11 replies to this topic

[mastercomputers]

What has this got to do with programming? Well...

I have found that most programming languages that I use take on the american spelling, in which I usually get caught out because en-NZ is based on en-GB, recently got caught out with validating CSS with using the colour grey:

gray is a color (en-US)
and
grey is a colour (en-GB)

Notice which one I would use? including the spelling of colour. Although I don't usually use colour names, just that what I was doing had to be quickly written up, and had no time to make it look good, it's only a draft of many good things to come. It was only when I validated that it had shown as an error, and this was the only error.

The only way I could see this being fixed if both en-US and en-GB were both accepted to use and that the user agents, compilers and anything else that relies on these different spellings but same meanings could understand those differences.

We could just alias them to the other if needs be, it shouldn't be that hard right, but then it would come down to what are all the different variations, I only know a few.

Now I am wondering what is the best to use if you were to translate documents, is it easier for documents to be translated from en-GB or en-US or does this not matter?

What should we use on a global scale and is more widely accepted?

I know that here in NZ, we're now allowing the acceptance of spelling with en-US, although I question some of the things, e.g. learnt vs learned.

When I put those in a sentence, the only way you can tell whether I'm using the 't' or 'd' is to emphasise (emphasize) it.

I learnt my alphabet today.

I learned my alphabet today.


Cheers,


MC

[mastercomputers]

That sentence does not seem right to me, but then again, English is one of the most complex languages and hard for non-english speakers to grasp.

"While I was at school, my teacher taught us the alphabet. I was sleeping and did not learn anything"

"Later in the day, I went home and told my mum (mom) that I had learnt nothing about the alphabet because I was sleeping/asleep."

"I realised, I had slept in class and had missed learning about the alphabet"

Maybe the Programming committees can work on standardising the English language Remove some of the words that mean the same and leave it just with the basics, make those double up deprecated. I'm just joking, but that would largely simplify the english language if we didn't have so many things that meant the same thing, yet could confuse others.

"Take a seat"

We know what that means, but to others, they could question where to "take" that seat because of how they understand "take" to mean "get, grab, and other meanings that mean the same".

If it were

"Sit down, on a seat"

It might be easier to understand, though I'm questioning that too.

All in all, english poses some difficulties of getting the right message through which is a barrier in communications.

Cheers,


MC

[abhiram]

"Today, in school, my teacher taught us the alphabet, but I was sleeping, and didn't learnt nuthing."

That sentence does not seem right to me

Makes perfect sense to me .

[mastercomputers]

Makes perfect sense to me .

How does it make perfect sense (I'm hoping you're being sarcastic since it's hard to tell on the internet), it uses two negatives in the context in which this confuses many english speakers?

If it said "I learnt nothing", instead of "I did not learnt nothing", it would make sense to me, but then again I do fall under a confused english speaker.


Cheers,


MC

[szupie]

I don't think American English is the most correct variation of English, but I still think they should leave the programming languages in plain American English (is that a pun? ). Do you see any programming language being translated into Chinese? Dutch? German? I have never heard of that. All programmers in the world will have to learn to program in American English, no matter what their mother tongue is.

Also, if we create an alias for all the variant spellings, it'd create confusion for those who don't know English. For example, if they look up how to change the color of something, they'll see "color:gray" on one site, and "colour:grey" on the other. How are they supposed to know that these are two dialects of one programming language?

[Quatrux]

I always try to use the us-gb, and say the words such as these like this: "colour", "favourite", "grey", "mom" and etc. but usually when people say/write color and stuff, more to the American grammar, I can still understand it, but what do you think about programming comments written in French or German ? even the variable names and stuff, it is really hard to edit this kind of scripts/programs. But English language is not as hard as say my mother tongue Lithuanian, as I know it is the 3 hardest language in the world, or in the 3 group, can't remember.

[mastercomputers]

The reason they are not translated into other languages is because English has been the accepted language globally and that those programming languages originated from America and used their spelling, however I don't know that this is the main reason, as there may have been languages that originated elsewhere and could have been converted/changed to make use of the American way. I don't see any reason why someone from another country could not write a programming language in their own language, it'd be popular with their country that's for sure.

What would be interesting is knowing what countries use en-US and what ones use en-GB. Another thing that would be interesting is what English is taught to people who don't speak English, is it American or en-GB.

I think depending on where you are, you're taught that way (e.g. if you're in NZ and learning English you would be taught en-GB) but say you're in China and are learning English, which one do they teach you or do they teach both?

If they teach both, then there should be no problem for someone to understand color: gray; and colour: grey; American's still have greyhound, which does not make sense because it would be grayhound to them. Though being a name, I guess it has to be that way.

I'm positive all this would have been discussed before, and they may have come to some conclusion that actually said why it's better to leave it this way.

I'm just wondering how possible it would be for having both ways come out the same, to me, this isn't hard at all if you do it from the compiler/interpretter. Sounds like the chance to have an automated translator, e.g. an american sends me gray in a chat and on my end I get grey, if I respond back with grey the american gets gray.

Well, these are just ideas, and was just trying to get some ground on what would be best to do, especially the document side of things, as I want the easiest way for it to be translated correctly by others, than to make it hard for them to not know that there is no difference between colour and color but which one they understand better.

Cheers,


MC

[organicbmx]

it has worked the other way round for me. i now often find myself wrinting color when im trying to use british english and i have to change it after i have written it. not that im particually bothered as the spelling atually makes more sence than the british, and that is the only one i have picked up.

[szupie]

What would be interesting is knowing what countries use en-US and what ones use en-GB. Another thing that would be interesting is what English is taught to people who don't speak English, is it American or en-GB.

I think depending on where you are, you're taught that way (e.g. if you're in NZ and learning English you would be taught en-GB) but say you're in China and are learning English, which one do they teach you or do they teach both?

Yes, it depends. For example, Hong Kong (where I grew up) was once a British colony. So en-GB is taught there. However, I'm pretty sure that American English is taught in mainland China. Only one version is taught, but since most of us are so weak in English, we wouldn't be able to tell which one is right.

[java-area]

The only way I could see this being fixed if both en-US and en-GB were both accepted to use and that the user agents, compilers and anything else that relies on these different spellings but same meanings could understand those differences...

I do not think it is a good idea to adopt both spellings (american and british) for so-named key words, reserved in programming languages and used by compilers -
it will take additional time and resources for compilation as well as to create an additional headache for compiler producers!
(I do not see such key words in C++ and Java, but I belive they can be found in other languages)
However this improving can be done easy for names of constants and methods.
If you want to prevent any spelling mistakes for developers (who will work with your application or package), you can create such doubled constants and methods in you source code.
Really good practise!
May be, it will be a starting point for improving all well-known application like IE browser etc.

Edited by java-area, 27 April 2008 - 01:30 PM.

[Quatrux]

I think depending on where you are, you're taught that way (e.g. if you're in NZ and learning English you would be taught en-GB) but say you're in China and are learning English, which one do they teach you or do they teach both?

If they teach both, then there should be no problem for someone to understand color: gray; and colour: grey; American's still have greyhound, which does not make sense because it would be grayhound to them. Though being a name, I guess it has to be that way.

I guess usually in other countries, which has nothing to do with English are taught en-GB, but for example when I learnt English, I think it depends on the teacher, we were taught English British, but there were always comments about that in American it's different on some words, that includes gray, grey, color, colour and other words, so you usually just need to remember that and there's nothing you can do about it.