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10 Nov 06 - 06:03 PM (#1882629) Subject: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear As part of creating a new corporate style guide for a major worldwide tech company, I am tasked with creating a guide to converting documents from U.S. English (in which this company produces its documents [and in which I write]) to UK English (which is preferred by many of the company's sales regions). I have found many vocabulary/spelling/punctuation/syntax conversion sites online, but all the ones I've found either do what appears to be a very good job on the UK English (but what do I know?) but get the U.S. completely wrong -- or do a good job on American English but go completely over the top on (or show very little understanding of) the UK conversion. I am trying to wade my way through these and glean only the best from each, but as my knowledge of UK English stems largely from my keen appetite for 19th c. and earlier English novels, I am not terribly confident that I know how the 21st c. English reader will expect a computer data sheet to read. An English friend brought me a pretty good dictionary (Chambers) of UK English, but Chambers seems to be more US English-friendly than I believe this company's English staff want me to be (e.g., the dictionary converts most words I think should end in "-ise" in UK English to "-ize" claiming that "-ise" is old fashioned. If that's actually true, that's fine -- but I rather suspect it is not true. My ten-volume Oxford is at the other end of the spectrum, but then again it's even older than I am, so that's hardly surprising. So...can anyone recommend a book or a Web site that covers this subject with an equal amount of erudition regarding both versions of the language? Thank you, Claire |
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10 Nov 06 - 08:25 PM (#1882740) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: JohnInKansas One simple thing you can consider is setting the "correct" language in Word and running spell check. There is a choice between US or UK English there, and when set in Word the setting is applied to all other Microsoft Office programs. When you set a new language, spellcheck should switch automatically to using the appropriate dictionary. As there's lots of crossbreeding/inbreeding between the languages, I can't say how strictly the associated dictionaries will distinguish between the two languages. You may have to reinsert your installation disk the first time you change to a new language, but once installed the language choice should choose the appropriate dictionary for the spell check. Note that there is some difference in keyboards as well, and you may find things "in the wrong place" if you don't switch back to the language that matches your keyboard. In Word, "Tools|Language|Set Language." There are a number of other things that can be set to be more appropriate to the particular language, with the most basic entries at "Options," some additional possibly at "Customize," and likely some in "AutoCorrect." A "sort of" definitive reference is Developing International Software, Second Edition Author: Dr. International Pages: 1104 Disk: 1 Companion CD Level: All Levels Published 10/09/2002 ISBN 0-7356-1583-7 (For those who might look at the link, it's to http;//thesource.ofallevil.com - and it is a Microsoft site. Links to discount sellers are provided for this book [not exactly a best seller].) I doubt this book would be of a great lot of help in your task, since it does deal primarily with software, but the really desparate might find some help with getting the software they might need for using some of the features available in standard Windows/Office. John |
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10 Nov 06 - 09:01 PM (#1882765) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow The thing is, people here are accustomed to having stuff about computers written in America-speak, and don't have much trouble in understanding it. And there are some cases where the American spelling has become the accepted one in that context, even in English. For example "program" meaning computer program is now seen as the correct spelling, even though "programme" is correct spelling in all other contexts. For example, we'd watch TV programmes, and but a programme when we went to the theatre. That kind of thing means that spell checkers aren't necessarily too reliable. The one I'm using at present recognises both "program" and "programme" as valid spellings - but of course gives no indication of when they are correct and when they are wrong. And that unreliability of spell-checkers as a guide to correct spelling applies to a lot of other words as well. For example, there are many words where "ce" and "se" are both correct - but they mean something different (eg licence and license). Again a word like "tire" is perfectly good (non-American) English for what happens when you get exhausted, but it wouldn't be right for the "tyre" on the wheel of a car. |
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10 Nov 06 - 11:21 PM (#1882851) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Gurney Bite the bullet and hire a Pom to proofread before publication. Most English/Aussie/Kiwi speakers can understand American English easily enough, so an English-English specialist should have no trouble. You could strike trouble with technical and chemical terms (Methylated Spirit is a denatured alchohol, but is it Denatured Alchohol?). Have you heard the story about the Portugese who published an English-language guide to Portugal? Unfortunately, he didn't speak English, but he did have a Portugese-French dictionary and a French-English dictionary..... |
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11 Nov 06 - 01:33 AM (#1882877) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: JohnInKansas If you're working for business publication, it would be considered "good practice" to have someone other than the author, or in this case the translator, to do a proof reading just to catch the typos and other "little things" that creep in. In your case, finding a proofer who's experienced with UK English would be the obvious way of getting a good UK-English text. Many very good "proofers" work freelance, and you can work via email with them. Finding a good one may take a bit of work, but the benefit to be had can be well worth it. In your case you'd have the little extra of finding a "Brit" proofer, but it shouldn't really be too difficult. A quick Google for "proofreader" might indicate whether there's a handy covey of them somewhere in your region. You might find someone via a search for "Temporary Employment" agencies, but some of these have a tendency to "promise everything" regardless of the skills or lack thereof of the people they offer. Many of the major publishing companies keep a roster of freelancers, and usually are willing to share recommendations, since it's to their own advantage to keep their best ones occupied (and happy) when they don't have work of their own for them. In my own area, I'd probably just drop in at the overpriced "atmosphere" pub where all the green card Brits hang out and ask if one has a wife (with her own greencard?) who'd be interested, ... (in proofreading) ... maybe. Using a separate proofer in no way denigrates the author. It's a mark of professional work that your business should be willing, if not eager, to use. John |
