Dealing with error messages, I remember reading somewhere that contractions like cannot=>can't are discouraged, so e.g.

Can't find file bla.txt.

should become

Cannot find file bla.txt

Have other people seen this? I'd appreciate links to relevant info.

Thanks,
Reinier

Reinier Olislagers wrote

contractions like cannot=>can't are discouraged,

IMHO a bad idea. Error messages should be as short as possible (while clearly understandable).

-Michael

Googling gives lot of pages saying that cannot is more formal than can't. And MS Word prefers cannot over can not.

This means: It depends on the target audience of your application.

Mattias

Yes, formal versus informal is part of it. Another part is comprehension, e.g.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb226825%28v=vs.85%29.aspx "Avoid contractions in technical messages. They can slow down comprehension."

2014-10-17 12:11 GMT+02:00 Michael Schnell :

In this particular example, "File bla.txt not found" avoids the problem and is shorter :-)

Il 17/10/2014 12:16, Mattias Gaertner ha scritto:

As we can't (;-) ) determine with precision our audience, I'd stick to the shorter form.

Just my 2c

Giuliano

Il 17/10/2014 12:21, Reinier Olislagers ha scritto:

In my experience Microsoft should be taken as a guideline of what *not* to do.
The inventors of the well known dialog: Abort, Retry, Ignore should not have voice on what is user friendly and what's not.

Giuliano

I disagree. The link I posted shows sensible advice.

If you have better references, as I said, I'm very interested!

Wearing my "native English speaker" hat, a part of the problem is that many of the traditional rules derive from the Victorian Era but were critiqued by Fowler in "Modern English Usage"... which despite being published in 1926 is still treated by many as the ultimate reference.

Considering your particular example, I'd suggest that the manual should be written as "If the compiler cannot find", but that compiler messages which are basically declamatory may lean towards the spoken contraction "Can't find suchandsuch". This also has the advantage that it keeps the fixed part of error messages comparatively short, allowing more space (per acre) for information on paths etc.

However, the overriding consideration is that many users of development tools will select English as the working language, even if it is not the language that they are most comfortable with. I'd suggest that the "bottom line" is that if somebody such as yourself finds the more formal "cannot" more intelligible than the "can't" contraction, then that's the one to use. Or, of course, vice versa.

Should, or should not, "should not have" have the abbreviated form "shouldn't've"?

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

Wearing my "native English speaker" hat, a part of the problem is that many of the traditional rules derive from the Victorian Era but were critiqued by Fowler in "Modern English Usage"... which despite being published in 1926 is still treated by many as the ultimate reference.

Yep, heard that, too.

Thanks.
Apparently the Microsoft Manual of Style (sorry Giuliano, seem to hit only MS references) suggests contractions could hinder comprehesion for non-native speakers, which can IMO indeed be an important factor in deciding what to use.

Reinier Olislagers wrote

Apparently the Microsoft Manual of Style (sorry Giuliano, seem to hit only MS references) suggests contractions could hinder comprehesion for non-native speakers, which can IMO indeed be an important factor in deciding what to use.

Microsoft's hesitant realisation of the significance of The Internet makes me wonder whether they've taken into account that a lot of developers and users have by now learnt acceptable Technical English from mailing lists.

For non-Technical English
http://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3180/what-are-widely-used-uk-english-style-guides might have something, but it omits mention of
http://handbook.reuters.com/ which I believe is well-regarded.

I'll ask elsewhere whether anybody has any technical style guides oriented towards UK English, but I suggest that if anybody has any contacts in Philips that they might have something knocking around.

Mattias Gaertner wrote

Googling gives lot of pages saying that cannot is more formal than can't.

IMHO, Open Source projects are not supposed to be "formal" in that way.

I always find it repellent when some software in German uses the formal "Sie" instead of the familiar/colloquial "Du"

-Michael

Il 17/10/2014 12:52, Reinier Olislagers ha scritto:

Once said that "can't" is less formal, and therefore preferable in a short message window, which is more akin to spoken language than to formal written language, I can only testify my personal experience.

In many decades of activity I've been in touch with field engineers, sales people etc. from a lot of countries. The vast majority of them weren't (were not;-) ) native English speakers, and some of them had a lot of pain in writing a simple English sentence. But it never occurred to me a single misunderstanding because of a "can't" not understood or misinterpreted. Being "can't" very frequent in my e-mails (they usually ask for features which either can't be done for free, or can't be done at all), I draw from my direct experience the conclusion that "can't" does not possibly "slow down comprehension" as Microsoft geniuses claim.

Giuliano

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

they've taken into account that a lot of developers and users have by now learnt acceptable Technical English from mailing lists.

