[om] critique of the notion of phrasebook

[Andreas Strotmann]

Andrew,

it might be useful here to note the origin of the term "phrasebook", as it
is intimately connected to your criticism.

When I went to Bath to work on the Objectives with John Abbott in early
'95 (I believe), we were looking for a good term to describe something
like a dictionary, but one that translated phrases rather than words.
The reason for this was that we recognized that CA systems chunk concepts
in different ways, and typically context ("phrases") would need to be used
to determine the specific variant of a concept that might correspond to an
OpenMath concept in that CA.  A simple example of this would later become
the OpenMath way of representing definite integration, where most CA
systems would need to look inside the embedded lambda.

James Davenport, when asked, suggested the term "phrasebook" as a better
alternative to "dictionary" during my visit in Bath in 95.

Thus, the terminology already takes into account the "Hungarian tourist"
scene;  the part of the OpenMath Standard you quote does not make this as
clear as it might.  Perhaps the OpenMath Objectives, where this
terminology first appeared, explained this more thoroughly.

 -- Andreas
____________________________________________________________
"The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today
all the exhilaration of a vice." -
G.K.Chesterton: A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901
                           www.chesterton.org/acs/quotes.htm

On Sun, 10 Jun 2001, Andrew Solomon wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I've written a short essay discussing problems with and alternatives
> to the notion of phrasebook.
>
> http://www.illywhacker.net/papers/phrasebook.html
>
> I would like to get your reactions.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrew
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