I would say in this case:

"to allow one to specify the natural language of content"

(I inserted a second subject, "one")

but never
"to allow to specify"

Alternatively, without using a second subject for the second infinitive, "to 
specify,"
I'd say,

"to allow specification of "

* * *

NOTE:

"Note: The scope of the xml:lang attribute applies to both the attributes 
and the content of the element where it appears, therefore one cannot 
specify different languages for an attribute and the element content. ITS 
does not provide remedy for this. Instead, it is recommended to not use 
attributes for translatable text."

"does not provide remedy" is perfectly understandable & does not sound that 
bad in English (or I have gotten used to English as spoken by non-natives; 
someone at TESOL asked whose English is it anyway; it belongs to the users 
after all);
but I'd say, "does not provide a remedy"

* * *

Again, NOTE:

"Note: If not the language of the content, but a natural language value as 
data or meta-data about something external to the document has to be 
specified, an attribute different from xml:lang (like hreflang in XHTML) 
should be used."


"because data or meta-data . . . "

also a comma before and or because would help make this sentence more 
readable!

* * *

WHY DO THIS?

"It is not recommended to use your own attribute or element to specify the 
language of the content. The xml:lang attribute is supported by various XML 
technologies such as XPath and XSL (e.g. the lang() function). Using 
something different would diminish the interoperability of your documents 
and reduce your capability to take advantage of some XML applications."


TRY:


"It is not recommended that you use" ???

or

"Using you own attribute or . . .  is not recommended"

or

"We do not recommend that you use . . ."

(People do say, "It is not recommended to go . . ." and stuff, but the above 
sentence nevertheless sounds very awkward,
probably because the person who should not use his/her own attribute or 
element is referred to "you" as later while the subject of "is recommended" 
is "It" [that is, impersonal].

So use the subjunctive in this case [yes English has the subjunctive; people 
do not know it & we do not study it.]


* * *

ALSO  Introductory Stuff

1.1

* "The fist is intended to the designers and developers . . ."

We say "intended for"

*  "The second is for the XML content authors"


We use the articles, a, an, the, some, etc., except for with non-count 
nouns!

--C. E. Whitehead

>
>The Internationalization Tag Set Working Group has published an updated 
>Working Draft of "Best Practices for XML Internationalization."
>
>http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xml-i18n-bp-20070628/
>
>These best practices are a complement to the International Tag Set W3C 
>Recommendation http://www.w3.org/TR/its/ , and are written for designers 
>and developers of XML applications, XML content authors as well as users 
>and translators.
>
>The Working Group is following the discussion on the www-international list 
>and would appreciate especially feedback on the Best Practices 1-6 , see 
>the links below.

See above!

>
>Best Practice 1: Provide xml:lang to specify natural language content
>http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xml-i18n-bp-20070628/#DevLang
>
All I've provided feedback on, and I've only provided feedback on the 
English; if that's not what you are soliciting let me know!  I won't provide 
more.  (I always appreciate when anyone corrects my language use, my English 
or anything else, but it's up to you.)

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Received on Saturday, 30 June 2007 16:51:25 UTC