Re: Punctuation
I suspect that people like myself, an expatriate American, may be more aware of international differences within our common language, and less concerned about those differences, than people who haven't been forced to adjust to that difference.
I think that non-Americans are also more likely to be aware of the differences, simply because American English is dominant while their type of English isn't. Geof Hart and I, for example, are both Canadians. Living on the edge of the United States, Canadians are constantly seeing spellings and usages that aren't theirs.
By contrast, when you're speaking the dominant form of English, you don't need to be aware of most types of English. You may be, if you're observant, but you don't have to be. Everybody tends to accomodate to your standards, so you don't have to be aware of theirs. The sole exception is UK English, which American are generally aware of because of their country's love-hate relationship with the country it broke away from. Usually, it's only widely-travelled or expatriate Americans who are aware of the other types of English.
These comments are not, let me rush to add, meant to be anti-American. They are simply observations of the consequences of being the native speakers of the most influential version of the most influential language in the world.
As an aside, have you looked at the varieties of English offered in OpenOffice.org dictionaries? (The hidden segue here is that Jean and I both post to the OpenOffice mailing lists). The project currently has dictionaries for English as spoken in Belize, Canada, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, Phillipines, South Africa, Trinidad, UK, USA, and Zimbabwe. A number of other English dictionaries are also in the process of being developed. Of course, these dictionaries are partly an indication of contributor's enthusiasms, OOo being an open source project, but I wouldn't have thought that there was a need for quite so many variants. But, at least in some people's minds, there obviously are.
--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield
"I'll be riding stolen horses when you don't see me no more
I'll be riding stolen horses on some distant shore."
- Ray Wylie Hubbard, "Stolen Horses"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
NEED TO PUBLISH YOUR FRAMEMAKER CONTENT ONLINE?
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or view a live demo at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l3
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
Follow-Ups:
- Re: Punctuation, David O'Brien
References:
Re: Punctuation: From: Jean Hollis Weber
Previous by Author:
Re: Punctuation
Next by Author:
Re: Adobe adds product activation
Previous by Thread:
Re: Punctuation
Next by Thread:
Re: Punctuation
Search our Technical Writing Archives & Magazine
Visit TechWhirl's Other Sites
Sponsored Ads