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Re: How formal or informal?

Subject: Re: How formal or informal?
From: "Maggie Secara" <maggiros -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 12:41:54 -0800

Gilles! Good to see you back.

And I think you're right. Avoiding long noun strings (or long strings of nouns) is probably more important and more useful than merely avoiding contractions, which are not especially confusing in context. (French is full of contractions and no one ever complains about that, n'est-ce pas? :) Gilles, the original question was about policy and procedures manuals for a bank (I believe) and international distribution probably isn't an issue.

I can't imagine that the ESL speakers in the organization have been protected from contractions all this time, at work or anywhere else! I wonder how many of them are even aware that "cannot" is a word, it's used so seldom. Most of the native speakers probably aren't either.

Just my tuppence ha'penny, more or less,

Maggie Secara





From: Gilles CASSIN <gcassin -at- noos -dot- fr>
Reply-To: Gilles CASSIN <gcassin -at- noos -dot- fr>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Subject: Re: How formal or informal?
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 01:33:58 +0100

If you users are mainly foreigners, you should go beyond just not using
it's. This is taught at school. Noun phrases such as the first window title
bar should be replaced with the title bar of the first window. Also,
sentences where verbs have the same spelling as the word (eg record) could
lead to wrong interpretation. Anyhow, if you intend to sell abroad, be
aware that: foreigners may have many reluctance with a non translated
product; and there are countries where translation is a legal requisite.
HTH
Cheers to all, I didn't read this list for a long, so its a warm hug to
Maggie S.

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