• ThingsVersusTheirNames

In natural language¹, we say "My name is Dan" and "I am Dan" almost interchangeably. By analogy, folks tend to write

<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/">
  <dc:creator>Dan Connolly</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>

and

<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/">
  <dc:creator rdfs:parseType="Resource">
    <foaf:name>Dan Connolly</foaf:name>
  </dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>

almost interchangeably. But if you think formally, i.e. like a machine, these are very different. The first one seems to say that a web page was created by a string starting with the letter D. The second is much more clear: a web page was created by a person whose name is a string starting with the letter D.

see also: things versus pages about things, i.e. SubjectIndicator, and the related PPR:AntiPattern OverloadedUri; RestaurantsVersusTheirReviews; PersonsVersusTheirDescriptions and PropertiesForNaming.

Is the range of DublinCore creator person or string, or some union thereof? The union approach clashes with OWL-DL.

numbers versus numerals.

level-breaking, log:uri

LinkMe: RDFCore reification issues; "use/mention..." thread in rdf-logic, rdfcore.

LinkMe: DanC's comments to dc-architecture

It is a lazy English thing. In French they even say "the function whose equation is f(x)=" instead of "the function f(x)=" --AndrewCates