RE: Schemata rather than schemas

It was discussed a few years ago.  The Oxford English Dictionary cites both
"schemata" and "schemas" as valid plurals of "schema."  It was concluded
that "schemas" had the virtue of not adding unexpected obscurity to the
specification.

P.S. While it is true that "schemata" is phonetically closer to the original
Greek plural, it is such a longstanding principle of English to mangle
foreign words that to fail to do similarly here would seem almost improper.
:-) 

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry West [mailto:lwest@skydesk.com]
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 11:45 AM
To: 'www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org'
Subject: Schemata rather than schemas


I know it's late and this is about as minor an issue as there is, but also
trivial to fix: why not use the proper plural form of "schema", which is
"schemata", since it's (originally) a Greek word?

Yes, the more forgiving dictionaries will list "schemas" as an alternative
plural, but shouldn't a standards organization use the more correct one?

Tilting at windmills,

// Larry West 
// mailto:lwest@skydesk.com 
// +1(858)720-4650 

PS: I searched through the subject lines of the archived msgs, didn't find a
match for this.

Received on Friday, 21 July 2000 19:31:48 UTC