glossentry: DITA addon terminology question

What is the basis for presenting 'glossentry' as 'glossary entry'? Why 
not call it a 'gloss entry'? Does the DITA spec say anything about this?

This is perhaps a nerdy detail. But anyway: In the English localization 
of the DITA addon for XMLmind XML Editor, as well as in “DITA for the 
impatient"[1], the element 'glossentry', is referred to as “glossary 
entry".

However, there actually is something called a ”gloss”. In fact, a 
glossary is made up of glossES.[2] A single gloss is technically (or 
perhaps I should say: traditionally) not called a glossary. You need two 
glosses together - then you have a glossary. (Once again, see 
Wikipedia[2].) That said, in the computer world, a group is sometimes 
defined as consisting of «one or more» ... So a <glossentry> could 
probably be labelled a 'glossary' in that sense. Except that a 
<glossentry> can only represent a single gloss - so does not make sense 
to call it a group = a glossary, even from a computer world perspective.

Now, you could perhaps argue that a glossary entry is exactly the same 
as a gloss (entry): It is a single entry, regardless! One could as well 
compare with the <dl> element, which - in DITA - requires a <dlentry>. 
As an argument in favor of that comparison, we could bring the 
<glossgroup> element into the discussion: That element takes one or more 
<glossentry> as its content. And as such, <glossgroup> looks very 
similar to <dl> (if we look away from the fact that <glossentry> may 
contain a few specialized elements relevant to glossaries). In fact, on 
the surface, the only difference I can see between <glossgroup> and 
<dl>, is that the <glossentry> of the former can also be used alone, 
outside its container element. Whereas, as far as I know, <dlentry> can 
only occur inside <dl>.

But does it matter whether it is 'gloss entry' or 'glossary entry'? 
Well, first, perhaps 'glossary entry' can live on. But at least knowing 
that 'glossentry' might also be interpreted as 'gloss entry', opens up, 
for me - as a localizer of XMLmind - some possible nuances in the 
translation of 'glossary entry'.

[1] https://xmlmind.com/tutorials/DITA/index.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloss_(annotation)

Leif Halvard Silli

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