[josm-dev] Localisation policy for quotes etc.

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 14:53, Matthias Julius <lists at julius-net.net> wrote:
> "Marc Schütz" <schuetzm at gmx.net> writes:
>
>>> > Also, I want to change all those don'ts and won'ts to "proper"
>>> > English.  This doesn't change the meaning of the string, so all
>>> > the translations (hopefully) just need to be unfuzzied.
>>>  I thought, these don'ts and won'ts is proper english. Am I wrong?
>>
>> +1
>>
>> Furthermore, "don't" and "do not" etc. are not freely interchangeable,
>> as they have different connotations and for both there are situations
>> where they are not appropriate.
>
> Well, this is true - especially for spoken language.  This has
> probably much to do with the emphasis that is also put on it.  There
> is certainly a difference between "I won't do that." and " I WILL NOT
> do that."
>
> But, in written language these shortcuts are consided casual and they
> are not used in formal texts, AFAIK.  That's why I use this in emails,
> but not in the user interface of a program.
>
> Do we have any native English speakers here?  It is somewhat silly to
> discuss subtle meanings of the English language between Germans.

Perhaps you can make do with me? :)

Well Marc Schütz is in theory completely wrong that don't and "do not"
are "not freely interchangeable". "Don't" is a contraction of "do not"
and means exactly the same thing by definition.

However as you point out the meanings are in practice subtly
different. Contraction-free speech has an air of authority about it
"Do not touch that, it is hot" as opposed to "Don't touch that, it's
hot".

Contraction are accepted almost everywhere in English, although you
might get into trouble if you use them in something like a scholarly
paper, they're not looked down upon like reductions are, such as "want
a" -> "wanna".

All of these contractions and reductions will no doubt become
perfectly accepted English within a few decades, just try reading
newspaper articles en English from the early 20th century where
authors avoid writing things that are universally acceptable today,
such as writing automobile without a hyphen (just as we're slowly
converting E-Mail into email nowadays).

But to comment on the general issue here interface messages should in
my opinion by clear, short and unambiguous, JOSM has sometimes lacked
in this respect mostly due to being written by people for whom English
is a second language.

I don't think programs should take themselves overly serious though,
Potlatch doesn't, nor does the OpenStreetMap website itself or
programs like git which are all programs whose UI messages I like.

I don't like using programs whose messages look like they're extracted
from a speech to be given at a fancy dinner party. It's OK to say
"Oops" in your error messages and not clutter up the UI by saying
"please" in every second word.

But that's just my opinion :)