[sword-devel] Verses that are [partly] a title ....

[DM Smith]

See comments below:

> On Dec 28, 2014, at 5:23 PM, David Haslam <dfhmch at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
> I can provide the OSIS fragment tomorrow. Too late right now, almost bedtime.
> 
> The translation editing was implemented in USFM by using Paratext.
> The translator knows nothing of OSIS.

Then it is not a problem with USFM or OSIS, per se.

> 
> The problem is that in the real world (rather than the "ideal OSIS" world)
> things are messy.

I’ve worked with quite a few markups. Not just of biblical material. I understand messy. The biggest mess I’ve seen is when an author presumes a single format of output of a WYSIWYG editor. Say particular paper size, font selection, full font specification instead of styles, line spacing, spaces instead of tabs, so on and so forth. With such there is no encoding of intention other than eye of the author.

The more *a* mess is regular, the more it can be transformed to something else in a meaningful way. But if the mess is irregular, then all bets are off.

I bet the problem is that a transformation of one regular mess cannot reasonably be applied to someone else’s regular mess as it is a different regular mess.

> 
> A Psalm canonical descriptive title can include all or part of a verse,
> including the verse tag.
> This is common in many French Bibles, and thus in Breton by similarity and
> knowledge diffusion.

I surveyed Psalm 3:0-3 in all of our modules and found a total mess with regard to how canonical titles were represented. This is on top of the variation of how they are versified.

> 
> The framers of the OSIS standard never anticipated that. Nor did the
> designers of the SWORD engine.

I think this is not a fair statement. I have no idea what the framers thought. Nor the architects of the SWORD engine. I do know that every possible way a Psalm title can be correctly encoded is possible in OSIS and I think they are able to be handled by the SWORD engine properly.

> 
> As a consequence, we hit such issues when faced with this source text and
> others that are like it.

I think you are coming to a conclusion too quickly.

> 
> We've been insulated from the issue because too many online source texts
> have been less than faithful to the printed works they represent. 

It is entirely unreasonable to think that a printed work can be represented the same online. A printed work has a physical width and height per page. It has pages. It has margins. An online presentation has undefined width and height. There is no reasonable expect ion of pagination as continuous flow is entirely reasonable. On top of that every online screen has a different resolution.

> 
> Other Bible software ministries have adapted to be able to cope.
> You can view the same Breton Bible now on YouVersion, and these Psalm titles
> are displayed correctly.

I’ve worked with an another online Bible software ministry on transforming different inputs into OSIS. Their effort included programmatic transformation to get it close enough and brute force to fix those spots that the transformation couldn’t handle.

> 
> And for those who dismiss mere slavish conformance to presentational format,
> the question remains:
> "How did the translator wish to see this formated?”

I’d ask “did the translator have enough foresight to format their text for phones, tablets, computers, small paper, large paper, ….”

I’ve seen formatting of poetry in Psalms from a single publisher where it differs from in one format of one wide column to two columns per page in another.

I think this is a spurious question.

Where we are now is in need of more information. Which you’ll provide tomorrow with the OSIS.

I’d also like a clear representation of what “the translator wished to see.”

Thanks,
	DM


> 
> Best regards
> 
> David
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
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