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11 Nov 06 - 02:29 AM (#1882889) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Richard Bridge Agreed you need a native English speaker. You need an educated one with a familiarity with the subject matter. You will still be left with infelicities in the final result. I did French-English translation about fluid control valves for Elliot-Automation in Alsace decades ago, I met all the criteria, and I could still see problems with the result, but not find acceptable ways to remedy them. Under NO circumstances trust Microsnot to achieve a result that is (a) accurate or (b) English. Part of the problem is that there are, regrettably, many English speakers, some educated, who seem happy with what other English speakers will regard as utter solecisms. Examples are split infinitives, "try and" in stead of "try to" and numbers of "alternatives" that exceed two. The English usage of "which" and "that" also differs from the AAmerican, but although I feel the difference when I see it, I am not sure that I could enunciate a rule. |
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11 Nov 06 - 02:54 AM (#1882902) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Rasener My wifes a freelance translator, but translates from English to Dutch for top translation companies and has been doing that for the last 30 years. However she does have contact with very good professional translators/proofreaders who work freelance. Its very important to get it proofread as what goes out is all about your company. It can either look good or bad and can send the wrong message out about your company. If you would like her to recommend somebody, then please let me know. |
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11 Nov 06 - 03:01 AM (#1882903) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Rasener I take that back. Most of her contacts are project managers. Sorry about that. |
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11 Nov 06 - 03:21 AM (#1882908) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe If there's payment involved, please contact me Robin (Wordsmith) P.S. I do this sort of thing for free for friends, but if a commercial entity wants it, then us unemployed really don't want to give it away for free... :-) |
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11 Nov 06 - 03:24 AM (#1882909) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe PPS - I do 'Australian English' - which does not mean including rude words :-) but is much closer to UK English (as we were taught in school) than US English. |
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11 Nov 06 - 03:28 AM (#1882911) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Liz the Squeak Spare a passing thought for the 'Clear English' campaign too - the quest to eradicate jargon and unnecessary over-egging of the pudding to the extent that the simple printed instructions for erecting a Swedish flatpack furniture store caffitiere storage unit become so unreadable (as opposed to illegible) that the customer is left in some considerable doubt as to whether screw A goes in slot B or whether they should just physically manhandle the object into the refuse department of the most conveniently juxtaposed Civic Amenity site or appropriate container. OK? LTS |
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11 Nov 06 - 08:32 AM (#1883034) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST, Topsie If you want to find a proffessional proofreader, the British Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders have an online directory. |
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11 Nov 06 - 08:33 AM (#1883037) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST, Topsie and I really should have proofread my post before I submitted it! |
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11 Nov 06 - 09:08 AM (#1883051) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Les from Hull Part of the problem is that language is constantly changing. And under the careful attention of Microsoft, it's probably changing faster than some of us like. For instance, I would always use the -ise rather than -ize, but other changes from what I was taught at school I can readily accept. To casually split an infinitive is no problem to me, neither do I bother what I end a sentance with. The way that compound nouns start with two words, gain a hyphen and then end up as one word travels at different speeds for different people. So it's not just UK Technical English. It's UK Technical English to suit a particular group. The best advice I could give would be to allow feedback so that anyone who is really bothered about what they read can contact you. But in my experience people with 'technical' somewhere in their job specification are slightly less worried about the style of what they read than others. I had the job of teaching some of these people how to write in plain English, and it seemed that not many of them were really that bothered. |
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11 Nov 06 - 09:16 AM (#1883056) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Richard Bridge Some of us would prefer to end a sentence, rather than a sentance, too. |
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11 Nov 06 - 10:03 AM (#1883076) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,... My 'Shorter' (2 volumes) Oxford Dictionary uses -ize, which is useful for checking the words that have to use -ise. These are usually those ending with -vise, words to do with seeing, such as supervise and televise, or -cise, words to do with cutting, such as incise. I generally find the Longmans dictionaries useful for pointing out UK/US variations. What is important is to be consistent. For any piece of writing, where a word can be spelled in more than one way, decide which spelling you are going to use, and stick to it. |
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11 Nov 06 - 10:05 AM (#1883079) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: OtherDave Gurney's comment above almost certainly refers to Pedro Carolino, who produced The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English in the mid 1880s. An American edition, with an introduction by Mark Twain, appeared in 1883. Carolino didn't himself speak English; he appears to have had a Portuguese-French dictionary and an English-French dictionary, through both of which he dragged his thoughts. Dover Press, bless them, reprinted most of this wonderful nonsense as "Fractured English as She is Spoke," though that seems to be out of print. As the preface says, "A choice of familiar dialogues, clean of gallicisms, and despoiled phrases, it was missing yet to studious portuguese and brazilian Youth; and also to persons of others nations, that wish to know the portuguese language. We sought all we may do, to correct that want....without to acch us selves (as make some others) almost at a literal translation..." |
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11 Nov 06 - 12:24 PM (#1883156) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,thurg You might want to get ahold of the 1999 version of Fowler's Modern English Usage (Oxford), which bears only a nebulous relationship to the original Fowler's but which has much info. on Brit vs. Yank English. It's edited by one Robert Allen; his grasp of the subtleties of North American English is a little slippery, but I think it's safe to assume that he would not have gotten the job if he didn't have a pretty good handle on standard British English. Also, he's not overly impressed with the Victorian grammarians (which is to say, he's not one of those who believe that all the grammar they were taught in school is necessarily correct. Note: that's those who believe, not those who believes!). |
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11 Nov 06 - 01:22 PM (#1883203) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow Les implies that being relaxed about the use of split infinitives is a modern development. The truth is - as forcefully recognised by "the original Fowlers" back in the 1920s - split infinitives as such have always been perfectly acceptable English. The point is to avoid using them in such a way as to lose clarity or read clumsily. And there is no difference between American English and English English in this respect. "A real split infinitive, though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, to real ambiguity and to patent artificiality." (And HW Fowler himself all those years ago wasn't too impressed with "the Victorian grammarians" either, especially the ones who thought that the rules worked out for Latin grammar should apply to English, which is where the fetish about split infinitives has its origins.) |
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11 Nov 06 - 01:25 PM (#1883205) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Snuffy How do you split a a Latin infinitive? |
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11 Nov 06 - 01:40 PM (#1883211) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST, Topsie Exactly, Snuffy, you don't. |
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11 Nov 06 - 01:54 PM (#1883227) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow So the idea was that you should keep the "to" next to the verb and treat it all as one without splitting it - sort of pretending it was all one word, and therefore it couldn't be split. Except that's not the way English really works. |
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11 Nov 06 - 02:06 PM (#1883237) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear I am delighted to see that this thread has prospered while I was away sleeping. I can see that I have not explained my position thoroughly. I am not a writer; I am an editor/proofreader by trade who writes, and given the proper tools I am confident I can do this job adequately. (And Liz, never fear, what I do with my day is convert techspeak to English!) Another fact I omitted: I don't work for the tech firm in question, I work for an a small agency that has a goodly chunk of the firm's marketng communications business. The firm has enough confidence in our work to trust me to take on their style guide project (which is nearing 200 pages and has many more to go). Unfortunately, we haven't the resources to take on more staff -- although we do have one English employee in another office whose acquaintance I plan to make before this project is completed. We've already asked the firm to supply us with the resources they use, but all they did was point me to some publicly available (and rather flawed) Web resources. I can do better than that! Thank you very kindly for all your information. I rather imagine that, if there were one "right" resource to consult, someone would have mentioned it by now. The fact that no one has done so leads me to believe that, at least, I am not missing the obvious. And I had already included all the facts you've collectively detailed above in my guide, which gives me some additional comfort. By the way, the words the Chambers dictionary "zeddifies" (and BTW AskOxford, the online Oxford Compact, seems to agree) include "organise" and "realise." The "-ise" spellings are listed as secondary. Do those of you who speak UK English think this is correct? I'm quite sure I've seen documents coming out of the firm's European offices that spell both of these with "-ise." JohninKansas, I had also thought to reset the language in Word, and that helped some...but as McGrath points out, the UK English setting will accept both spellings of many words. I have no problem spotting and correcting what I know are homonyms in AmSpeak but not necessarily in UK English (tire and tire/tyre, pry and pry/prise...), but it is rather frustrating not to be able to have confidence that Word is flagging the Americanisms I don't know about. I'm also concerned about differences that have nothing to do with spelling, examples of which include the non-use of serial commas, the addition of hyphens after prefixes in many places where we would not use them, the which/that controversy, and the different approach to the use of quotation marks. All of these are included in the guide already, and I think I understand them fairly well...the trouble is, as one American poet (give the link a minute to load; there's a splash page first) whose backside I am happy to see exiting the halls of power so eloquently put it: As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know. - D.H. Rumsfeld |
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11 Nov 06 - 02:09 PM (#1883239) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear Thurg, thanks for reminding me about the 1999 Fowler's; I think I have that stashed away somewhere! |
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11 Nov 06 - 02:17 PM (#1883244) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow Have you come across Lynne Truss's book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Claire? It was a Christmas bestseller last year, and is great fun, but also quite helpful in stuff like variable use of commas. (That website will let you see if you're likely to agree with that.) |
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11 Nov 06 - 02:25 PM (#1883252) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear I have it at my desk, McGrath, and despite its occasional inaccuracies it is indeed quite helpful, comma-wise. The example a friend once gave me for why serial commas may be a good idea runs as follows: "I would like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand." Cheers, Claire |
