Re: GNOME Lovers Needed: l10n work for locations database

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, Alan Cox wrote:

> Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:23:16 +0000
> From: Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Cc: danilo gnome org, GNOME I18N List <gnome-i18n gnome org>
> Subject: Re: GNOME Lovers Needed: l10n work for locations database
>
> On Maw, 2004-12-14 at 14:31, Alan Horkan wrote:
> > Well ideally programmers would use standard English common to British and
> > American but in reality that doesn't always happen so I would hope that
> > translators would try to fix the originals where possible (programmers,
> > trust the translators) rather than creating unnecessary localisations.
>
> Americanglish and English do not share a precise grammar. Many American
> phrasings sound to English speakers really quite horrible and many
> English phrasings sound positively pompous and complicated to the folks
> on the other side of the pond.
>
> 	"The box I connect to" or "The box to which I connect"

This far more likely to occur in documentation than in a graphical
user interface (GUI).  In a GUI terse phrases like "Connect to" are
more common and pronouns are avoided.

I still think there are cases where translators can improve, simplify and
homogenise programmer "English" into standard English that is clear and
understandable the world over.  Maybe I'm being too optimistic.

- Alan H.