Category versus type (was:DE>EN Tumorart and Tumorentität)

[Guest guest]

I'm happy that our List could be of some help to Margaret.

I just wanted to add a comment about the difference between " category "

and " type " .

They are not perfect synonyms.

The real synonym of category is " class " . A category is a class gathering

elements of same nature

A " type " is a model which represents a specific given category.

To summarize, a type is a kind of " sub-category " . Different types may

belong to a same category/class.

It's a little like in taxonomy, the classification of bacteria : The

category / class would be the genus and the type would be the species..

It's why I love translation, because some little details of this sort

may help us to render the authors thoughts, particularly when those

ideas are somewhat convoluted ;-)

Have a very nice evening and thanks to all of you for making this list

lively.

Le 17/04/2012 18:30, Margaret Hutchings a écrit :

> In the end and in view of your discussions I went with type and

> category. Thanks again everyone, , Graham, Owen, , Astrid,

> Dee, for your contributions and suggestions with this.

>

> Margaret

>

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[Guest guest]

> The real synonym of category is " class " .

I agree, and I did have this subtle point at the back of my mind.

The distinction I was focusing on was between category/type/class on one

hand, and something like 'location of tumour' or 'size of tumour' or

'aggressiveness of tumour' on the other. That's because

category/type/class are completely abstract: they can relate to anything

at all, i.e. they can be classifying/categorising/typing any sort of

quality, from the completely concrete (location, size) to the completely

abstract (will power, loyalty).