[Mageia-discuss] What is your motivation? (about American English in Mageia for British users)

[TJ]

On 07/25/2012 02:52 PM, Anne Wilson wrote:
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> On 25/07/12 13:59, Max Quarterpleen wrote:
>> I am so glad that Anne said that, because she is one of the few
>> people qualified to say what I, and probably several others, were
>> thinking. I grew up learning en_US, but due to one thing or another
>> was exposed to mainly en_GB in high school. Since I have an open
>> mind to these things, I taught myself en_GB spelling, grammar
>> (which is slightly different when spoken) and idioms. Of course I
>> am most comfortable in en_US, but that's not the point. The point
>> is the mindset.
>
> Long ago I read that US spelling is, in fact, much closer to 18C.
> British English spelling, and that the spelling we now feel to be
> correct is in fact something that has developed over the recent
> centuries.  That interested me.
>
> What really clinched things for me, though, was the concept that
> writing is about communication.  The one thing that matters above all,
> is whether the reader understands you.  Because of this, I sometimes
> correct grammar, where I think a sentence as it stands leads to some
> ambiguity.  Beyond that, as long as the meaning is clear and the
> sentence not particularly clumsy, I leave well alone.
>
> Wobo said that his English teacher told him that few people in Britain
> speak "official" English.  How true that is.  I would be very
> surprised to find anyone that didn't have some variations, often
> showing centuries of ancestral culture.  It's not accident that in
> Yorkshire there are few French influences and many Norse ones.  French
> barons in the 11C settled much further south than this, whereas many
> Scandinavians settled here.  We have beautiful words like "thoil"
> which no-one else understands, but for us it expresses something that
> has no equivalent in "official" English.  You can't thoil it if you
> can afford to buy something, but you don't feel it would add
> sufficient value to your life.  How about all that in one word?
>
Might just as well add my two cents, as we say here on our side of the 
Pond. But for those who are sensitive to such things, please feel free 
to convert that to the currency of your choice.

I'm a native upstate New Yorker, something very different from those 
from that downstate city that bears the same name as our state. Native 
in the sense that I was born here, not that I'm a "Native-American." 
(Something many of us think is one of our problems - far too many 
hyphenated Americans.) I am a farmer by trade.

The US is a strange place that often makes little sense. We drive on the 
parkway, and park on the driveway, and we are arrogant enough to call 
ourselves "Americans," as if the US was the only country on the two 
continents. (Yes, I'm as guilty of that as the next guy. All part of the 
culture.) We have several dialects, each with its own spellings of 
certain words, and sometimes those from one part of the country have a 
hard time understanding those from another. And add to that all the 
words we've integrated from languages from all over the world - our 
infamous "melting-pot" at work - and you get a hopeless mess. But it's 
our mess, and we like it that way.

BTW Anne, sorry, but to my ears "thoil" sounds like something someone 
with a lisp would say when describing a planting medium.

> T
>> As they say in NY, put out or get out. The British translation for
>> that would be: get down from your high horse and help out or just
>> go away.
>
> OR "Put up, or shut up" :-)
>
I don't remember hearing Max's version in Upstate New York. The high 
horse variation is older usage (My grandmother favored it. Oops. Sorry. 
*favoured* it.), and Anne's version is the most common here. Another 
version is "Put your money where your mouth is."

>> So please, you are welcome to join the Mageia team and provide an
>> en_GB translation for what is missing. You are welcome to sit in
>> silent defiance and nurse your stubbornness. But this, this
>> angst-driven tirade? This is not welcome at all. It only generates
>> more angst.
>
> After a bad start, just relax.  You will be welcomed if you do give
> your effort.
>
> Anne
>
Lord knows I can't speak for all Americans, but for my own part I could 
easily adapt if British were the default language, rather than American. 
I have traveled to Canada and have cruised through web sites that used 
British spelling, and have felt no offense (Oops again. *offence,* isn't 
it?) at seeing it. If it will help international relations, I'm more 
than willing to exist with spellings that look odd to me. After a while, 
I doubt they'd still look so odd.

Heck, you can use Cockney if you want. Sounds like fun.

TJ