[osis-editors] suggested corrections

[Patrick Durusau]

Michael,

Michael Paul Johnson wrote:
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> Typos in OSIS 2.0.1 User's Manual (draft):
> 
> Section 7.5, last sentence: replace "chgronological" with 
> "chronological".
> Section 10: replace "FIrst" with "First".
> Section 12.1.2: Replace "1TIm.1.1" with "1Tim.1.1"
> 
Thanks for the corrections! Will be entered in the next draft (on which 
I am behind).

Further replies below:


> Design issue:
> 
> I disagree with forcing the use of <q> or <speech> tags in place of 
> quotation marks in Bible texts. This makes conversion of existing 
> texts which have quotation marks in place more difficult. It also puts 
> more of a burden on OSIS software in dealing with quotation marks for 
> every language, and even differences in style within one language. For 
> example, to use the <q> tags to properly render NASB text vs. NIV 
> text, you would have to encode different rules in the software, but if 
> you just use quotation marks, you can have the same software properly 
> render both. Likewise, rules for continuing quotations through 
> paragraph boundaries tend to vary from language to language, as do the 
> characters used to mark quotations. Using <q> tags is a fine option 
> when you want to encode rules, and for new Bible translation drafts, 
> this is a good option to have. It has the potential of possibly 
> reducing errors in quotation mark placement, if properly used. (I have 
> found many such quotation mark errors in one published Bible in PNG). 
> For existing texts, it is a pain. 

Elements like <q> have a long history in markup in general, TEI in 
particular (both Steve DeRose and I hail from that community), and even 
in the debates over the OSIS schema. Let me give you the quick take on 
why we came down on this issue as we did.

The crux of the matter is contained in your statement: "For existing 
texts, it is a pain." Quite so, but it also illustrates why going with 
elements and not inline text markers was the right choice.

Most "existing texts" were written using what used to be called the ISO 
646 subset, that is ASCII characters that were considered "safe" for 
transmission over the Internet. Works great, for some texts. The problem 
is that it works great only for "some" texts.

If we did not compell the use of the <q> and similar elements, how do we 
distinguish between texts where similar quotes work and those where it 
doesn't? Do we have two systems, one for "existing" texts and another 
for "other" texts? Recall that users, just like the rest of us, will 
always pick the easier route when available, which will mean that 
instead of a uniform system of <q> elements, we will be where we are 
now, that is use of markers that we may or may not interpret properly 
when we get a text from France, Spain, etc.

This was debated at length and you are correct, it is a pain, but one 
that we can get past with some software help and we won't have the 
problems we do now.



> This pain is exacerbated if you want 
> to encode the words of Jesus Christ so that they may be optionally 
> rendered differently (i. e. red ink). If you use proper quotation 
> marks instead of <q> or <speech>, then you have no good way in OSIS of 
> marking Jesus' words. I'm thinking that <hi type="x-JesusSaid"> (or 
> any of a multitude of other nonstandard attributes) might work, if no 
> better option is presented. You might rightly argue that there was no 
> typological or color difference made in the rendition of Jesus' words 
> in the original handwritten manuscripts, and you would be right. 
> However, if the goal is to be able to reproduce the most important 
> elements of existing published Bible texts, as well as new ones, then 
> red letter edition marking is required to honor this admittedly later 
> tradition. Use of the <hi> marker for Jesus' words seems to violate 
> your intentions, but use of <q> INSTEAD of quotation marks for Jesus' 
> words is not acceptable to me. Do you have another alternative?
> 

Actually, the <q> element has an "who" attribute which is what I 
anticipated people using for things such as marking the words of Jesus. 
It takes a string value, in other words it does not require the "x-" prefix.

Note that this allows you to mark not the presentation of the words, 
which could vary, what if I am color-blind and want the words of Jesus 
in bold instead of red?, but the reason why you want the words to be 
rendered differently, which could vary from user to user. Same purpose 
as having the red letters, but making sure you can honor the purpose and 
not just the most common way of rendering it. Another use would be for 
the visually impaired, for who the red letter or bold would have no 
meaning. With the common quote marker, I can't distinguish between a 
quote of one of the pharisees or Jesus, which I think would be important 
to the visually impaired reader.

Appreciate your interest in OSIS and your hard work to bring the Bible 
to more people.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick



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-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
Patrick.Durusau@sbl-site.org
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!