Re: Linguistic quirks (was: Don't know what to title this...)

["Steve Schwarzman" <steve -at- writersbookmall -dot- com>]

Geoff wrote:
>I'd be curious to learn about other substitutions or linguistic quirks
techwhirlers have encountered in their work with authors, engineers, or
developers.

As an editor, it's a big help to know the native language of one's authors.
This includes sentence structure, verb tenses, idioms, etc. But it's also a
matter of individual style in how those differences get mapped into English.
I once had a difficult-to-please boss who brought her writing to me for
fixing up. Her English was actually quite good; her only real weakness was
in mapping tenses into English from her native language, which combines
present conditional, past conditional, future conditional, and past
continuous into a single tense. She was aware of this, but overcompensated
with too many "had"s. Once I had worked with her for a while and figured
this out, it was quick work to make her texts say what she wanted.

Steve Schwarzman
___________________________________________
Books for Writers - http://www.writersbookmall.com


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ROBOHELP X5 - ALL NEW VERSION. Now with Word 2003 support, Content 
Management, Multi-Author support, PDF and XML support and much more! 

Now is the best time to buy - special end of month promos, including:
$100 mail-in rebate; Free online orientation on content management
functionality; Huge savings on support and future product releases;
PLUS Great discounts on RoboHelp training. OFFER EXPIRES April 30th! 
Call 1-800-358-9370 or visit: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.