\consists terminology (was: Advice on naming and structuring scholarLY commands)

[Urs Liska]

[Adding a distinction in the thread title]

Am 15. Juni 2018 09:44:44 MESZ schrieb "N. Andrew Walsh" <address@hidden>:
>Pedantry Corner: the *active* verb that Elaine is seeking is actually
>"comprise." As in, "the committee comprises representatives from
>various
>disciplines." The verb in the opposite direction is "compose:"
>"representatives of various disciplines compose the committee."
>"Composed"
>can be used in passive voice to have a similar meaning to "comprise,"
>which
>does not take a passive voice. On the other hand, Garner points out
>that
>"consist in" is the proper construction when referring to intangible
>components, as in: "the engraving standards of the Lilypond system
>consist
>in the ideals of good typography, ease of use, and robustness of
>information preservation."
>
>But on the larger point, my understanding of the \consists command is
>that
>the "of" ("in"?) is simply elided.

That's not what \consists does. But one should take into account that there may be a difference between what the effects of that command are from the user's perspective and what it does internally.


The given context does not "consist of" an engraver. Rather (but I may not have fully grasped it either) it registers the engraver as a callback function to process the context at some point.

Urs

>
>-A
>
>On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 8:59 AM David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Flaming Hakama by Elaine <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>> > This is probably tilting at windmills at this point,
>> > since we seem to have adopted this language,
>> > both in LilyPond and in the ee.
>> >
>> > But, from the perspective of our terminology reflecting English
>language
>> > usage,
>> > I feel compelled to point out that "consist" and "consisted"
>> > are not used in English as active verbs.
>> >
>> > Yes, these do work in the passive, or in the past tense.
>> > As in "my meal consisted of steak and potatoes",
>> > or "my meal consists of steak and potatoes".
>> >
>> > But you would not say, "I consisted a meal of steak and potatoes",
>nor
>> > would you say, "I consisted parsley to a meal of steak and
>potatoes."
>>
>> So you are complaining that our use of the verb does not match the
>> description of some naturally occuring entirely different phenomenon?
>>
>> > But when using it as a word, it does not parse well:
>> >
>> >> When an engraver is consisted to a Voice or Staff or similar
>context
>> >> only properties created through overrides are visible to the
>> >> acknowledger while tweaks seem to be hidden. However, if I consist
>the
>> >> engraver to Score also tweaks are recognized.
>> >
>> >
>> > Here is a usage of the \consists command:
>> >
>> >   \context {
>> >     \Staff
>> >     \consists Mark_engraver
>> >     \consists Metronome_mark_engraver
>> >   }
>> >
>> > To convey what this does, it would be more along the lines of
>> > "Create a Staff context that consists of a Mark_engraver and
>> > Metronome_mark_engraver".
>>
>> Which forms a grammatical statement which, when interpreted at its
>> grammatical meaning, is factually utterly wrong.
>>
>> > I mean, you could say that, but it does not make sense to a native
>> > English speaker.
>>
>> Which is better than making wrong sense.  It makes obvious that we
>are
>> using a non-standard sense of the word borrowing from the meaning of
>the
>> reserved word in its context of LilyPond rather than the natural
>world.
>>
>> > In this sense, if commands are to be read as verbs, maybe we should
>> change
>> > the command name.
>> > Is there a reason why we couldn't use \with, or \add ?
>> >
>> >   \context {
>> >     \Staff
>> >     \with Mark_engraver
>> >     \with Metronome_mark_engraver
>> >   }
>>
>> \with is taken.
>>
>> >   \context {
>> >     \Staff
>> >     \add Mark_engraver
>> >     \add Metronome_mark_engraver
>> >   }
>> >
>> > I think that conveys more clearly what is happening.
>>
>> Not really: that remains something to look up in the documentation.
>>
>> Now I'll readily admit that \consists / \remove does not make for an
>> appealing antonym pair.  I'd be leary after all this time of turning
>a
>> common word like "add" into a reserved word even though "remove" is
>not
>> better in that regard.  But at least it has the advantage of being
>> established.
>>
>> --
>> David Kastrup
>>
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