[cc-community] [asheesh at creativecommons.org: Re: A comment from Noah Slater]
Terry Hancock
hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Fri May 16 10:44:15 EDT 2008
I can't believe this thread is still going on. Ah well, might as well
add my two cents...
Complex wrote:
> My comment is at least a little persnickety, but this is a list of
> nouns, not a list of adjectives.
No, they're adjectives. They modify the noun "license".
Admittedly, "Attribution" _can_ be a noun, but in this case, it is
construed as an adjective. "Non-Commercial" of course, is in an
adjectival form and cannot be a noun, which proves the point.
The most rigorously correct and clear form is probably:
Attribution/Non-Commercial/Share-Alike
This retains conventional hyphenation in the existing word
"non-commercial" and adopts the standard notation for a phrase acting as
an adjective (which is what "share-alike" technically is).
The versions:
Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike
Attribution; Non-Commercial; Share-Alike
are clearly wrong.
The slashes indicate that each word is parallel in modifying the noun
"license". However, unlike using a comma (or worse, a semicolon), the
slash does not suggest that the adjectives are fully independent
modifiers (which they aren't -- CC license modules are highly
interdependent).
However, having said that, I actually prefer the appearance of this more
common form:
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
That's also very clear, and arguably more so than the "slash" version.
Strict English usage isn't supposed to have embedded capitals, but I
think we'll have to get over that anyway, considering the plethora of
computer industry jargon and tradenames (e.g. "iPhone" or "eMachine")
which already use them.
Another version, which is "acceptable", but not rigorously correct would be:
Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike
At first glance, this seems similar to "GNU General Public", but there
is a critical difference. Using no commas indicates a hierarchy of
modifiers, such that each of the following compositions is a noun (with
progressive refinement):
License
Public License
General Public License
GNU General Public License
But that's not what we mean when we use the CC license modules. Each one
is a parallel modification of the noun license (even though they effect
each other, they are not in such a meaningful hierarchy -- if there is a
hierarchy, it is reversed, with Attribution being first, then
Non-Commercial, and then Share-Alike).
So, to recap...
1) Commas would indicate three separate and unrelated licenses (NOT TRUE)
2) Spaces would indicate hierarchical modification (NOT TRUE)
3) Dashes would indicate a phrase modification or possibly parallel
modification (TRUE). For clarity this can either be one level of dashes
(hyphens), with embedded caps representing the word compounds. This
usage follows modern CS and advertising trends, but violates
long-standing conventions. It has the advantage of matching the way the
terms are usually abbreviated.
4) Alternatively, one can follow convention and use two different kinds
of dashes: en-dashes between modifiers and hyphens within the compounds.
This is "correct", but rather confusing and aesthetically displeasing.
5) Using slashes would indicate parallel but closely-linked modifiers
(TRUE). It also avoids the confusion associated with multiple types of
dashes, without having to introduce the non-standard embedded capitals.
Choice #3 represents the most common practice and the one I actually use
in writing and editing. On first principles, though, choice #5 is
probably the best since it is both rigorously correct and clear to read.
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
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