Using asterisks

[D.M. Procida]

In music (apparently) when listing a composer's compositions, a single
asterisk against a performance item denotes that it is a premiere (i.e.
in that country), and two asterisks that it is a world premiere.

See for example "Selected Compositions" at:

<http://www.cf.ac.uk/music/people/JW.html>

I haven't been able to discover so far whether this is a genuine
convention, understood universally (I certainly hadn't come across it
before).

If it is, how would one best mark up such information?

Daniele

[Steve Swift]

D.M. Procida wrote:

I haven't been able to discover so far whether this is a genuine
convention, understood universally (I certainly hadn't come across it
before).

If it is, how would one best mark up such information?

Are you asking how to get the asterisks there, or how to indicate what
they mean?

There's nothing obviously special about the asterisks in the webpage you
reference. To my eyes they look like footnote references, but the
footnotes themselves are not there.

I think there is specific HTML for footnotes, but it is rarely used. It
would be nice if the asterisks caused your browser to jump to such
footnotes (footnotes that I cannot find drive me insane).

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

[D.M. Procida]

Steve Swift <St***********@gmail.comwrote:

I haven't been able to discover so far whether this is a genuine
convention, understood universally (I certainly hadn't come across it
before).

If it is, how would one best mark up such information?

Are you asking how to get the asterisks there, or how to indicate what
they mean?

There's nothing obviously special about the asterisks in the webpage you
reference. To my eyes they look like footnote references, but the
footnotes themselves are not there.

I think there is specific HTML for footnotes, but it is rarely used. It
would be nice if the asterisks caused your browser to jump to such
footnotes (footnotes that I cannot find drive me insane).

No, they aren't footnotes. They simply indicate - and this is apparently
a convention - premiere performances.

Daniele

[D.M. Procida]

Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:

In music (apparently) when listing a composer's compositions, a single
asterisk against a performance item denotes that it is a premiere
(i.e. in that country), and two asterisks that it is a world premiere.

- -

I haven't been able to discover so far whether this is a genuine
convention, understood universally (I certainly hadn't come across it
before).

This isn't really about HTML, is it? Or even web authoring in general?

Kind of unsurprising, since you deleted my question about the way to
mark up this kind of information in HTML.

Daniele

[Ben C]

On 2008-01-22, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
[...]

>and an unlinked explanatory footnote to explain it.

Footnote? No. The sensible thing to do is to explain any unusual
notations (i.e., notations that may be unusual to a considerable part of
the audience) _before_ you use them. It usually doesn't hurt to _repeat_
the explanation at the end, since some people will probably look at the
end if they forgot or missed the initial explanation

One expects to see the explanation of * and ** at the end since they are
often used as footnote markers.

[Harlan Messinger]

Ben C wrote:

On 2008-01-22, Jukka K. Korpela <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
[...]

>>and an unlinked explanatory footnote to explain it.

Footnote? No. The sensible thing to do is to explain any unusual
notations (i.e., notations that may be unusual to a considerable part of
the audience) _before_ you use them. It usually doesn't hurt to _repeat_
the explanation at the end, since some people will probably look at the
end if they forgot or missed the initial explanation

One expects to see the explanation of * and ** at the end since they are
often used as footnote markers.

But when they are used as footnote references they follow the text they
are being used to annotate. Here, they precede the text.

In any event, it's useful for a key to precede the material that it
explains, and it's particularly beneficial from the perspective of
accessibility since it informs blind users what they're going to
encounter before they encounter it.

[Steve Swift]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Because we need to talk of such a thing, and "abbreviation" is already a
word for it. Check a dictionary if in doubt.

Strange point of view, when even your own page at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/latin1/3.html#2A indicates that one
possible use for asterisk is:

"the asterisk is often used as a wildcard character which matches any
string of characters."

So by your own definition "*" becomes the ultimate abbreviation for
"première", but with all of the original letters removed from the
abbreviation, with the "*" signifying its presence.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

[John Hosking]

Steve Swift wrote:

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

>Because we need to talk of such a thing, and "abbreviation" is already
a word for it. Check a dictionary if in doubt.

Strange point of view, when even your own page at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/latin1/3.html#2A indicates that one
possible use for asterisk is:

"the asterisk is often used as a wildcard character which matches any
string of characters."

So by your own definition "*" becomes the ultimate abbreviation for
"première", but with all of the original letters removed from the
abbreviation, with the "*" signifying its presence.

