ontology nits (was: acade - LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM)

[David Starner]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com> wrote:
> On 31 Aug 2008, at 00:45, Mark Davis wrote:
>
> > But then we'd be missing the umbrella term for both, which is what most
> > people would really like to use.
>
> This is nothing but an assertion.

It's what they requested, and it follows the pattern of every tag
given so far; Hanyu Pinyin, not Hanyu Pinyin 1978, OED British
English, not OED 2 British English, etc.

> I disagree. As I have said, "Akadem" refers to an institution, not an
> orthography. The institution could in principle publish a very different
> orthography -- Latin for instance -- and if it did so the term would in no
> way be an umbrella term.

The next edition of the OED could in principle spell things very
differently--in fact, I find it much more likely that the next edition
will make an ize/ise change or the like than a major change in Akadem.
If the French academy says so, French could change overnight. The
location of various countries has changed. China could declare a new
standard to be Hanyu Pinyin. So long as it's clear what the tag means,
we haven't stressed over the unlikely but possible changes like this.