[MPEG-OTSPEC] "font directory" / "offset table" / "table directory"

[Peter Constable]

Adam

I find this to be an interesting perspective coming from a fluent but non-native English speaker.

Note your “car exhibition” example. (Or “car show’.) Anybody who went to one would expect to see cars—plural—and would not expect it to be held within a car.

A “phone directory” is a directory of phone numbers, not a directory that lives in a font.

I won’t delve into your other examples, but will stop at the above. In English, “cars exhibition” would be understood, but seem unnatural is not what I would ever expect to be said. Similarly, nobody would ever refer to a “phones directory”.

Thus, I disagree that “table directory reads like [a] directory of a table”. That is a construct Apple is using in “font directory”, but I dislike it because it feels like it ought to mean something other than what they intend. And “tables directory” seems just as unnatural to me as would “phones directory” or “cars exhibition”. I would by default interpret “table directory” to mean a directory of tables, just as a “phone directory” is a directory of phones.


Peter


From: Adam Twardoch (Lists) <list.adam at twardoch.com>
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2020 8:47 AM
To: Peter Constable <pgcon6 at msn.com>
Cc: MPEG OT Spec list (mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at) <mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at>; Simon Cozens <simon at simon-cozens.org>
Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] "font directory" / "offset table" / "table directory"

Ps. compare "car exhibition" and "car door". First is an exhibition of cars in the sense that it has cars, second is door of a car in the sense that the car belongs to the car. For better understanding, "cars exhibition" of "exhibition of cars" would aid better understanding of the first expression.

On Mon, 31 Aug 2020 at 17:42, Adam Twardoch (Lists) <list.adam at twardoch.com<mailto:list.adam at twardoch.com>> wrote:
Stylistic note:

noun1+noun2 constructs are object+subject constructs. If in doubt, they should be swapped (even in your head) and a preposition should be added, eg. home accessory = accessory for home

The most typical prepositions are for and of.

Table directory reads like directory of a table. Font directory reads like directory of a font. Tables directory reads like directory of tables.

Those object+subject constructs, even if I swap and add "of", are still not always clear, because A of B can mean that B is a property of A or that A includes B, typically as a collection.

If I say "point array", it can mean "array that belongs to a point" (like in home accessory the accessory belongs to the home), or it can somehow mean that it is an array of points. Saying "points array" is a bit more clear because it indicates that it's probably an array of points. But still, it could be misunderstood.

Take the example of "object records": it can mean that there is an object which has some records, or that there are records of the type "object".

English is very poor in that context. The noun serialization may seem handy at first but it's full of traps, so at least for clarity we should make sure that if there is a plural involved, we pluralize the noun.

So "tables collection" and "records array" is better than "table collection" and "record array". And if something like RecordArray is historically fixed, we should add "array of records" in parantheses for clarification.

If you say "directory of tables" might still be best, rather than either font directory or table directory — because in case of collections, directories, tables, arrays, lists, it's more important what they contain than what they belong to (the latter is implied by where the term is described).

A.


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