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11 Nov 06 - 03:10 PM (#1883284) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST, Topsie Claire, some UK publishers prefer a serial comma (sometimes referred to as the 'Oxford comma') and others don't. Others still are happy to follow the author's preference, so long as it is consistent throughout the book or article. The same applies to -ise/-ize, though -ize is becoming more common. There are some words that always use -ise, but I think the only word that always uses -ize is 'galvanize' (but I could be wrong about that). Beware of 'analyse' and 'paralyse', which are always 's' in UK English but can have a 'z' in American. On hyphens the rule is to be consistent, but watch out for ambiguity: 'recreation' and 're-creation', or 'the dark-blue sea' and the dark, blue sea'. On which or that, the presence or absence of a comma is the important thing: there is a difference between 'government officials who are corrupt ... ' = just the corrupt ones, and 'government officials, who are corrupt ...' = they are all corrupt. The same rule applies to which/that, who, and when, but usually you would use 'which' after a comma and 'that' when there is no comma, as in 'the wind that shakes the barley'. On quotation marks and punctuation, US practice is easier - all commas and full points go inside; in the UK they go inside only if what is inside the quotation marks is a proper sentence starting with a capital letter. I hope that helps and isn't too confusing. |
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11 Nov 06 - 03:31 PM (#1883297) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear Hmmm, my understanding of the which/that issue in UK English (unlike American English, which uses the rule you cited) is that one uses "which" to identify the subject of the phrase/clause that follows, and "that" to identify its object, as: "The apples which lie on the table" vs. "The apples that I found" Is the above no longer true? Claire |
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11 Nov 06 - 04:22 PM (#1883348) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST, Topsie I haven't come across that distinction being recommended. Anyone else? |
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11 Nov 06 - 04:29 PM (#1883353) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Bill D Is is possible the way 'z' or 's' is used depends on the way it is usually pronounced in the culture? I tend to say 'organize' with a hard 'z' sound, but I'm sure others say 'organise' with the softer 's' sound. |
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11 Nov 06 - 04:32 PM (#1883359) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,thurg Does anyone out there say it with an "s" sound? Letz hear from you. |
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11 Nov 06 - 04:40 PM (#1883367) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Rasener Yes I say it with an s. However I am a brummie and I am assured it sounds like a Z LOL |
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11 Nov 06 - 05:09 PM (#1883384) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow I've never understood "which" and "that". I think of them as interchangeable - but I must use them differently, because WORD keeps on telling me I've doing it wrong, and I always find that the way it wants me to put it feels wrong, so I don't. Spellings aside, I'm not sure there really is much formal difference between American and English usage, it's more at an individual level, and there are fashions, but I don't think they run along national lines. For example, I tend to prefer using commas pretty extensively. I noticed this when I was reading Lynn Truss's book. One place where there a national difference though is when it comes to using "one" as a pronoun. In English English it is never right to use any other pronoun along with it. "If one climbs a mountain he can see a long way" can never be right - but I believe in American it could be. But I rather doubt if that would be likely to crop up in a technical manual. (The odd thing is that, if the sentence was "If someone climbs a mountain they can see a long way", that would be fine, but neither "one can" nor "he can" would sound right. |
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11 Nov 06 - 05:49 PM (#1883415) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Grab "S" all the way for me, rather than "Z". Dictionaries may say "Z", but I remember that when I was a kid looking up rude words, our dictionary said that "shit" meant "expelling gas from the anus" or some similar phrasing, which kind of exposed how accurate dictionaries sometimes aren't. McGrath, the problem with "one" is that unless you happen to be a silver-spoon-in-the-gob upper-class individual, it's difficult to get away with saying "if one climbs a mountain". An instruction manual that says "one must insert screw A into hole B" is shouting at the top of its voice, "English is not my first language!". To be honest, if you do a spelling check in your preferred word processor with the language set to UK English, to filter out "tire" and insert "U" in the appropriate places, it's highly unlikely that there'll be anything wrong. The variations in "English as she is spoke" around the UK are so wide that no-one's ever going to notice. The only difference after that is in things that have different meanings in the two countries - pavement/sidewalk, boot/trunk, etc.. Grammar is really not something you need to worry about. Graham. |
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11 Nov 06 - 08:44 PM (#1883549) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe Pedant on... ""A real split infinitive, though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, to real ambiguity and to patent artificiality."" Commas are often wrongfully used (used wrongfully!) where Colons and Semicolons should be used... viz... "A real split infinitive, though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things; to real ambiguity and to patent artificiality." Now in "English as she is spoke", even though they are separate concepts (the full stop, comma, colon and semicolon!) one can usually get away with this laxity, but in Computer programming languages no such promiscuity of "concept smearing" is allowed - if you want the Astronauts to get back alive... Pedant off.... |
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11 Nov 06 - 09:12 PM (#1883560) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear Someone who shall remain nameless, but who is a longtime Catter and an old friend (Oops! almost typed fiend! Sorry, Dave!), once dubbed me "the Queen of Punctuation" -- so I think I can probably do an adequate job with the commas, semicolons, and colons. LOL. Claire |
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11 Nov 06 - 11:49 PM (#1883652) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: JohnInKansas Probably not news to ClaireBear, but some others may not realize that in Word one has not only the spellcheck dictionary, which can be changed by swapping languages, but also a Grammar check and AutoCorrect and Autoreplace functions. It's helpful to know in what order things happen with respect to these functions. The base spellcheck dictionary cannot be modified, so you can't delete words from it. You can add words to your own "custom dictionary" if you find ones that are not in the dictionary. Spellcheck runs first, so if there's a word that is in the spellcheck dictionary that you don't want, you "delete" it by entering, in the AutoCorrect dictionary, the "correctly spelled" word that spellcheck inserts, so that after Spellcheck inserts the word, AutoCorrect replaces it with the word you want. Replace "tire" with "tyre," as an example. AutoCorrect also "trumps" (comes after) the Grammar check and AutoFormat, so that if you allow the program to "correct initial caps," which changes TOP SECRET to Top Secret, entering a Change "Top Secret" to "TOP SECRET" in AutoCorrect lets you automatically change it back to "TOP SECRET" after SpellCheck and AutoFormat both think they've fixed it. This can be really handy with some company names (especially Brit ones) that have formats like xXxXXXx ('cause it's cute). This is also how one eliminates the need to use WordImPerfect in order to get their "legal spellcheck dictionary"1 that deletes "trail" from the spelling dictionary. Just enter in AutoCorrect: "trail" to "trial." 1 The only known sem-rational reason for adoption of WierdPerfect by nearly all legal firms a couple of decades ago. John |
