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Subject:non-American English From:Barry Lockard <barry -at- BGS -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 21 Aug 1996 09:34:14 -0400
Hello Gang,
I'm sending this FYI and for your amusement.
Barry
>Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 11:31:45 +1000
>Reply-To: Kip Dale <kipd -at- SOFTLAW -dot- COM -dot- AU>
>Sender: "Technical Writers List; for all Technical Communication issues"
> <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>
>From: Kip Dale <kipd -at- SOFTLAW -dot- COM -dot- AU>
>Subject: non-American English
>To: Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L
> <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>
>I think that one important thing to watch out for is words that
>mean different things in English-speaking countries.
>Being an ex-pat American living in Australia, I can vouch for
>the fact that Americans and Australians DO NOT speak the same
>language.
>A few examples:
>A boot can belong to a car or a foot.
>You barrack for your sports team. Rooting is something that
>adults do in the privacy of their home.
>If you bonk some one on the head, you _really_ must do it in
>the privacy of your home.
>To be a bit more serious, there are a number of technical terms
>that are different. A crescent wrench is a shifting spanner.
>An electrical outlet is a power point. To buy internal electrical
>conduit, you really have a lot of explaining to do. (Trust me.)
>There is a web page that outlines a lot of this. It came up on this
>list two or three month ago, but I lost the URL when my hard disk
>died.
>good luck
>Kip Dale
>Training Manager (and general all purpose and sometimes confused guy)
>nanabelles
>kipd -at- softlaw -dot- com -dot- au
>http://www.softlaw.com.au/nanabelles
> TECHWR-L List Information
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Barry
*************************************************************
Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the
wrong words. - Mark Twain
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TECHWR-L List Information
To send a message about technical communication to 2500+ list readers,
E-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send administrative commands
ALL other questions or problems concerning the list
should go to the listowner, Eric Ray, at ejray -at- ionet -dot- net -dot-
