Re[2]: Translating (formerly Non-American English)

Subject: Re[2]: Translating (formerly Non-American English)
From: beth_staats -at- ARTISOFT -dot- COM
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 12:00:36 MTN

snip:
>And consider the "n't" contraction. Would it be better to say
>"Do not touch that button" instead of "Don't touch that button"
>because the "not" is very important...I'd hate to have them skip
>over that very important word.

Gina,

We hire translators who know English very well; well enough
to recognize the context and understand what the contraction
means. They then translate it as they see fit. In other words,
we leave it up to them to determine whether the speakers of
that language, in that culture, learn the product better by
reading informally or formally phrased text. We believe that
in the U.S., readers are more comfortable reading text with
contractions.

FYI -- In the newspaper business, they tell you to use a
contraction whenever the NOT is very important, because
there's a possibility the word NOT could be accidentally
deleted or cut out during paste-up, thereby changing the
entire meaning of the sentence. I believe it's true that
when the NOT becomes part of the same word, the verb,
there's less possibility that someone will find a way to
interpret it as DO.

Beth
bstaats -at- artisoft -dot- com

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