Re: A question regarding dictionary entries

On 7/31/07, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> Sylvia Sotomayor wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am redesigning my dictinary for Kelen (yet again), and I am planning
> > on having short glosses (one word, maybe two) for each stem or base
> > word, and also longer definitions for each fully formed and inflected
> > word. My question: given that Kelen has a base 8 counting system,
> > should I gloss 'āllōr' as 32 or 40? It has the functional equivalent
> > of 40 in the language, being 8x4, but refers to 32 things.
> >
> I'd suggest you insert an explanatory comment, like:
> "āllōr  forty (base 8 = 32 base 10)"
> That will prevent IMO any confusion/mistakes on the part of the reader.
>
> I sometimes have the same problem with Gwr, even though they adopted the
> decimal system quite some time ago. But some old ways persist.
>
I would certainly explain in the longer definition that this was 40
base 8 (or octal) which is 32 base 10, but for the one word gloss, I'm
thinking 32 would be clearer to my mostly English-speaking readers.

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
terjemar@gmail.com
www.terjemar.net

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