Re: English variant in Telecom materials

["Caroline Tabach" <caroline -dot- tabach -at- gmail -dot- com>]

While many high-tec companies do indeed make an effort to write their
material in American English, it seems a far fetched demand to expect
that American-English can be a dialect written specifically for (by
someone outside the US producing a set of user guides for a worldwide
audience). This sounds to me like the 2 versions of Harry Potter, one
in British English and one in American English; except that they are
intended for children, not adults (and I can understand wanting to
make the language in the books more familiar for children to read,
even though I do not agree with this policy).
I do not think that there are many companies who actually localize
their variants of English and publish a user guide for Europe and the
UK, and a different version for the US.

(unless some of you out there do make such "translations")

On 7/30/07, Lauren <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu> wrote:
> I would proofread British-English documents in my head that were written for
> *me* as the audience.  I would read and interpret the document as though it
> were written in American-English and make appropriate translations from
> British to American.  If I, as an American, am the audience, then the
> document should be written for me in American-English.
>
> When I read British documents that are understandably British, then I don't
> get annoyed because the audience of those documents is not specifically
> American.  It is rather insulting for a writer to write a document for a
> specific audience, like an American audience, and then write that document
> in a dialect or style that is not the style that the audience expects.  So,
> it's annoying.
>
> The second part of your comment about a non-American reader being annoyed by
> a document written for an American audience is irrelevant.  Writing for the
> audience is important and avoidance of insulting or annoying the audience by
> writing in the dialect of the audience is a part of writing for the
> audience.
>
> This of course does not by any stretch mean that British-English is
> annoying, but a document written specifically for an American audience in
> British-English would be annoying, just like a document written specifically
> for British audience in American-English would be annoying.
>
> If it is true that technology documents are written in American-English as a
> de facto standard as Moshe Kruger states, then it should really be the case
> that the audience of those documents does accept that the documents are
> written in American-English, otherwise the documentation could be annoying.
>
> Lauren
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> > [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
> > Behalf Of Stuart Burnfield
> > Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 8:05 PM
> > To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> > Subject: RE: English variant in Telecom materials
> >
> > Why would you be annoyed? If the documents are written in British
> > English, then British spelling and usage would be correct in that
> > context, so what you're doing isn't proofreading.
> >
> > What if one of your non-American readers sent feedback saying
> > she'd just
> > proofread your manual, was very annoyed, had highlighted all the US
> > spellings, refused to finish reading it, and so on?
> >
> > Stuart
> >
> > Lauren said:
> >  > I would have a hard time dealing with instructions written in
> >  > British-English because the support documents that I read are
> >  > normally American-English. Not that I wouldn't be able to read
> >  > the documents, but I would get very annoyed and proofread the
> >  > document in my head while I read, so I might get too annoyed
> >  > and never finish the document,
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> >
-- 
Caroline Tabach
Technical Writer
e-mail: caroline -dot- tabach -at- gmail -dot- com
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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