Re: Glossary update

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Aoife Dunne - Sunsoft ELC wrote:
> > * Some entries contain words with multiple meanings - sometimes the
> > translations are vastly different depending on the meaning or context.
> > This is a limitation with gettext, but it would be helpful if the
> > different meanings could be spread on different entries in the
> > dictionary by applying some context information, like:
> >
> > #. "1. In e-mail and Internet newsgroups, the content of a message.
> > msgid "[e-mail]body"
> > msgstr "meddelandetext"
> >
> > #. "2. In HTML, SGML, and XML, a section of a document that contains the
> > content of the document, along with tags describing characteristics of
> > the content."
> > msgid "[e-mail]body"
> > msgstr "kropp"
> 
> Aoife: Feel free to tailor your specific language dictionary by adding new
> entries.

But wasn't the point to have one, unified GNOME dictionary? I don't see
how that can be done if we have to move everything that has multiple
meanings outside this dictionary.


> > * I see no pattern in the casing of the terms. To me they seem to use a
> > near random mix of upper and lower case. I'd suggest that lower case be
> > used for all terms except names and abbreviations, like in a normal
> > dictionary.
> 
> Aoife: The terms are an extraction of the actual English software (A mirror of
> the terms)  If the term appear both upper and lower case in the actual software
> we removed the upper case term.  Please feel free to tailor your own specific
> languages to what appears in the actual localized software.  However, I would
> ask you, please do not change the English, because it is a reflection of the
> software.

Ok, then I agree on this point. It's just one word that still makes me
confused: "Root" (meaning the system administrator account). "Root" and
"root" are different accounts, and to the best of my knowledge, the
administrator account on all of the unices I have used is named "root"
(with a geminized r) by default.
I think the "Root" entry in the dictionary should be renamed "root", so
that users won't be confused.


> > * I think more specialized terms from the various GNOME language teams'
> > own dictionaries could also be added to the glossary. They are sometimes
> > even necessary. An example is "browser" vs. "web browser" in Swedish.
> > The generic term "browser" is "bläddrare", while "web browser" is
> > "webbläsare". So both of these terms would have to be added to the
> > glossary for it to be complete from a Swedish perspective.
> 
> Aoife: Feel free to tailor your specific language dictionary by adding new
> entries or even merging dictionaries.

Again, wasn't the point to have one unified GNOME dictionary? If that's
the case, I don't see how it will help if we still have to keep specific
dictionaries for the various languages. More GNOME dictionaries doesn't
help, merging them into one GNOME dictionary would.
Ideally, I think removing the need for language-specific dictionaries
altogether is the goal we should be aiming at. And then we have a need
for adding the entries from the existing dictionaries into this one, and
have a process for approving them.

If the use of a word in a particular language makes to entries
necessary, where the translation would be the same in all other
languages, I still think that the two entries should be added.

To be more specific, to solve the issue with "browser" in Swedish, we
would need to entries in the Gnome glossary:

msgstr "browser"
msgid ""

and

msgstr "web browser"
msgid ""


I don't think that many other language teams would object to additional
entries like this being added, if it helps solving an issue in another
language.


Christian