Re: Bug#640326: makedic package description

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Justin B Rye <jbr@edlug.org.uk> writes:

> Eugeniy Meshcheryakov wrote:
> >    This package provides a graphical program for learning Japanese
> >    characters, which also doubles as a dictionary lookup program.
> >    It requires a dictionary package, such as kanjidic (for learning
> >    kanji) or kanadic (for learning hiragana or katakana), although
> >    you can specify a custom dictionary file on the command line.
>
> Looks good.  I should mention that over on d-l-e Ben Finney's not
> persuaded about lowercase "kanji"...
>  http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-english/2011/09/msg00007.html

As I hope that message explains, it's a little more nuanced: both
title-case “Kanji” and lowercase “kanji” are okay, for saying different
things.

I would read the above “for learning kanji” as “for learning individual
items from some collection of glyphs from the writing system Kanji”; and
likewise for “learning hiragana” and “learning katakana”.

That is, it's fine to say that a program helps with “learning kanji”,
if that means one is learning individual glyphs (as seems likely for
this package).

I also agree that the “proper noun” category is arbitrary; for example,
I have no problem that we no longer refer to the Internet, but rather
refer to the internet.

-- 
 \             “We can't depend for the long run on distinguishing one |
  `\         bitstream from another in order to figure out which rules |
_o__)               apply.” —Eben Moglen, _Anarchism Triumphant_, 1999 |
Ben Finney <ben@benfinney.id.au>