>On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, Boyse, Jim wrote:
>>
>>
<clip>
>> Yep, except the plural of schema is schemas. See me
after class :-)
>> </clip>
>>
>> Shucks, I was hoping it was schemata. Sort of like stigma,
stigmata.
>
I wrote about this in the second edition of the XML Bible. To
quote:
You say schemas, I say schemata
Probably no single topic has been more controversial in the schema world
than the proper plural form of the word schema. The original Greek plural is
Û¯ËÌ·Ù·, schemata in Latin transliteration; and this is the form which Kant
used and which you'll find in most dictionaries. This was fine for the 200
years when only people with PhDs in philosophy actually used the word.
However, as often happens when words from other languages are adopted into
popular English, its plural changed to something that sounds more natural to
an Anglophone ear. In this case, the plural form schemata seems to be rapidly
dying out in favor of the simpler schemas. In fact, the three World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) schema specifications all use the plural form schemas. I
follow this convention in this book.
The entire chapter is online at
http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/chapters/ch24.html if
anyone's interested.
--
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|
Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer
|
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| The XML Bible, 2nd
Edition (Hungry Minds,
2001)
|
|
http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/
|
|
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764547607/cafeaulaitA/
|
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
|
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http://www.cafeaulait.org/ |
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|
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