Re: Translating CD-ROM

[Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj <alarfaj0 at yahoo dot com>]

--- Mohammed Elzubeir <elzubeir at arabeyes dot org> wrote:
[...]
> I agree with Munzir here. The word us6uwana is simply inaccurate. One
> of the
> things we have recommended in the past is to use the common popular
> law. That
> is to say, if a word is very commonly known as "CD" (even in Arabic,
> people
> say "SeeDee") the it should be transliterated instead. I guess this
> is not
> something that has had a ruling on since the QAC's inception.

Well, any disk is, by definition, a cylinder. I guess you could say its
a cylinder of neglegible height but a cylinder just the same. I know
what your thinking, its not about geometry here. Well thats exactly
what I'm saying too. We don't have to fixate on such details if we know
for sure people will right away know what we are talking about when we
say "us6wanah". Also I've seen it used often in the Arabic media, so
its not obscure.

As for the common popular law, lots of people may say "seeDee", but
also where I come from, for many laymen any media that is inserted into
any machine be it a VCR or tape recorder or computer or CD player is
always called a "sharee6", regardless of whether or not it has a tape.
Thats as inaccurate as you can get, but its still _very_ popular and
easily understood.

It would be much easier to apply the common popular law if the word
being used was Arabic or at least Arabic sounding but SeeDee simply
isn't and I can assure its enough to drive some users onto a war path
:)

Anyway, I've already made the changes, can we just give this new word a
shot at least?

Abdulaziz,


		
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