LOL

I have a lot to say about this topic, but to save time and space I'll
write it thusly:

*

--
John

[Jon Fairbairn]

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrites:

Scripsit Andy Dingley:

>Why should abbreviation be
necessarily limited to a literal subset of the characters from the
defining term?

Because we need to talk of such a thing, and "abbreviation"
is already a word for it. Check a dictionary if in doubt.

The OED:

3. esp. A shortened form of a spoken word, or written
symbol; a part of a word or symbol standing for the
whole.
--
Jón Fairbairn Jo***********@cl.cam.ac.uk

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Steve Swift:

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

>Because we need to talk of such a thing, and "abbreviation" is
already a word for it. Check a dictionary if in doubt.

Strange point of view, when even your own page at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/latin1/3.html#2A indicates that one
possible use for asterisk is:

"the asterisk is often used as a wildcard character which matches any
string of characters."

Where does the word "abbreviation" or its abbreviation appear there?

Did you already check a dictionary? Did you proceed from A
(abbreviation) to S (symbol) already?

So by your own definition "*" becomes the ultimate abbreviation for
"première",

My description of asterisk usage was no definition, and the asterisk is
not an abbreviation. If I have somewhere called it an abbreviation, that
would be a mistake, just as if anyone else had done that.

but with all of the original letters removed from the
abbreviation, with the "*" signifying its presence.

It sounds like you have no idea of what wildcards are. I guess you have
some but now you pretend to be ignorant.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Jon Fairbairn:

The OED:

3. esp. A shortened form of a spoken word, or written
symbol; a part of a word or symbol standing for the
whole.

Get a better dictionary, like Merriam-Webster:

"Abbreviation
1 : the act or result of abbreviating : abridgment
2 : a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the
whole <amt is an abbreviation for amount>"

The OED is obscure here, since if parsed as "(A shortened form of a
spoken word)", or (written symbol)", it means that any written symbol
(e.g., "I" when used as a personal pronoun) is an abbreviation. If
parsed as "A shortened form of ((a spoken word), or (written symbol))",
it's slightly ungrammatical but makes more sense: in principle, non-word
symbols may have abbreviations, too.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Andy Dingley]

On 23 Jan, 13:55, Harlan Messinger <[e-mail]>
wrote:

The OED:

3. esp. A shortened form of a spoken word, or written
symbol; a part of a word or symbol standing for the
whole.

Get a better dictionary, like Merriam-Webster:

ROFL. What audacity.

What ambiguity. Although the real OED (any edition) is fine, as is
the Compact, the affordable abridged or concise editions are just too
abridged to be of much use at this level.

A real OED isn't cheap either. A S/H Compact is about £100, new full
OEDs are £500. Unless you're an academic or a particularly dedicated
sort of harmless drudge, you're unlikely to have access.

[Harlan Messinger]

Andy Dingley wrote:

On 23 Jan, 13:55, Harlan Messinger <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>>>The OED:
3. esp. A shortened form of a spoken word, or written
symbol; a part of a word or symbol standing for the
whole.
Get a better dictionary, like Merriam-Webster:

ROFL. What audacity.

What ambiguity. Although the real OED (any edition) is fine, as is
the Compact, the affordable abridged or concise editions are just too
abridged to be of much use at this level.

A real OED isn't cheap either. A S/H Compact is about £100, new full
OEDs are £500. Unless you're an academic or a particularly dedicated
sort of harmless drudge, you're unlikely to have access.

I have full online OED access through my county public library's
website. It's a great feature.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Scripsit Harlan Messinger:

I agree that the wording is poor. The W3C HTML specification is often
worded more poorly than that, so I suppose we should disregard its
substance as well.

Of course - in the issue of ABBR and ACRONYM. It's just confusion after
confusion, and waste of everyone's time.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Jon Fairbairn]

Andy Dingley <di*****@codesmiths.comwrites:

On 23 Jan, 13:55, Harlan Messinger <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>The OED:

> 3. esp. A shortened form of a spoken word, or written
symbol; a part of a word or symbol standing for the
whole.

Get a better dictionary, like Merriam-Webster:

ROFL. What audacity.

What ambiguity. Although the real OED (any edition) is fine, as is
the Compact, the affordable abridged or concise editions are just too
abridged to be of much use at this level.

I quoted from the full (online) version. The ambiguity is unfortunate.

--
Jón Fairbairn Jo***********@cl.cam.ac.uk