Re: Do "enabled", "disabled", and "not found" need to be qualified per instance?

[Petr Kovar <pmkovar gnome org>]

Hi!

Joanmarie Diggs <joanmarie diggs gmail com>, Sat, 15 May 2010 18:09:30
-0400:

(...)

> The thing is, there are a bunch of "structural navigation" objects in
> Orca which can be "not found". In particular:
> 
> * Anchors
> * Blockquotes
> * Buttons
> * Check boxes
> * Chunks/Large Objects
> * Combo boxes
> * Entries
> * Form fields
> * Headings (regardless of level)
> * Headings at a particular level
> * Landmarks
> * Lists
> * List items
> * Radio buttons
> * Separators
> * Tables
> * Table cells
> * Unvisited links
> * Visited links
> 
> What those items have in common is that they're all things in a document
> (most often a web page) that a user attempted to move to using Orca's
> structural navigation feature. With that in mind, which is best
> practice:
> 
>   C_("structural navigation", "not found")
> 
> or:
> 
>   C_("anchor", "not found")
>   C_("blockquote", "not found")
>   C_("button", "not found")
>   [...]

I can't speak for every language we translate into, but I guess that for
Indo-European languages with genders, the subject of a clause is what
determinates the form of an adjective or verb (i.e. "not found" in our
example). So if the subject in a clause is e.g. feminine, then the
contextual adjective should (regardless of whether it's placed in a
separated string or not), generally speaking, respect the appropriate gender
(and number & case), and for the contextual verb (that often constitutes a
predicate in a clause), the subject determinates number (e.g. singular),
person (e.g. third person), gender (e.g. feminine) etc.

So to answer your question in a simplified way, it always depends on what
is the form and meaning of the source strings which are semantically
bounded with the single word in question.

> And/or is there a certain point at which "best practice" loses out to
> "there are already a bazillion strings in Orca. Please stop with the new
> strings already." <silly grin>

Yes, probably in a case that would otherwise produce bazillion of strings,
it'd be better (as in more economical) to go with the single word
single-form.

> Either way, let us know what you prefer and we'll be happy to do it.

It'd be beneficial to hear what other translators, esp. those
representing non-Indo-European languages think of this.

Thanks,
Petr Kovar