Re: Terminology: `absolutization' is vile (\ideal)

At 12:18 PM 2000-05-18 -0400, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
>The term `absolutization' seems to have crept into these discussions.   It's
>not used in RFC2396, which speaks of ``Resolving Relative References to
>Absolute Form''.   Am I the only one whose sense of literate English is
>offended?   I'd suggest calling the process either `resolution' or
`anchoring'
>(another possibility is `docking', which has for me the image of fitting a
>relative URI to its base as a ferry is docked to its slip).

Docking to the point at infinity is likely to be misunderstood.  Docking
implies registering something to a highly local reference.  Quite the
reverse of what is intended by 

Resolving Relative references Absolute Form

which is agreed to be the highest and best phrase-level expansion of the
concept.

'Absolutizing' is perfect because it make it clear that there is a change,
and the nature of the change: what was not absolute is changed so that it
is absolute.  Euphemisms will have to be that clear to replace this usage. 

I'm afraid that your cross-part-of-speech-migration allergy or whatever
'error' trap is going off here is ill suited to governing technical usage.
Sorry, can we get you some Claritin?


Al


>
>Paul Abrahams
>

Received on Thursday, 18 May 2000 12:36:26 UTC