While I agree with that statement, there's probably many more who haven't progressed very far. See some forum posts... and probably quite a lot of forum posts that were never written because of lack of proficiency in written English.
As always - lacking real world test data - it remains a subjective topic...

I'll ask elsewhere whether anybody has any technical style guides oriented towards UK English, but I suggest that if anybody has any contacts in Philips that they might have something knocking around.

Thanks!

How about throwing your hands up in exasperation and just use "aint" (which IOS wanted to correct to ain't - which isn't [is not] as funny)

Seriously though, in my technical writing class, contractions were discouraged as standard fare. If you had several of the base words (like a lot of cannot, should not, I would), the first occurrence would be expanded, and each successive one in the paragraph you use the contraction.

As far as a dialog box for a program, I'd use the expanded base words.

-Chris

-------- Everything at or below the line is a signature, not to be confuse with the body of the email above. Sorry about the last signature text that seemed to have some people questioning my sanity.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

-Aristotle

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It's usually easier to read a language than to write it, although I'm told that beginners usually send Morse code faster than they can receive it.

The frequently-cited error in comprehending standard English is the worker who thought that drums labelled "Inflammable" were safe to store next to a stove.

Does Lazarus etc. have internationalisation for Esperanto?

This just remembers me of several topics. As a non-native English reader I prefer the short forms, which are easier to parse. In German one can form huge words by appending obviously unrelated terms, with the common example of "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapit?n". I bet that non-native readers would appreciate a rewrite as e.g. "Donau'dampf'schiff'fahrt'gesellschaft'kapit?n" or "DonauDampfSchiffFahrtsGesellschaftsKapit?n", with the former form for informal purposes, the latter in source code.

However, the overriding consideration is that many users of development tools will select English as the working language, even if it is not the language that they are most comfortable with.

Indeed!

In former times, at least, it was a good idea to install every program in its *original* language, because the translated terms were often ugly, misleading or plain of translation errors, what made menus, error messages and documentation unreadable.

I'd suggest that the "bottom line" is that if somebody such as yourself finds the more formal "cannot" more intelligible than the "can't" contraction, then that's the one to use. Or, of course, vice versa.

I'd not depend on personal taste here. Msegui is my favorite example for unreadable source code, which makes (not only) my eyes bleed due to lack of parsing aids in all-lowercase composed identifiers, while its author has the opposite opinion :-(

DoDi

El 17/10/2014 a las 14:05, Reinier Olislagers escribi?:

Hello,

I am spanish so my English is what here is called "average" where in fact it is "low level" (spanish people usually thinks their English is far better than it really is).

My "low level" does not have any problem with "can't", "don't", "I'm" and some other basic contractions but things like "ain't", "'ll" or the "'s" which can be replaced by "is" or "has" forces us to stop reading and think in the context in order to catch the real meaning.

So from my point of view basic contractions are OK, but others should be avoided as much as possible. For us (non native) is much easy to write something wrong using contractions.

Apparently the Microsoft Manual of Style (sorry Giuliano, seem to hit only MS references) suggests contractions could hinder comprehesion for non-native speakers, which can IMO indeed be an important factor in deciding what to use.

My experience tells that in detail English-only speakers don't understand the problems of non-native speakers, and of foreign languages and the Lazarus community is not such a
closed club :-)

DoDi

"Ain't" is only acceptable in the context of "realist" literature, where the author is attempting to reproduce somebody's accent and dialect. The 'll and 'd suffixed to I, you, he and so on are fairly common, but at least they're fairly unambiguous contractions of "will" and "would"... I'd not really expect them in the context of error messages. I agree about 's, it's so commonly abused that it's treated as a joke.

There are some archaicisms which will be found in particular idioms, such as "ill-gotten gains" and "hence or otherwise". There's also localised substitutions e.g. "when I was at the works somebody told me to get out of the road" but I'd never expect to find that in respectable English.

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It's usually easier to read a language than to write it, although I'm told that beginners usually send Morse code faster than they can receive it.

Right, even if I can send Morse code, I'm incapable of receiving it at all :-(

The frequently-cited error in comprehending standard English is the worker who thought that drums labelled "Inflammable" were safe to store next to a stove.

Well, U.S. citizens are approved for not understanding even the obvious
- like that hot coffee may burn them :-]

Does Lazarus etc. have internationalisation for Esperanto?

Err, isn't that *nationalization*? ;-)

Here my first question were, whether there exists dictionaries for IT terms, for Esperanto and Volap?k? Next question, whether it's really wise to translate such terms in IT context. Remember the differences between Brasilian and Portuguese Portuguese?

