(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: story with Gaiman

[António Pedro Marques]

Gerry Quinn wrote (21-02-2011 13:05):
>
> From: "António Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>
>> Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>>> I other words I think:
>>>
>>> <Terminus Est> : <Sev's language> :: Latin : English
>>> <language Thea mentions> : <Sev's language> :: <really ancient language>
>>> : English
>>
>> I suppose : means 'is to', :: means 'as' and <> are just paretheses?
>> If so, it took me a while to figure it out.
>> I would suggest avoiding >.
>
> There is, or used to be, a mathematical notation that says:
>
> a : b :: c : d
> meaning
> a is to b as c is to d.
>
> It is used originally for ratios, and by analogy for comparisons,
> synonyms etc.

I was only used to the simpletonish

  a     c
--- = ---
  b     d

I suppose :: is historically related to =, then.

> I used <> to differentiate multiword concepts; I often use angle
> brackets to differentiate some unitary thing from surrounding text but
> perhaps I should rethink if it is not coming across as such.

No, there's nothing wrong with it; it's just that > is prone to be 
interpreted as a quoting character by the software.

> So yes, you got it right. I'll try to be clearer in the future.

I'd probably have gotten it easily if my reader hadn't split the lines.