[Gvsig_english] Language trouble: alphanumeric

[G. Allegri]

Hi Ben.
In italian, the generic meaning of aphanumeric is:

"alphanumeric" = "numbers and strings"

Giovanni

2010/7/8 Benjamin Ducke <benjamin.ducke at oxfordarch.co.uk>:
> Hi all,
>
> this is a question to all of you who speak a Latin-based language.
> I am curious about the word "alphanumeric", which is often used
> by Spanish, Italian, French, etc. speakers when they talk about
> GIS in English.
>
> I have always struggled with the meaning of this, as it does not
> seem to fully match the computer science definition
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphanumeric).
> For example, it is sometimes used like "geographical alphanumeric"
> data or "spatial alphanumeric" data, which would make no sense
> given above definition.
>
> So my question is: what exactly does this word mean, which seems
> to be so intuitive to many people?
>
> "alphanumeric" = "attribute table data"?
>
> "alphanumeric" = "numbers and strings"?
>
> "alphanumeric" = "database content"?
>
> or just = "digital information"?
>
> Confused,
>
> Ben
>
>
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