Re: Very Beginner's Guide

[Cameron Horsburgh]

On Mon, Dec 25, 2006 at 02:26:41PM +0100, Manuel wrote:
> 
>    Joe, you are probably right about not translating too much, since
>    adding information substracts clarity. We might include one mention to
>    the differences, not more.
> 
>    Now, we are using English here as international English, a lingua
>    franca like Swahili, only English is not only a lingua franca but also
>    the mother language of many people, with diffrerences in between.
> 
>    Am I right in thinking that, generally speaking, "whole note",
>    "quarter note" and "eight note" are generally understood but "minim",
>    "crochet" and "quaver" are not?
> 
>    If so, and without subscribing to any imperialism, I'd suggest to use
>    the more easy terms for our purpose, as long as they are right and
>    accepted.
> 
>    (In Spanish, you would have rounds, whites, blacks and then
>    untranslatable corcheas, semicorcheas, fusas, semifusas and
>    cuartifusas... but the point is that it would be actually confusing to
>    say enteras, medias, cuartas and so forth)
> 

I'm the first to resist American incursions into the Queen's English
as she taught it to Australia, but I'm more than happy to see this one
become part of our lexicon! As I pointed out, it's necessary to learn
the fraction type nomenclature if you're going to learn LilyPond. One
possible compromise would be to leave it as is (or was) but provide a
link to this page in the glossary:

http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.11/Documentation/user/music-glossary/Duration-names-notes-and-rests.html#Duration-names-notes-and-rests

Incidentally, Manuel, one more spelling problem! The English term for
'quarter note' is 'crotchet', not 'crochet'. As your spell checker
would suggest  'crochet' is an English word --- it's a form of
knitting which (AFAIU) uses a single hooked needle.



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Cameron Horsburgh

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