The idea is that a fire next door may spread to you. I obviously don't know the context, but the writer might be making a point like "if nearby countries are at war, make sure you're ready for trouble."

Try “Whenever our neighbor's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to spray a little [water] on our own [house.]”

I think it's about sins and mental diseases. Sins and mental diseases if active in our neighbour, will affect us in some way.

Hello,
I am not english mother tongue so I would like to know what terms are suitable to describe:
1-notes, 2-highlight, 3-underline, 4-strike through
in applications where user can annotate text (where 1 notes appear as yellow boxes near words and show text when clicked, while 2,3,4 appear as text decorations).
Are 2,3,4 "annotations"? If yes, are they "annotations" also when 1 are explicitly called "notes"? Does it make sense?
If an app is able to manage 1,2,3,4 how to describe 1 and 2,3,4 as two separate categories to the user (like "notes" vs "annotations"?).
First I believed it was right to call 1 "notes" and 2,3,4 "annotations" but now I think it is wrong, isn't it?
I feel it is also ugly to call 2,3,4 "text-decorations".
Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annotation annotations are considered as marks and marginalia;
here http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/annotate it is pointed out that annotation is from latin notatus (noted or marked).
Only mother tongue users can say how to correctly name the two categories.
Some suggestions?
Thanks in advance

To annotate (verb) means to add a note. A note (noun) is an annotation (noun), they are the same thing.

Highlighting, underlining, and strike-through are NOT annotations or notes. These have to do with the typographical presentation of text, and to add them would be to edit not to annotate.

Refer to 2, 3, 4 as "decorations," since they're things that you can do to "decorate" the words ... the font. Those decorations are intended to be visible when the page is printed.

If you can insert a block of hidden text (analogous to those little yellow adhesive sticky-notes that you can attach to a printed page), those would be "notes." But you could also refer to them as "annotations" because you're in effect attaching them to – associating them with – using them to [i]annotate[/u] ("make a note about") – a particular block of text.

A decoration is truly a property of how the text will appear every time it's printed, whereas an annotation might be called metadata. It's directly associated with a particular spot in the text, but it's not part of the text.

Hello P5music,
your thread has been merged with the English language megathread, please post questions about the English language in that thread only.

As a working sometimes less than functional dyslexic. I have struggled with the rude comments in the work field and in this forum. I just let it shine on.
I don't use it as a excuse. But this forum likes to communicate in the English language. I gave up looking for work years ago after leaving college do to this dysfunction of my brain. I just did my own thing and started my own company.

As a good friend of mine ahead of the Language department at the U of I said to a Grad student after being corrected in a vocabulary by the student.

You understood what I was trying to say am I correct ? Yes he answered. Did we speak in English Yes was the Grad students reply. Then we have language
and we used it to communicate. And that is what language is about. Read a Louis L'Amour book once.

I suggest if the world is so anal over a simple form of individual expression get off your back side do your own thing. Stop trying to impress people that are here to communicate. Efin u's noaw's wat I me en.

I see that most applications that enable the user to annotate text, like pdf readers, collectively name notes (like sticky yellow "adesive" notes) and decorations (like underlining) as "annotations".
Maybe it is because many programmers are not english mother tongue. Or maybe it is correct to call notes and decorations together "annotations". I do not know, I am asking here.
Many tutorials or wiki entries about annotating a book uses "annotations" for both types of items. Again, it could be because of the authors being not english mother tongue. In other languages, in fact, words like "annotate" encompass also underlining or drawing arrows, circles, writing marginalia and so on, in addition to "create and attach or link to notes", as a whole process that goes along study.
I feel that underlining, highlighting and striking are sort of acts of annotation. I may be wrong.
My question above (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post5137505 merged here by another user) is about annotations made by the user, not by the creator of the document (i.e. a book), annotations of both types (notes and decorations) that have a unique goal for the reader to add relevant information in various forms.
Thanks in advance

Annotating means adding a note or an explanation. Adding underlining or a coloured background is emphasising. When a writer quotes a passage and italicises part of it, they'll add a note "my emphasis".

Could you tell me if the following sentence sounds ok to a native ear? If not, how would you change it? NAME = Name of the company.

Thank you.

Somewhat stiff, but it's understandable and grammatically correct.

Thank you. Any recommendation to make it less stiff?

It's the beginning of a newsletter article and 'the picture above' is a picture/diagram that is above the article.

I'd say:

If you've seen the above picture before, chances are it was on one of NAME's walls.

Shorter, less stiff, more straightforward.

Ok. Thank you