[rdfweb-dev] Re: rdfweb-dev Digest, Vol 3, Issue 9

[Morten Frederiksen]

Tim Mansfield <timbomb at dstc.uts.edu.au> wrote:
>Modulo Bill's concerns about sorting order, this makes a lot of sense
>to me. In most cultures I'm aware of people have a long string of
>names each of which may or may not have a semantics associated with
>genealogy, gender and/or family position (literally, it's not uncommon
>to find people in Korea or Vietnam who are called "three" or "five" -
>their place in the family), but then a familiar name by which they're
>called.
Very interesting, especially from the perspective of a "friendly"
vocabulary. I'm sure names like these could be modelled as a separate
class of names, like Patronyms - I wonder what such names are called in
general?

>The only qualm I have then is that in many cultures familiarity isn't
>the simple bi-level affair that it is for most of us English-speaking folk. 
>As an example:
[snippage]
Also very interesting.

>So, anyway, yeah. SortableFullName plus WhatAreYouCalledName is
>probably not so bad. The in-group/out-group and social status
>distinctions that make it important to know who is doing the calling
>rarely survive the transit to the Net anyway currently.
I see your point, but perhaps a foaf:friendsCallMe could also be used
for nicknames like Jim (instead of the formal James) etc., with the
foaf:name property used for how one would be introduced to strangers?


Regards,
Morten Frederiksen
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"A duel of wits?  To the DEATH?"
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