NavList:

   

Reply

John,

Navigation suffers from more than its fair share of confusing terminology.
The classic is the expression "horizontal parallax". In modern English,
horizontal refers to something that is lying flat, but once upon a time, it
referred to anything relating to the horizon. So horizontal parallax means
the value of the parallax at the horizon. Perhaps a better modern term would
be "Zero Altitude Parallax" --ZAP instead of HP. Of course, it's too late to
make any actual change in terminology in celestial navigation but when one
is teaching the concept, maybe this would help??

In the case of the "estimated position" of the St. Hilaire article, the
problem is not archaic word usage but translated word usage. If you take the
French phrase and translate it literally, word for word, you get "estimated
position" but if you look at the way the phrase is defined and used in
French navigation lingo, it means no more nor less than "dead reckoning
position". Personally, if I had translated this article, I would have used
"dead reckoning position", but it's a judgement call. This is a frequent
issue when translating technical French to English. Many words have obvious
cognates in English that mean something very different, and many other
cognates have subtly different meanings. There is always a compromise
between literal translation, word for word, and paraphrase translation,
which attempts to translate concept for concept.

 -FER


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

   

Reply