Hi all. As a native Italian speaker, I would like to comment on the possible translations that emerged so far. It is a rather long message, I apologize in advance. My preferences about the possible translation are at the end.
I think that neither "tensore" nor "estensore" are good translation for Lilypond's "spanner", for the following reasons. Notation Reference 5.4.6. defines spanners as objects that «extend over several notes or even several bars». The word "tensore" has two main meanings: the first is "something which stretches/tightens something else" (also in anatomy), which doesn't seem correct to me in this case; the second is the mathematical concept of "tensor" which definitely has nothing to do with Lilypond spanners. The main meaning of "estensore" is "something that extends something else" (also in anatomy) which seems better, but still isn't perfect: a spanner _does not_ extend something over notes, it is _itself_ extended; however it could be acceptable, since one could think of the spanner as a tool extending _a mark_ over notes. (For the same reason, as noted by Phil Holmes, also in English "spanner" and "extender" aren't synonyms at all.) The concept of k-spanners in graphs is indeed very similar to Lilypond's spanners. Unfortunately, although I studied some graph theory, I don't remember having encountered the Italian version of "(k-)spanners" and I don't have an Italian graph theory book at home right now, so I can't find the Italian translation for it. The Italian for «the segments of a bridge between the vertical supports [that are] called spans» in English (cited by Mogens Lemvig Hansen) is "campata". Although the concept can be similar to what we are looking for, the Italian word "campata" only has the literal meaning of "bridge span", so maybe it isn't so immediate to use it with a figurative meaning. I would definitely discourage names such as "spannatore": they don't suggest the right meaning at all as martinwguy noted about "demister". I also totally agree with him about (not) using "spanner" as an anglicism. Other neologisms based on "span" may sound even better and be equally not evocative. "estensore" would still be way better. The word "ponte", i.e. "bridge", is often used with figurative meanings, but in a musical context it already has the musical meaning of "bridge" in songs. Also, it conveys more the concept of something linking two parts, or extending from a point to another (i.e. with focus on the start and end points), rather than something that extends over something else. So in the end I am left with "indicazione estesa" (Gianluca D'Orazio, "extended mark/indication") and "oggetto esteso" (Francisco Vila, "objeto de extensión", "extended object"), that both have the right meaning in our context. The former is more precise, but the latter sounds better to my ear. If I had to vote, my preferences would be in first place "oggetto esteso" and in second place "indicazione estesa". If for some reason they couldn't be used, my vote would go to "estensore" (despite the wrong literal meaning) or "ponte" (despite not being so evocative). I hope this helps, and not having bored you all :) Best wishes, Davide _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user