From: "Brian F. Feldman" <green@...>
Date: 2000-09-18T04:20:47+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:4964] Re: Ruby Book Eng. translation editor's questions

> Hi,
> 
> In message "[ruby-talk:4959] Re: Ruby Book Eng. translation editor's questions"
>     on 00/09/17, Jon Babcock <jon@kanji.com> writes:
> 
> |Or, perhaps I am wrong and English 'parenthesis' *can* include curly
> |braces { } and square brackets [ ] and well as ( and ).
> 
> Perl document (perlop.pod) uses the word `brackets' for all these.
> 
> |Is any other kind of kakko 括弧, besides { }, used in this syntax in
> |Ruby?
> 
> Here's the list of corresponding BRACKETs.
> 
>   round  ( )
>   angle  < >
>   square [ ]
>   curly  { }
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> 							matz.

FWIW, we've gone through this for FreeBSD and the consensus was:

    parentheses ( )
    brackets [ ]
    braces { }

and < > are just less-than and greater-than signs.  This is the accepted 
English definition for each, but the terms you've listed seem to have become 
pretty common vernacular in the computer field.

My suggestion would be to have a section of common definitions after the 
preface or so, and include something like:

    symmetrically matched characters (matched delimiters) -

    Ruby allows usage of symmetrically matched characters as delimiters for 
    many types of quotation and syntax in general.  These characters include:
        ( ) parentheses
	[ ] brackets
	{ } braces
	< > less-than/greater-than signs
    e.g.
        %q<This quote is not closed<	# incorrect
        %q<However, this is closed because the delimiter is correctly matched.>

Just a suggestion :) Since there is no word in English for
symmetrically matched characters, you'll have to make up a phrase
(which is better than making up a word ;) if you don't want to confuse
readers, IMHO.  You're starting the translation from scratch, so it
shouldn't be too hard to be consistent if you do that, ne?