Re: A language by any other name

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 08:28:57AM -0700, Bill Wohler wrote:
> Sean Middleditch <elanthis@users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> > > Why such emphasis?  The idea is to spell words like "colour" instead of
> > > "color", not to write the ls man page in iambic pentameter.
> 
>   No, the idea is to spell it "color," not "colour."
> 
>   The mass of writing in the computer world is American English, for
>   better or for worse, and having different spellings in a single
>   system is as distracting and unprofessional as misspelling the word
>   entirely. Now some don't think that misspelled words are a big deal,
>   but these are not enlightened people.
> 
>   Just so there is no confusion, I am not suggesting that everyone in
>   the world use American English for everything. American English
>   should be used for the documentation in a Debian system and

never thought i'd see american cultural imperialism on the debian lists.

spelling is important - which is why i will never deliberately mis-spell
words just so that they are more familiar to american audiences. if the
reader can't cope with minor regional variations in spelling then they
don't deserve to read what i've written.

so....you spell it correctly for your regional dialect, and i'll spell
it for mine.


>   therefore the alias for English should be en_US. 

en_GB is more appropriate - it is, after all, the home of the english
language.  

you americans are running a forked version...and as any free software
person should know, the name remains with the original, not the fork :)

so, obviously, en_US should have its own alias: YAEnglish.


>   If a multi-billion dollar company whose employees have all learned
>   British English decide that their documentation should be in
>   American English, that's saying something.

that's as meaningful as: "if a multi-billion dollar company whose
employees all learned unix at university decides that they should run
NT, that's saying something".

multi-billion dollar companies follow the money.

debian doesn't have to.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>

Fabricati Diem, PVNC.
 -- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch