Why PRML?
Let's start off with some quoting from Karl-Erik Tallmo:
There is (at least to my knowledge) no standard today for proofreading electronic documents. Since long, writers, editors, typesetters - and proofreaders - have had their own set of symbols for correcting errors, adding phrases etc. in paper based texts. But what to do when we communicate with editors and publishers via e-mail, or send text files on disk?
I believe there is need for a kind of markup standard for this purpose, especially since many people today do "dry" proofreading, that is without a paper original to compare with. For this people invent their own markup, using, for example, square brackets for text that should be deleted and maybe asterisks for new text. Some use the PDF or MS-Word format, where they may annotate, for instance with electronic "post-it notes". What would be more useful, however, is a non-proprietary system, that is possible to use in plain ASCII, for simple e-mail exchange etc. This simple markup would be easy to read for humans, but the system would also be machine-readable and easy to translate from the pure ASCII version into a kind of HTML tags.
I'll add more in my own words in time, but for now, if you still need convincing, just read the rest.
Alternatives
SPML
Google searches have turned up references to something called "Standard Proofreading Markup Language" (SPML). However, SPML seems to have been developed largely in Japan and in Japanese, and I've only found a few summaries in English. Furthermore, it seems to have been a bit busy around 1996-1998, and to have been neglected since then. All told, it doesn't seem like a very viable alternative at the moment.
Wiki
Documents stored on a "wiki-wiki" format usually obviate the need for PRML. These sites, e.g. Wikipediaand, now, , allow one to go in and make the changes needed directly, and store a record of what's been changed. However, of course, the whole concept is fairly useless for any documents stored in any non-wiki format.
What's a "Perameles"??
And how do you say that word?
Perameles was chosen largely on the merits of being one of the words that contains the letters "PRML" in that order.
Perameles is the genus name of some members of the Bandicoot family, derived from the Latin word for "badger", which is "meles".
The project's headquarters having been in Wisconsin (the Badger State) at its founding, it seemed fitting enough.
Being a Latin word, as far as I know, it ought to be pronounced "pear-am-uh-lace", more or less.