Even todays German users don't know about the meaning and pronunciation of the "Strg" key, which is usually associated with "string" instead of the intended "Steuerung" (control). Looking at my German keyboard, I'm just finding keys labeld "Enter", "Shift" and "Backspace"! Dunno about the suggested official translation, but "R?cklauf", "Umschaltung" (switch?) and "R?ckschritt" (retrogression?) really were meaningless until misleading. AFAIR Russian suffers from even longer words for common English terms. French is another special case, where the government strictly disallows to borrow even technical terms from other languages, what made their brave citicens create many new words that *look* like written French, but *sound* like English :-)

[Note to myself: should get rid of "dunno"]

DoDi

I don't like both :-(

In German documentation I'd avoid to address the reader, as far as possible. This also eliminates the problem of sex, in any language, where anti-discrimination and political correctness <shudder> requires the mention both males and females.

DoDi

Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote

This just remembers me of several topics. As a non-native English reader I prefer the short forms, which are easier to parse. In German one can form huge words by appending obviously unrelated terms, with the common example of "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapit?n".

I can just about parse that, but always make the mistake of trying to be too literal in my translation of the individual morphemes.

I admit that I still have problems with Cyrillic: I've not had enough practice and struggle with people's email addresses and sigs... but at least email clients usually render them properly these days.

2014-10-17 17:01 keltez?ssel, Hans-Peter Diettrich ?rta:

I agree with Hans-Peter! :)

In Hungarian there are four(!) form of addressing the partner in a communication:
1. ?n?z?s: "?n"
- mostly in official communications
- talking to the second person as she/he was the third person
2. Mag?z?s: "Maga"
- between foreign persons and sometimes between child and parent
- talking to the second person as she/he was the third person
3. Tegez?s: "Te"
- in friendly and/or familiar relations
- talking to the second person as a friend
4. Tetszikez?s:
- young person talking to an old person
- using the word "tetszik" near to the important verb or infinitive-participle

For example the followings are the same in English ("Do you want to delete this file?"):
"?n t?r?lni akarja e f?jlt?"
"Maga t?r?lni akarja e f?jlt?"
"T?r?lni akarod e f?jlt?" = "Te t?r?lni akarod e f?jlt?" "T?rlni tetszik e f?jlt?"
But "T?r?lni akarja e f?jlt?" means that "Does she/he want to delete this file?"

To avoid problems, when I am translating a text like "Do you want to delete this file?" I prefer something like this :
"E f?jl t?l?se?" = "Deleting this file?"

It is very hard to figure out that who is on the other side in a communication if she/he is not by your side physically (for example reading the messages showing up in your software)...

P?ter G?bor wrote

I agree with Hans-Peter! :) In Hungarian there are four(!) form of addressing the partner in a communication:

Etc. Thanks for that, interesting. What is the position in Hungarian and other languages and their attendant cultures as far as the computer's assuming personhood is concerned? In English, there's now a tendency (which I think came in with Windows '95) for a computer to ask "Should I delete this file?" rather than the older "Delete this file (Y/N)?" and so on?

(I'm reminded of the situation where some New York apartment blocks set their elevators to stop at every floor on Saturday, so that Jewish residents don't break the Sabbath by giving orders to a servant- even though that servant is a machine.)

In official messages the shortened form is wrong to be used.

On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 9:27 PM, Mark Morgan Lloyd <

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This thread appears to be descending into a 'can of worms'.

Should we 'can' it? Or shouldn't (should not) we? :-)

Gordon
Tauranga N.Z.

Well in case of Esperanto it's internationalization ;J

Because Esperanto has no 'country' for itself to associate with ;)

DoDi

el_es

Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote

> Does Lazarus etc. have internationalisation for Esperanto? Err, isn't that *nationalization*? ;-)

In British English, "nationalization" means state seizure of a company or entire industry, which historically resulted in its being given to the Trades Unions to run. For those of us of a "certain age", it's a very dirty word. It's less offensive in American English, which would instead waffle about "the constitutional principle of Eminent Domain".

I said I'd ask elsewhere for suggestions, and have been given a book title (I've not checked whether this is still in print) and a PDF:

"Good Style for Science and Engineering Writing" by John Kirkman, Pitman (1980) ISBN 0 273 01423 4

http://www.futurestate.com/assets/techwriting_guidelines.pdf

I'd comment that the PDF is Californain so has sections on things like gender neutrality. In general I reserve judgement, other than that a couple of people thought these merited suggestion.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

"Good Style for Science and Engineering Writing" by John Kirkman, Pitman (1980) ISBN 0 273 01423 4 http://www.futurestate.com/assets/techwriting_guidelines.pdf

Thanks.

I'd comment that the PDF is Californain so has sections on things like gender neutrality. In general I reserve judgement, other than that a couple of people thought these merited suggestion.

Very well put, thanks ;)