Re: Contractions

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

In my experience, contractions are more of an issue in
documents written in US English that are *not* translated.
Most translations these days are machine translations through
Trados or similar programs, with the human part of the work
being done in editing.  It is easy enough to program the SW
to recognize "can't" and substitute the local equivalent of
"can not" so that the editors aren't confronted with the
contraction and only have to concern themselves with 
whether the output of the machine translation makes sense.  
Programming your overseas ESL users is another matter 
entirely; likewise, your overseas writers.  In an environment
where content flows across the oceans in multiple directions,
it's usually better to dispense with contractions just to save
time.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janice Gelb" <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>