Re: [Ltru] [Technical Errata Reported] RFC5646 (5457)

[John Cowan <[e-mail]>]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 2:28 PM, RFC Errata System <
[e-mail]> wrote:


> Sec. 2.2.2 contains an additional validity requirement (point 4): the
> existence of no more than one extended language subtag.  This is not
> reflected in the definition of validity given in sec. 2.2.9 of the RFC.
>

It seems to me that it's 2.2.2  rather than 2.2.9 that's at fault.  2.2.2
says:


       That is, the second and third extended language
       subtag positions in a language tag are permanently reserved and
       tags that include those subtags in that position are, and will
       always remain, invalid.


However, the grandfathered tag "zh-min-nan" is valid by the definition in
2.2.9 even though it has a second extended language subtag. So since the
above sentence is not normative (it merely explains what is believed to be
a consequence of the preceding statements), it should be removed.

In the alternative, we can simply not worry about it:

The Tract produced an immense sensation, for it seemed to be a deadly and
> treacherous blow aimed at the very heart of the Church of England. Deadly
> it certainly was, but it was not so treacherous as at first sight appeared.
> The members of the English Church had ingenuously imagined up to that
> moment that it was possible to contain in a frame of words the subtle
> essence of their complicated doctrinal system, involving the mysteries of
> the Eternal and the Infinite on the one hand, and the elaborate adjustments
> of temporal government on the other. They did not understand that verbal
> definitions in such a case will only perform their functions so long as
> there is no dispute about the matters which they are intended to define :
> that is to say, so long as there is no need for them. For generations this
> had been the case with the Thirty-nine Articles. *Their drift was clear
> enough ; and no body bothered over their exact meaning.* But directly
> some one found it important to give them a new and untraditional
> interpretation, it appeared that they were a mass of ambiguity, and might
> be twisted into meaning very nearly anything that anybody liked.
> Steady-going churchmen were appalled and outraged when they saw Newman, in
> Tract No. 90, performing this operation. But, after all, he was only taking
> the Church of England at its v/ord. And indeed, since Newman showed the
> way, the operation has become so exceedingly common that the most
> steady-going church- man hardly raises an eyebrow at it now.


--Lytton Strachey,* Eminent Victorians* (emphasis added)