Re: [Gaim-i18n] Re: Bad language in Gaim

[Luke S. <lsc...@us...>]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2006 at 09:33:59AM -0400, Ethan Blanton wrote:
> Bjoern Voigt spake unto us the following wisdom:
> > Ethan Blanton wrote:
> > >Fortunately, "I don't like this string" is not sufficient reason to
> > >change it, regardless of who 'votes' on it.
> >
> > Of course, an opinion of a single translator is not so important. But 
> > the needs of Gaim's users should be important for us.
> > 
> > What about serious business users? I mean Novell for instance supports 
> > Gaim as their instant messaging solution. Gaim is included in Novell 
> > Linux business products:
> 
> What about them?  If they want custom strings, they can take out a
> support contract and have strings customized.  :-P

More to the point, Novell's supported version of gaim has a patch
already in existance as Novell wants not only to change some user
visible strings, but to force some preferences to be set, to remove
some comments from the code itself, and a few other things.

> 
> > http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/features/im.html
> > 
> > I don't think that a typical business user is amused about "lazy bums", 
> > "mating butterflies" and about "feeling a disturbance in the force" in 
> > the user interface of a serious program. Of course distributors like 
> > Novell can change these strings. But it's much work to do this for all 
> > translated languages and for English. And I don't think that we Gaim 
> > translators want to support two versions of our translations: one for 
> > normal users and business users and one for playing kids. So I still 
> > think, it's best to improve the English original strings.
> 
> No, you shouldn't support two translations.  You should translate the
> strings as they are, and leave *hypothetical* business users who don't
> like these strings to fend for themselves -- notice that they don't
> exist, you made them up.

Really, of the 3 strings, only the butterflies one is of any
significance.

Looking at "business users," I know that more than a few tech
companies sponcered trips to movies like the Matrix lately.  Perhaps
they would not pick a string like "Feeling a disturbance in the
force" but they really aren't going to object to it either.  They
simply don't care either way.

And calling someone a "lazy bum," is, in American English anyway, of
so little significance that it quite possibly even got past Novell's
filter, though I have not specifically checked.

You realize of course, that if a "literal" translation of these
strings is going to cause problems in any given language, you can of
course translate them to something that conveys the meaning better.
For example, I've been told by a number of translators that the
American word "Buddies" does not translate well, not even into
British English.  Many of you have come up with some other string to
do the job.  The same should hold true here.

luke