Do we Canucks tolerate Yankee docs?

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Jim Grey wondered <<How do Canadians react to documentation that's
clearly written for the United States? By this I mean approaches
(e.g., are Canadians as impatient as US-ers and will they therefore
appreciate a task-based approach), but things such as spelling are
certainly included, too.>>

Personally, unless the documentation repeatedly refers to Toronto as
the capital of Canada, or makes condescending Canadian jokes, I don't
recall noticing any significant differences between Canadian and U.S.
documentation styles. In fact, I suspect that most Canadians would be
hard-pressed to notice any difference whatsoever; for example, our
spelling standards are every bit as bad as those in the U.S., so even
spotting something as obvous as the differences between the two
spelling styles is unlikely. We like to make much noise about how
distinct we are from Americans, but in my experience it's a rare
Canadian who can actually pin down those differences. (Quebecers are
a different story, though; there's enough French/English
cross-pollination here that it creates some distinct differences.) On
the whole, though, I find greater variation between regional usage
across the continent than between Canadian vs. U.S. usage.

I have known authors who informed me during editing that if I changed
"colour" to "color" one more time in a manuscript destined for an
American journal that they'd personally start a border war over the
issue, but I consider them to be exceptions. <g>
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Patience comes to those who wait."--Anon.


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