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12 Nov 06 - 10:20 AM (#1883737) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Snuffy But auto-correct can't tell when to change it and when to leave it alone: "Don't tire yourself out: let me change that tire for you" needs only the second instance changing to "tyre" to make it English English. |
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12 Nov 06 - 12:27 PM (#1883849) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: danensis "A real split infinitive, though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, to real ambiguity and to patent artificiality." Shouldn't this be: "A real split infinitive, though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, real ambiguity or patent artificiality."? |
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12 Nov 06 - 12:38 PM (#1883865) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: JohnInKansas Snuffy - It's quite true that you do have to manage the exceptions. You do that during the typing where a Ctl-Z backs out the change. As long as you watch what's happening, repeated Ctl-Z will back up anything resulting from the last character typed, if you do it before you continue typing. My experience with "technical manuals" would indicate that very little translation actually is needed. I've worked extensively with Brit/Canadian/Italian "owned" US companies in which "deviant English" of all kinds appears, and if the manuals are technically sound there seems to be very little problem with proper usage by all concerned. The aircraft industry, and to some extent a few others, do use a "standard simplified English" for repair manuals, identical for all users, and Japanese and Chinese maintenance workers, at the repair line level, seem to have no problems with it. Use of this "language" is mandatory for ATA certified equipement. Separate US/UK manuals are not (usually) produced for shared NATO hardware. There is a link near the bottom of the page linked above to "help programs," or a Google (I used "Simplified English International") will find a number of "checker programs" specific to the use of this Simplified English version. The system is quite good for describing "objects" and "processes" but comes up a bit short for discussing philosophy and metaphysics. Of course different people have different definitions of "technical," and the one with the checkbook gets to say what's wanted. John |
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12 Nov 06 - 01:39 PM (#1883923) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Ebbie I've been curious for some time about the spelling in one instance. Up above Grab wrote "no-one", I believe I've seen it written by UKers as 'noone' and in the US we spell it 'no one'. ? |
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12 Nov 06 - 01:49 PM (#1883936) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,sorefingers writhing with fits of laughter, you guys are so funny! ...seriously if you really want qualified help, the best source of correct UK English today is the plain English campaign by the BBC, and those who supply it with talent, to-wit editors of UK English popular newspapers, and others in the UK who are doing that type of work. But, don't be fooled into getting any Pom who sounds like they know what you need, for example, a proof reader with a romance-novel mill would not be any use at all to you. |
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12 Nov 06 - 05:14 PM (#1884127) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Rowan Dictionaries have different rules about word definitions, which might affect how much weight you give their recommendations. The Oxford (in its full manifestation) attempts to record usage and etymology; it is excellent at providing info on 'First Usage'. The Macquarie (OK, I know you're all on about US/UK English) records current usage, no matter how infelicitous it seems. I don't know the policy for Chambers. McGrath's comment "When Lynne Truss's book Eats, Shoots and Leaves" reminded me of a couple of things. Many would prefer the apostrophe to be bare of the subsequent "s", so that his comment would read "Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots and Leaves". When Lynne Truss visited Australia she told the story that she had published it before she'd heard the old Australian joke about the American who was called a wombat when he left his partner 'the morning after'. The punchline required the dictionary definition of a wombat, given as an animal that "eats, roots, shoots and leaves." And, while you're at it, make sure your software presents date formats appropriately for the target audience. |
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12 Nov 06 - 06:31 PM (#1884207) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Peace Hire a translator. |
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12 Nov 06 - 06:50 PM (#1884218) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow Shouldn't this be: "A real split infinitive, though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, real ambiguity or patent artificiality."? No - that wouldn't have been an accurate quote. And while the amendment danensis suggest is OK (apart from having the full stop preceding a question mark at the end, I think Fowler's version has a better rhythm, as well as being perfectly grammatical, as is only to be expected. .......................... Many would prefer the apostrophe to be bare of the subsequent "s", so that his comment would read "Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots and Leaves". And many wouldn't. I think it'd be quite wrong. I can't imagine that anyone would ever be likely to actually pronounce it that way, particularly with a one syllable name. ....................... I think the "Eats shoots and leaves" joke most often involves a Giant Panda. But probably not in Australia. |
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12 Nov 06 - 07:07 PM (#1884230) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe " is preferable to either of two things, real ambiguity or patent artificiality." Either is suitable Australian English. |
