TeX - ! Extra alignment tab has been changed to \cr

Carlos linguafalsa at gmail.com
Mon Jul 8 14:16:47 CEST 2019


>
> If you were to translate "Extra alignment tab has been changed into \cr"
> into Spanish, and publish your translation on this list, we could then ask
> other native Spanish speakers (Hispanophones) whether (a) they agree that
> your translation is accurate, and (b) how they would render your
> translation in good idiomatic English.  For those that are also TeXophones,
> we could also ask what they interpret it as meaning.
>
> Philip Taylor
>

Philip, I'm afraid that my poor thinking abilities disallow me to address
your concerns: (a) and (b).

And  I might be stupid enough for not being able to translate to Spanish
`Extra alignment tab has been changed to \cr', not only because of
colloquialisms and localisms variations that pervade Spanish, perhaps at a
greater extent than English, but mainly because  I certainly would not want
to do such a disservice of association with the same misleading chock-full
ambiguity effects than what the current message conveys  to TeX in general.

Unless you reset yourself and apply successfully a cogito ergo sum a great
many times beyond your limited biological functions for this use case,
which in turn, should give you, a reasonable pause to determine whether the
former or the latter is to you of more importance (I assure you you'd be
surprised of your own conclusive assertion :) ... then and only then, I
might be able to - admittedly unwilling - commit a translation from such
prima facie. A translation goes so far as the default source allows it to.
It carries the failures of that very  language, which unfortunately in this
case, mutates the meaning.


On Sun, Jul 7, 2019 at 5:32 AM Taylor, P <P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk> wrote:

> Carlos wrote:
>
> My issue  [...] is the simple misleading message of
>
>  Extra alignment tab has been changed to \cr
>
>
> When you ask an Anglophone speaking individual what from the above he/she
> can understand from it,, that individual might reply - and rightly so -
> that what the message conveys is that the \cr was applied to the newline,
> Hence that extra alignment (unspecified or not) has been changed. So this
> conversation would be nullified to start with.
>
>
> I am "an Anglophone [speaking] individual".  When I read the diagnostic, I
> see no mention of a newline at all; why, therefore, should I interpret it
> as conveying "that the \cr was applied to the newline" ?  It says nothing
> even vaguely similar to that.
>
> If on the other hand, I were to translate the above to Spanish, and ask a
> Spanish speaking individual what that message seems to convey to him/her,
> that very same individual  almost surely will agree with the Anglophone
> counterpart.
>
>
> If you were to translate "Extra alignment tab has been changed into \cr"
> into Spanish, and publish your translation on this list, we could then ask
> other native Spanish speakers (Hispanophones) whether (a) they agree that
> your translation is accurate, and (b) how they would render your
> translation in good idiomatic English.  For those that are also TeXophones,
> we could also ask what they interpret it as meaning.
>
> Philip Taylor
>
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