Re: Capitalization in lists

[Janice Gelb <Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM>]

On  Jan 28, 2010 8:02AM, Combs, Richard wrote:
> Janice Gelb wrote:
>
>> As others have said, this is largely a matter
>> of style. However, I do want to mention in case
>> your docs are translated that our localization
>> people have told us not to break infinitives
>> across a list introduction because many languages
>> do not use that construct and it can therefore
>> cause difficulties.Therefore, they prefer
>> something like:
>>
>>     Use this feature for the following actions:
>>     * Eating cats
>>     * Killing mice
>>     * Riding horses
>
> Sounds reasonable. OTOH, I've been told to avoid gerunds because
> _they're_ hard to translate. :-)
>
> I suspect Peter is correct. Competent translators should be able to
> handle such common constructions in their sleep, just as they do
> countless common idioms that don't translate literally into one or
> another language (and non-idiomatic expressions that _should_ be
> translated into an idiomatic one in some language).
>

Yes, probably translators can deal with this
construction, just as they can think of idioms
to replace English-centric ones, or a myriad
of other challenges often encountered in English-
language docs. But why pose them a challenge
when using a different structure in the English
base document means a more seamless translation?
We were glad for their feedback in general as it
meant that the English docs we submitted for
translation could be translated more quickly.

Agree completely with your advice for starting
all items in a bulleted list with a capital letter.
That's our in-house style as well.

-- Janice

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