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12 Nov 06 - 09:09 PM (#1884313) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,thurg "Up above Grab wrote "no-one", I believe I've seen it written by UKers as 'noone' and in the US we spell it 'no one'." "No-one" has become quite common in the US; I believe it's the standard spelling used in the New Yorker, for example. "Noone" is positively barbaric. I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone, including the proofreaders at the New Yorker, would feel the need to alter the perfectly sensible and unambiguous "no one". |
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12 Nov 06 - 09:30 PM (#1884332) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST I used to do the opposite (English to American) while working for a commercial printing company working for the publisher Heinemann. Let me know if I can help. Linn |
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12 Nov 06 - 11:03 PM (#1884383) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Rowan McGrath raises an interesting point about the differences between the language we speak ("Lynne Truss's book") and the language we write for reading ("Lynne Truss' book). Like most here, I'd speak it the way McGrath wrote it but I was always taught to write it the way I did. I suppose you'd have to consider the audience for whom you're writing, which is what the thread started on. As a person who has had to write technically I've learned 'what is expected' in the various fields. But I've also felt obliged to recompose a passage which reads (to my eyes) correctly in the technical idiom but which sounds cumbersome or awkward if read as it would be spoken. I'd never even heard of Giant Pandas when I first heard the wombat joke (in Melbourne) in about 1952. It wasn't the first smutty joke I heard but the "Eats, roots, shoots and leaves" stayed in my memory because the wordplay connotation appealed to my nascent knowall tendencies. I'm still having trouble with them. Cheers, Rowan |
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12 Nov 06 - 11:24 PM (#1884392) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,thurg For some time now, the s-apostrophe-s as in "Truss's" has been the "prefered" form, both in writing and in pronunciation. I can't quote you chapter and verse off the top of my head, but I think you'll find this in any reputable book on style from the last thirty years or so, at least. I have a feeling that even Fowler, back in the '20's (prefered modern style: "20s"), recommended this usage. Just checked my 1999 so-called "Fowler's", and there is a little more ambiguity than I have indicated above; to wit: "Add 's to names that end in s when you would pronounce them with an extra s in speech (e.g. Charles's, Dickens's ... ); but omit 's when the word is normally pronounced without the extra s (e.g. Bridges', Connors', Mars' ... )." Not terribly helpful, is it? |
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13 Nov 06 - 01:22 AM (#1884416) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear If I remember correctly, the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed., advocated adding 's in all cases except in Greek- and Latin-derived names ending in an unaccented "us" or "es" (short u, short e, or schwa sound). So, that'd be Dickens's, Ramses's (because of the long e), and Demosthenes's -- but Jesus', Cassius', Moses', and so on. That rule was easy to follow and made at least some sense. The 15th ed., again if I recall correctly (it's at work and I'm not), has reduced the exception list so that ONLY Jesus' and Moses' escape the final s. This rule I find less elegant because it's arbitrary and smacks of religious preference. If I had my druthers, I'd go with the 14th ed. dictum or else leave the "s" off in all cases. But they never (well, hardly ever) ask me for my opinion! Claire |
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13 Nov 06 - 07:51 AM (#1884571) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Bat Goddess Interesting...I'm sure I posted to this thread yesterday, but it's not here. Anyway, what I said was that I had (while working for a commercial printer) done the opposite for our client Heinemann Publishing -- Americanized British English in some of their printed material. Linn |
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13 Nov 06 - 08:15 AM (#1884590) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: mandotim Isn't it about time we 'bit the bullet' and started calling the language spoken in the USA 'American'? To my mind the two languages are now different enough to warrant different names. The differences are especially apparent in two fields; slang, and the language of political correctness, with it's incredible contortions to avoid offence. I certainly don't want to have to continually qualify my first language as 'English' English. Note for the Apostrophe Police; here are a few random ones, for people to use as they see fit. ''''''''''''' '' '''' ' ' '''''''' Tim (with tongue firmly in cheek) |
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13 Nov 06 - 08:21 AM (#1884597) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe Ah - mandotim - Apostrophes should NEVER be 'random'. you see.... :-) |
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13 Nov 06 - 09:08 AM (#1884623) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow "Spell it the way you pronounce it" seems pretty simple and straightforward, when it come to what Fowler called "possessive puzzles". Interestingly enough, the form where you leave off the 's when the word ends in s already is apparently the older one. "Formerly customary" is how Fowler put it, going on to point out (back in 1926) that it wasn't customary any more, except in a few special cases. So, if Americans find themselves impelled to do it that way in writing, even when they wouldn't in speaking, that would be another example of a frequent national tendency to stick with the older way of doing things. (That's not a criticism, just an observation.) |
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13 Nov 06 - 09:41 AM (#1884647) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,thurg McGrath - '"Spell it the way you pronounce it" seems pretty simple and straightforward ... ' "Seems", perhaps - the problem I have with it is that in the normal run of my conversation, the possessive forms of Jesus, Mars, Bridges, Demosthenes, Cassius, etc., don't come up often enough for me to have unequivocal pronunciations of them. Whether in speaking or writing, I'm liable to make a quick mental query as to "correctness", and probably will moreso after this discussion; it is in that sense that I find the 1999 Fowler unhelpful. It is unclear in your post, and I don't have a copy here of the "real" Fowler to check, if Fowler was talking about adding only the apostrophe after s in instances where you actually pronounce what the 1999 Fowler calls an "extra" s, as you imply, or whether he wasn't rather assuming that an extra s is not, in fact, pronounced. I'm not talking about his recommendation, but his description of the "formerly customary" practice. Clarification? |
