Bug#479997: APT: A few problematic strings

["Adam D. Barratt" <adam@adam-barratt.org.uk>]

Hi,

On Wed, 2008-05-07 at 14:37 +0200, Jens Seidel wrote:
> during the proofread of the APT translation, the German team found some
> issues with strings as used by APT.
> 
> #: dselect/install:91                                                                                                     
> msgid "Do you want to erase any previously downloaded .deb files?"                                                        
> 
> "Any fileS" is wrong, it should probably be "All files" ("any file" is
> unlikely as apt-get clean is called in source).

As a native speaker of en_GB, I have to disagree.

I'm assuming your objection is number agreement, given that you've
highlighted the "s" of "files". "any" isn't singular - in this case, it
means "some, no matter how much or many or of what sort" (Oxford
Encyclopedic English Dictionary, 1991, in case you care :-)

"All" would work but doesn't quite sound right, particularly if there
are no previously downloaded files to be deleted. To be honest, I
suspect I'd use "any" were I writing a similar sentence now.

Regards,

Adam