Re: [Usability] Gnome Volume Manager

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Sun, 2004-09-05 at 13:39 +0200, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> Hi Sean,
> 
> It looks like you inadvertently replied to me personally instead of the 
> list, so I'll quote you verbatim, hope you don't mind:

No problem.  Several people I replied to off-list intentionally, but my
head is throbbing today even worse than yesterday, so I don't recall if
I had a particular reason with my mail to you, or if I just goofed.  ~_^

> 
> On Sat, 4 Sep 2004, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> 
> > And if we picked a different English word that would somehow make it
> > easier to find a word in other languages that means the same thing as
> > volume?  I'll admit I'm 100% ignorant when it comes to translations, so
> > I'm curious what the actual problem is.  If we started using the
> > unambiguous name "GNOME Manager of Things Which You Store Data On" that
> > would make translation easier?  What do all of the other operating
> > systems and utilities use for "volume" in translation?
> 
> The actual problem is, in Dutch at least, that no single word exists 
> that covers the meaning of 'volume' used in a disk/storage context. 
> Which leaves us with a few choices:
> 
> 1. Pick a word with a very close meaning. Something like 'schijf' which 
> is also the translation of 'disc'. This translation is not very 
> appropriate when you can have more than one volume on a physical disc. 
> It also doesn't really cover network volumes.
> 2. Treat as jargon, leave untranslated. The problem with this is that 
> in Dutch the word volume is known to describe a measure of content, and 
> is known to describe sound strength, but nothing else, so this could be 
> confusing.
> 3. Use an uncommon word that gets close to the source meaning. This is 
> what we're going with for the time being. The word 'volumen' (with an n 
> at the end) describes a book volume, like volume 2 of an encyclopedia. 
> Although this word is not in the vocabulary of many Dutch speakers, we 
> feel that it's safe to use because it refers to the same concept the 
> English word 'volume' refers to and it doesn't have other, possibly 
> confusing, meanings.
> 
> Option 3 was also the route taken for translation of 'serif'/'sans 
> serif', by the way.

OK.  Makes sense.  It is, then, the exact same "problem" with the
English version - there *is* no word that actually fits what we're
describing, because what we're describing is something wholly unique to
computers.  Volume just fits well and is already is wide use.  The only
way to get an unambiguous word in English that describes what we want
would require us to invent a whole new word.

> 
> regards,
>