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scrollmapper / bible_databases

Bible versions and cross-reference databases.
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Should backticks and single-quotes be replaced by square brackets? #58

Open leojonathanoh opened 3 years ago

leojonathanoh commented 3 years ago

Current

A combination of a backtick ` and a single-quote ' is used to enclose "in-addition-to" expressions.

Discussion

As brought up in the discussion in https://github.com/scrollmapper/bible_databases/pull/56#issuecomment-817379168, in all the available database formats(csv, json, md, mssql, sql, tsql, txt, xml), it appears that a combination of a backtick ` and a single-quote ' (e.g. It is a `very' sunny day) is used as the equivalent of square brackets normally used in writing (e.g. It is a [very] sunny day) to enclose "in-addition-to" expressions. Compare:

Is there a specific reason for using this backtick and single-quote syntax for those expressions? Or should square brackets be used instead?

Jmainguy commented 3 years ago

Nice work on the PR, just commenting here so you know I looked at it. I haven't done the research into the original text to figure out which backticks or single quotes are correct. I appreciate the work you are doing sir.

leojonathanoh commented 3 years ago

Haven't done research either. Though based on generally looking around the various DBs, I would assume that all the occurrences of backtick-singlequote are syntactically intact (i.e. no syntax errors). If that is the case it shouldn't be difficult to replace them with square brackets.

Jmainguy commented 3 years ago

Makes sense to me.

Jmainguy commented 3 years ago

I think converting the combo of ` ' to [ ] makes sense and is more legible.

leojonathanoh commented 3 years ago

think so too. Should #61 be worked on first? Then all db formats can be generated with this change.

leojonathanoh commented 3 years ago

i tried to fix this but was hindered by the fact that ` and ' was also used for speech expressions and not just in-addition-to expressions. E.g.

https://github.com/scrollmapper/bible_databases/blob/258c8b3/txt/YLT/1%20Genesis%20-%20Young's%20Literal%20Translation%20(YLT).txt#L12

Here we see an in-addition-to expression (`is') nested in a speech expression (`Let the earth yield tender grass, herb sowing seed, fruit-tree (whose seed `is' in itself) making fruit after its kind, on the earth:').

leojonathanoh commented 3 years ago

Because the use of ` and ' is not isolated to in-addition-to expressions, fixing this would be more challenging that initially thought.