Re: English variant in Telecom materials

["Moshe Kruger (AllWrite)" <moshe -dot- kruger -at- gmail -dot- com>]

My question was based on two premises:

1. English taught and spoken in the countries/areas I enumerated is
distinctly British.
2. I canot remember where, but somewhere I learned that European telecom
materials are written in British English.

So, it would seem clear how I should proceed. Only, I have a niggling
thought that the US brand has become so dominant, perhaps I should give in.
In other words, "if you can't beat 'em join 'em".


On 7/30/07, Caroline Tabach <caroline -dot- tabach -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> 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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