8 ms·
My pet peeve is when I have an application crash and the error message has been translated. Now googling it is extra fun, not to mention bug reporting. Fortuna
by sametmax 8y ago
My pet peeve is when I have an application crash and the error message has been translated. Now googling it is extra fun, not to mention bug reporting.
Fortunatly with Linux, I usually can get the proper message with "LC_ALL=en_US.UTF8" if I can, and desire, repeat the exact same error.
Now I understand that this is done for openess and diversity. But technical terms should not be translated. I'm french, and I accept that english has won as the business language, and the IT language. Let's move on.
Honestly, we are wasting humanity potential for not having a common language. I really, really wish we would all learn english as the second language, and that all laws, forms, labels and signs would be translated to english everywhere (as an addition to the local lang, not a replacement). It's an imperfect language, but it won half of the world, and the other half will have an easier time learning it that us learning theirs. Plus it has a very simple alphabet, and is already used for science, business and international politics.
At this stage, I would gladly agree for all the french books and movies being burned and lost forever if it means one language, any language really, becomes magically the main one for humanity. We have too many communication problems.
But since magic doesn't exist, what about getting off the ego train and just adopt the imperfect status quo and make something awesome with it for a change ?
- Baeocystin 8y agoEnglish in terms of number of speakers has already reached the point where the number of ESL speakers outstrips the number of native ones by a good margin. The simple alphabet is a plus. I wish the spelling wasn't so godawful.
- sametmax 8y agoYeah but I don't know any language used by hundred of millions of people that doesn't have many gotchas. Could be worse. The future language could become a mix of emoji and markup language :) ;) :D
- CPLX 8y ago> The future language could become a mix of emoji and markup language :) ;) :D You're saying this like it isn't already happening.
- Baeocystin 8y ago:: insert flail/panic emoji here ::
- sp332 8y ago😱
- lordnacho 8y agoTo fair English has big pieces of French and Latin vocabulary.
- Baeocystin 8y agoOne of my favorite aspects of the English language is that not only is it shameless about stealing other languages' words, but it seems to take it as a point of pride. It's a good feature to have if you want something global- it means that useful words will accumulate without regard to origin, which benefits everyone.
- Androider 8y ago"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
- dsr_ 8y agohttps://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll Noted reviewer of science fiction and fantasy.
- jimmy1 8y agoand also by extension, Greek (directly in many cases -- almost every english word that starts with 'ph' was a greek word -- but also a large portion of medical and mathematical terminology)
- chupasaurus 8y agoThat's because in latin 'ph' was used in words from greek, but spanish uses 'f' AFAIK. Fun fact: russian language had no 'f' sound prior to cyrillic alphabet which has a letter for it.
- bad_login 8y agoI suspect english words starting with 'ph' come from french, french words with 'ph' used 'ph' instead of 'f' (same sound) to emphase the fact the word borrow greek root (but who care the word come from greek, does it make it easier to learn? one more shitty rule of french).