RE: Comments on Best Practices for Authoring HTML: RTL Scripts (Editorial comments only; was "Comments on Best Practices for Authoring HTML: RTL Scripts")

Thanks also for these comments.   New version viewable at
http://www.w3.org/International/docs/bp-html-bidi/

 


RI

 

============
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

http://www.w3.org/International/
http://rishida.net/





 

From: CE Whitehead [mailto:cewcathar@hotmail.com] 
Sent: 23 July 2009 23:50
To: www-international@w3.org
Cc: ishida@w3.org
Subject: Re: Comments on Best Practices for Authoring HTML: RTL Scripts
(Editorial comments only; was "Comments on Best Practices for Authoring
HTML: RTL Scripts")

 



Hi!  Although I found proofreading errors in Section I, I have not found any
errors in punctuation, spelling, etc. in sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; I did find
a few such errors in sections 7 and 8 (I've now read through section 8, Best
Practice 10.  I may have a few comments on the content too, but I'll send
these separately).
 
(Sorry for sending these in piecemeal; do you prefer these editorial
comments for the whole document at once or is it o.k. to send these comments
to you "piecemeal," as I've been doing??)
 
RI: Piecemeal is fine (and probably better, since it allows me to deal with
things in small slots of time), thanks.


(Following are editorial comments on Sections 7 and 8 of
http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-bidi/)
 
* * *
 
Section 7, BP 8,  "DISCUSSION," Par 1, 1rst sentence
 
{COMMENT:  I guess "quote" has migrated to 'nounhood' (according to
www.wordreference.com <http://www.wordreference.com/>  ) but I learned that
"quotation" was the noun and "quote" the verb; I'd prefer "quotation" here.}
 
"This best practice is useful where nested, inline text, such as a quote, is
bidirectional."
 
>
 
"This best practice is useful where nested, inline text, such as a
quotation, is bidirectional."
 

RI: Fixed.


* * *
Section 7, BP 8, "DISCUSSION," Par 2, 2nd sentence
 
{COMMENT:  Change "is" to "be" at least in U.S. English (don't know about
B.E.) We still require the present subjunctive "be" here in U.S. English}
 
"It is recommended that markup is used . . . "
 
>
 
"It is recommended that markup be used . . . "

 

RI: Changed.


 
* * *
 
Section 7, BP 8, Example 11

{COMMENT I'm having problems with the placement of the comma here--should it
be adjacent to the word W3C, or should it follow the Hebrew words,
"Internationalization Activity??"  (The direction that the comma is pointing
in this example is confusing!)  See also my comments on Example 16, below.}

RI: It should be as you see it in the example. The comma is often a surprise
to people not familiar with Hebrew text, but for those who are, it looks
normal.


 
* * *
 
Section 7, BP 8, "DISCUSSION: Using Markup," Par 2, 2nd sentence
 
{COMMENT:  Insert "that" after "and" }
 
"It is possible that the embedded text is not surrounded by markup, and you
may need to add it . . ."
 
>
 
"It is possible that the embedded text is not surrounded by markup, and that
you may need to add it . . ."

RI: Changed to " and you may therefore need to add it"


 
* * * 
  
Section 8, BP 10, Example 16
 
{COMMENT:  Again as with Example 11, I am having problems with the comma;
where you've placed it is not right!  The comma should immediately follow
'al-Bh.riin (going from right to left)!  And it should be turned a different
direction.  The white space thus comes to the left of the comma not to the
right.}



RI: Yes, it is not right in the first graphic – that's part of the problem
we are addressing.  I added " , and the comma is misplaced" to the first
sentence in the example.  It should not be turned a different direction,
since it is part of the English text, not an Arabic comma.


* * *
Section 8, BP 10, Par 3, 1rst sentence
 
{COMMENT:  run-on sentence; 
Change the first comma (,) to a full-stop (.) and begin a new sentence with
"because."}
 
"Whereas Example 16 shows a case that occurs only rarely in English, because
of the likelihood of foreign text showing up in languages written with the
Arabic or Hebrew scripts, this situation is much more common when writing in
those languages. Example 17 shows a typical case."
 
>
 
"Whereas Example 16 shows a case that occurs only rarely in English.
Because of the likelihood of foreign text showing up in languages written
with the Arabic or Hebrew scripts, this situation is much more common when
writing in those languages. Example 17 shows a typical case."

RI: Hmm.  That breaks the sense of the sentence and leaves the first
sentence looking unfinished. If we omit the 'whereas', however, that will
work.


 
* * *
Section 8, BP 10, Example 18, Par 1, 2nd sentence
 
{COMMENT:  the following text is fine--excellent style; NO CHANGE needed;
though we just got into a long discussion about whether to use the
possessive pronoun and treat the -ing verb ["being"] as a gerund in such
cases, I feel doing so would not quite sound like modern English.|

"This leads to them being displayed the wrong way round."