Re: Verbs form in UI actions

["Thomas Thurman" <thomas thurman org uk>]

On 18/12/06, Dale Gulledge <dgulledge gmail com> wrote:

On 12/18/06, Wouter Bolsterlee <uws+gnome xs4all nl> wrote:

2006-12-17 klockan 17:31 skrev Youssef Chahibi:
>    In what form (Infinitive, Noun, Imperative) are UI actions
> like "Open", "Close", "Show" ... translated in your language?
>    Do you have any idea about what is intended by the verb form in English, is
> Imperative or infinitive?

In English, these words are written as imperatives (spelled the same as
infinitive). However, in Dutch, we stick to infinitives only. Imperative
form is considered bad style and impolite.

I don't know whether it makes any difference in terms of politeness, but I've always interpreted these menu items as imperatives directed at the software.  Thus, the user is commanding the program to perform the action.

I remember I had this argument with a teacher somewhere around 1990 because of the French i18n on our town VAX. The French commands were all infinitives, and I'd thought they should be imperatives because that's what I'd always understood the English commands to be. The teacher maintained that the English commands were infinitives lacking the "to".

I wonder whether most English speakers think of them as imperatives, and what languages other than English don't think of them as infinitives.

peace

Thomas