RE: Use of American/British English (was Re: request for string addition)

[<martyn 2 russell bt com>]

> As it currently stands, with some source strings including
"behaviour,"
> there is no American English translation.
> 
> Instead, there are applications that, by default, use "color" and
> "behaviour," and I am not aware of any location in the world where
that
> will provide a set of proper (common) spellings.
> 
> What makes sense to me is that applications come with one language or
> another in the source strings. But as it currently stands, where there
> are some British spellings and some American spellings in the same
file,
> those applications will feel "at home" to no location.
> 
> If I misunderstood the topic, and it's actually about the use of
> "behaviour" at all, and the issue is whether default translations can
be
> in British English: Is there anything wrong with asking that Americans
> make an en_US translation if they want it?

Although I agree with this (being British), you also have to see that a
lot of code is written in American English.  So is it not better to go
with what is generally accepted? I, however, tend to write code and
strings in British.

It makes sense to either standardise :P on American English for source
code OR to add a locale for en_US to save confusion, (and perhaps have
it on Gnome's site somewhere for reference/guidance).  I would like to
see a separate locale for American English personally, what happens if
you write your source in French with French strings and want to
translate it? Surely you would need an en_US AND an en_GB translation
anyway.

At the end of the day, it is up to the developer what language they
write code in, and when it is being done for free, you can't really
complain :)

Just out of interest, when you install Red Hat / Fedora Core, it asks
which Language to use and American English is one of those choices,
which locale does that use?

Regards,
Martyn