Proposed new translation / methods for Carmen's country.rb

gistfile1.txt

class Country

....

     def prepended_article
       Carmen.i18n_backend.translate(path('prepended_article'))
     end

     def articlelized_common_name
       prepended_article.blank? common_name : "#{article} #{common_name}"
     end
     
end

Another way to write that ternary statement, but without any branching:

def articlelized_common_name
  [prepended_article, common_name].compact.join(' ')
end

This seems like a translation (and possibly even localization) issue; articles don't necessarily work that way (and perhaps not even exist?) in other languages. i.e., this is probably not a concern Carmen should know about. You could consider wrapping Carmen with a small veneer which added this functionality. Or perhaps building a wrapper for the default backend which allowed you to add it?