> Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 11:09:20 +0100
> From: Nigel Hardy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>> Well, no. Plenty of genus and species names are not particularly
>> foreign. They're italicised _because_ they're genus and species
>> names.
>
> It's my understanding that the origin of the tradition (now
> requirement) to italicise them in print is that of italicising
> foreign phrases.
Ah. Well, there you have the advantage of me :-)
>> The problem is if I run into a stylesheet that decides that it's
>> appropriate to, for example, use a bold font for foreign phrases.
>
> Mechanisms involving the use of "role" attributes rely on specially
> adapted style sheets and ensuring their use.
Ah.
> Ensuring the use of style sheets which do honour <foreignphrase> in
> an acceptable way seems to me easier, when we are processing our own
> documents.
Yes, in that limited case ... But:
> If we release our SGML/XML, we can never prevent the use by a client
> agent of other style sheets and by using a standard near equivalent
> we maximise the chances of an acceptable rendering.
I see. I take your point that _nothing_ I say in my DocBook document
will _ever_ actually _guarantee_ anything about the rendering. Hence
the phrase "processing _expectations_" rather than something more
concrete. So unless I'm prepared to mess with stylesheets (and I'm
not) I'm always on slippery ground.
That said, then, I think a combination of Right-Thing-fulness and
pragmatics (<foreignphrase> is pretty much always going to be set in
italics, right?) leads me to the conclusion that the best I can do is:
<foreignphrase role="taxon">Sauroposeidon proteles</foreignphrase>
... or I could get a bit fancier and say something like:
<foreignphrase role="species">
<phrase role="genus-name">Sauroposeidon</phrase>
<phrase role="species-name">proteles</phrase>
</foreignphrase>
But that throws up a whole nother can of worms, so let's not go there
:-)
--
Looking to the future:
>> (So obviously The Right Answer in DocBook version _n_ is to have
>> explicit <taxon type="genus"> and similar tags. But that's not
>> going to happen soon, and probably not at all.)
>
> As you say, that's not going to happen soon. I would suggest in any
> case that such an element would need to be more complex, including
> (at least) facilities for authorities and for ensuring logical
> correctness of the taxonomic hierarchy.
Well, the hierarchy above is a nod in that direction; but you can't
"ensure logical correctness of the taxonomic hierarchy" when no two
taxonomists agree what is correct :-)
_/|_ _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\ "I wonder just when our thirst for the Premiership got so
unquenchable that we'd even consider employing the likes of
Mr. Bowyer" -- Tony Henshall.