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13 Nov 06 - 12:17 PM (#1884770) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Grab "Noone" *has* to be an error (unless it's Samuel Pepys telling the time, perhaps) because "oo" is not the same as "o o". Thinking about it, maybe "no-one" versus "no one" differentiates a "negative entity" (to coin a phrase) from a count. If you said "no one", it would make more sense in the context of "no one termite destroys a building, but a million of them will". But given the number of bizarre constructions in English, it ain't necessarily so. :-/ And I agree that "no one" is normally perfectly clear in context - it just happens that I learnt it as "no-one". Graham. PS. Rowan, I'd heard the joke as "eats, roots, shoots and leaves" and involving a panda, long before Truss's book (although long after 1952! ;-). I just assumed she'd bowdlerised the joke for publication. |
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13 Nov 06 - 01:26 PM (#1884828) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow Basically it's a matter of what's easier to say - "Jesus's" is more awkward than "Jesus'" "Truss's" is easier than "Truss'". At least to me it does. Fowler is clear that when there is an extra s it should be pronounced, and that when it isn't there it is shouldn't be pronounced. The possessive apostrophe would always be there (unless one was following George Bernard Shaw, and leaving out all apostrophes everywhere, as a matter of principle). The puzzle was as to when the apostrophe should be followed be an additional s, and on what occasions it might be correct to dispense with that additional s. It was formerly customary, when a word ended in -s, to write its possessive with an apostrophe, but no additional s, e.g. Mars' Hill, Venus' Bath, Achilles thews. In verse, & in poetic or reverential contexts, this custom is retained, & the number of syllables is the same as in the subjective case, e.g. Achilles' has three not four; Jesus or of Jesus, not Jesus's But elsewhere we now add the s & the syllable, Charles's Wain, St James's not St James', Jones's children, the Rev Septimus's surplice, Pythagoras's doctrines.(Fowler 1926) (I see that the spell checker built into Google, though recognising at least some English English spellings, is insistent that Fowler here is wrong and that the "formerly customary" system is still current. Presumably this indicates that in America it is.) |
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13 Nov 06 - 02:24 PM (#1884863) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear It's no longer "customary" in the U.S. either, at least not universally. As I've already said, Chicago Manual of Style (produced by the University of Chicago Press, which publishes primarily books) suggests 's in all cases except Jesus' and Moses'. Many editors here use that book as their primary style reference. Many other editors (primarily journalistic ones) follow the Associated Press Stylebook guidelines. I've just checked those and found that the AP Stylebook (primarily intended to be used by the press) advocates the use of the apostrophe without a final s for all proper names. So I'd venture it's more "customary" in journalism than in scholarly English...yet another reason not to believe everything you read in the newspaper! Claire |
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13 Nov 06 - 02:58 PM (#1884884) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow But just run that quote of mine from Fowler through the Google toolbar spellchecker that tend to come with Firefox, and you'll see what I mean. And I think that though Fowler there had "St James's" you won't find that too often when it comes to people singing "St James' infirmary". Not anywhere. Every rule they come up with, there's going to be an exception turn up. That's what makes it an interesting language. Well, one reason anyway. |
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13 Nov 06 - 03:11 PM (#1884900) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,thurg McGrath - Thanks for the clarification. Now I have another question: did Fowler write "Rev" like that ("the Rev Septimus's surplice"), without a period after the the "v"? As I recall, he was quite clear in his entry on abbreviations that a period is required for an abbreviation that cuts the word short, so to speak, as opposed to an abbreviation that squeezes out some middle letters but retains the final letter (e.g., "St" for "Saint"). |
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13 Nov 06 - 03:33 PM (#1884916) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow No. Well spotted. |
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13 Nov 06 - 03:53 PM (#1884928) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,thurg I'm tellin' yuh, you gotta get up pretty early in the morning to get one past this pedant! Really, though, I wasn't trying to get one-up (one up? oneup?) on you - but I was hoping to get one-up on Fowler. |
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13 Nov 06 - 04:15 PM (#1884940) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow A great man - there aren't that many dictionaries you are scared to pick up when you're in a hurry, because they are liable to suck you in. |
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13 Nov 06 - 05:00 PM (#1884990) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST I am sure of one thinG, I have been writing to my relatives in the USA for years and they have no bother with my English and neither have I any bother with their "American". |
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13 Nov 06 - 05:13 PM (#1885001) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear I think with this company it's probably political: a worldwide sales and marketing force does not particularly like having U.S. grammar (and, probably more importantly, the U.S. system of weights and measures; metric system is listed only parenthetically) imposed upon them as standard by the corporate head office. Therefore, they have apparently declared themselves unwilling to use the A4-sized documents prepared for them by the head office until and unless those documents are delivered in UK English. I can't really say I blame them, and I honestly don't mind doing their conversions for them -- but I do wish they would go the extra mile (kilometre) and supply me with a list of the conversions they would like me to implement. Really, it's awfully hard for me to know exactly what they want. And because, as I've said, I'm preparing a corporate style guide, this would be a very good time to have the conversion process completely documented. Ah, well... |
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13 Nov 06 - 05:43 PM (#1885034) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST,sorefingers For a language that developed so well without one, English sure has lots of conundrums for the imposers of Latin grammer! |
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13 Nov 06 - 06:08 PM (#1885052) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow They seem to have stopped doing that these days, in England anyway. They've invented a whole different sort of grammatical framework, and I can't make head nor tail of it. (Nor can a lot of people trying to teach the language, for that matter.) |
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13 Nov 06 - 08:00 PM (#1885140) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe "English" is a polyglot - it accumulated lots of stuff from many different and conflicting inconsistent sources. It still does. |
