Re: [HIG] Capitalization

[Pat Costello <Patrick Costello Sun COM>]

> tor 2003-04-17 klockan 12.29 skrev Calum Benson:
> > One thing the HIG doesn't say is whether these rules should apply to
> > languages other than English... and to be perfectly honest, I don't know
> > if they should or not.  (I'm really only talking at the level of
> > "Sentence" and "Title" capitalisation here, which are the two styles the
> > HIG talks about-- do all languages have those concepts?
> 
> Many languages, even languages closely related to English, don't have
> the concept of what's referred to as book title capitalization in
> English.
> 
> As an example, using English-style book title capitalization instead of
> sentence capitalization in anything written in Swedish (including all
> forms of titles) would be considered a ridiculous form of spelling
> error.
> 

Christian is absolutely correct. The GNOME Documentation Style Guide (GDSG) is 
meant in the first instance for authors contributing in English. Many of the 
guidelines in the GDSG, for example no personal opinions please, are universal. 
Others are language-specific, and must be suitably amended by the localization 
teams. The use of capitalization is a classic language-specific feature, ranging 
from none at all in some languages, through to almost everything in other 
languages. 

However, the GDSG does not make the point clearly enough that the 
recommendations are aimed primarily for English-language users, and American 
English language users to be specific. The next time I do an update to the GDSG, 
I will put in a sentence or two into the "About This Guide" section, clarifying 
this point. 

Thanks, 

Pat