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14 Nov 06 - 04:24 AM (#1885333) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: GUEST, Topsie ClaireBear, If they are asking you to produce the style guide, and not specifying what they want, doesn't this give you a wonderful opportunity to impose what YOU want on the firm? |
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14 Nov 06 - 07:29 AM (#1885393) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe ... for as long as you keep the job Napoleonette! |
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14 Nov 06 - 11:00 AM (#1885504) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: ClaireBear Topsie has a very good point, but what he doesn't know is that I am a quadruple virgo, which means that what I want is to do the best job I possibly can -- which in turn is why I have been asking all of you for input. I have about ten pages of spelling and vocabulary differences collected, relying largely on this Finnish site, which had higher overall quality than any other online resource I was able to locate. Tomorrow I will dig out my Fowler and add to the sparse grammar and punctuation sections. I am feeling reasonably good about it; mostly I wanted to be sure that there was not one perfect reference work that I should be using but that I hadn't heard of. After asking all of you as well as querying an expat American friend (who as it happens is a linguist) in New Zealand and not getting any answer other than Fowler, I am fairly confident that I'm not overlooking any obvious research resources. Thank you all very much for your comments! They have helped me tremendously, and it's been grand to watch the discussion grow. I can't tell you how delightful it is to find that there are people out there who are yet more pedantic than I; I hadn't been entirely sure that was possible. Cheers, Claire |
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14 Nov 06 - 04:56 PM (#1885758) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Rowan Go Claire! When I started uni there were still lots of words around with a "oo" in them where the umlaut was routinely printed (as a pronunciation guide, I suppose) but zoology and oocyte were not among them. Neither was "noone", and everybody 'knew' they were pronounced with the separation of the two vowels; nobody pronounced noone as noon. In the last 20 years or soo though, I have come across 'first years' (called 'freshers' in my youth and freshmen in the US, I gather) pronouncing zoology and oocyte as "zoo ology" and "oo cyte", respectively. So I can understand the desire to hyphenate no-one or separate it into two words. Working in archaeology and palaeoanthropology ("cooee" isn't the only word with four consecutive vowels) I frequently come across the American spelling of these and similar words and find it mildly irritating when the authors are Australians who rely on Micro$oft as an authority. But that's just my provincial loyalties at play. Interestingly, I hear (but haven't yet confirmed) that various American journals are now advising contributors that they require the older spelling(s). Cheers, Rowan |
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14 Nov 06 - 05:21 PM (#1885779) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: JohnInKansas A "flexible" difference that comes to mind is the use of "a" vs "an." In my past experience, UK usage was according to spelling, and "an" was used strictly preceding any word that began with a vowel or "h." US usage was by pronunciation, so it was "an hour" but "a horse." (US usage "pronounces" the h in horse distinctly, - - usually.) I've noted, working with quite a number of green card Brits, that at least they (working in the US) had drifted more to the US usage, both in speech and in writing, but wonder if the usage has changed "over there." John |
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14 Nov 06 - 06:00 PM (#1885821) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow The rule in England for a/an and h has for many years been the same as now appears to have been adopted in the USA - that the pronunciation determines whether it is a or an - but of course pronunciation varies. Fowler (original) yet again: A is used before all consonants except silent h (a history, an hour); an was formerly usual before an unaccented syllable beginning with h (an historical work), but now that the h in such words is pronounced the distinction has become pedantic, & a historical should be said and written. |
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14 Nov 06 - 06:35 PM (#1885869) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: The Fooles Troupe Yes Claire - the real pedants remember that English - most 'human' (this excludes 'computer languages')languages too - come in 2 forms - spoken and written. However, looking at modern culture all around, I'm wondering if that number should be increased - eg 'phonics' & most definitely 'txting' - which funnily enough, a few days ago there was great furore in Australia about. Some school authorities publicly stated that 'txtspell' would be accepted in written answers to tests - 'as long as the MEANING was clear'.... :-) |
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14 Nov 06 - 07:16 PM (#1885911) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: McGrath of Harlow The thing that puzzles me about txtspell is that it's supposed to save time, but with if you use "predicted text" in a mobile phone it's surely liable to be slower if you don't use normal words and spellings. And since most people read with their eyes rather than their lips it takes longer to interpret as well, especially if any, even slightly unusual, words or expressions are used. (Just turn any extended passage into txtspell and it looks like klingon, something to be decoded, rather than scanned instantly in the way standard spelling normally permits.) I am sure there will be some txt abbreviations which will become standardised and recognisable, in the same way that "&" is recognised as an alternative to "and", or "etc" for "etcetera", but that's a different matter from having whole passages written in improvised code. |
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14 Nov 06 - 09:36 PM (#1886039) Subject: RE: BS: Tech US to UK English advice please From: Rowan Two or three years ago the ABC (Australian) televised a competition between a 12 year old lad who was obviously a bit of a hot shot (never seen it as "an hot shot") at txting with his mobile phone (OK, "sell phone") and a couple of nonagenarians who could send and receive Morse code. The competition was set up so that both parties had to transmit a reasonably long question from Sydney to Perth, where it was deciphered (by another txter for the phone and one of the nonagenarians for the Morse) and the answer to the question sent back to Sydney by email. The Morse pair won quite handsomely and the expression on the face of the lad at the news he'd been comprehensively beaten was a sight for sore eyes. I don't think a pub was involved, so I can't decide whether it would have been a hotel or an hotel. Cheers, Rowan |