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I attach a patch with various fixes and improvements on the English for the user interface of the System module.
O Govinda
www.jswami.info
Comment | File | Size | Author |
---|---|---|---|
#23 | 163246_5.patch | 49.76 KB | keith.smith |
#21 | 163246_4.patch | 49.65 KB | keith.smith |
#20 | 163246_3.patch | 25.6 KB | keith.smith |
#19 | 163246_2.patch | 25.52 KB | keith.smith |
#17 | 163246_1.patch | 21.81 KB | keith.smith |
Comments
Comment #1
Steven Jones CreditAttribution: Steven Jones commentedGuess this one needs a read through by as many people as possible, who know about grammatically correct English.
Will do that on the way back from work this eve, and get back to you.
---
Regards
Steven Jones
Comment #2
ChrisKennedy CreditAttribution: ChrisKennedy commentedThis page lists all the actions available.
-> "This page lists all available actions." or "This page lists all the available actions."
This option makes Drupal turn out "clean" URLs
-> "Turn out" is unclear.
Ideally should be zero.
-> This should be a complete sentence.
If you're going to change short & medium date date formats you might as well convert all three into the same sentence construction.
CSS and JS bandwidth optimization.
-> It might be clearer to write out "JavaScript".
Finally, a longer description of the rationale behind this patch would be worthwhile, especially to describe some of the repeated changes. Many of the changes are stylistic modifications that are only subjective improvements.
Comment #3
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedThank you, Chris, for going through the patch and commenting on it. To go through such patches is tedious work, and I'm grateful.
Your call for a longer description of the rationale for the patch is perfectly reasonable, so here we go.
Most of the changes are meant to address not mere matters of style but rather matters of grammar, punctuation, and clarity. The few changes in style, which I made because I thought them improvements, were rather a kind of "while we're at it" throw-in.
To get into specifics. . . .
("'This page lists all the actions available" or "This page lists all the available actions"? Six for one, half a dozen for the other.)
I'm in a sort of predicament here. If I'm going to write more such patches, documenting them at this length would get mighty tedious. Fixing text is something I can do fast, as a diversion when I need a break from heavier work. But documenting them this way. . . . that's another story.
I've done professional editing for some thirty-five years. I've edited a monthly magazine, dozens of full-length books, and of course the usual brochures, newsletters, fund-raising letters, and so on. I've taught seminars on editing. And among my most recent editorial projects was a 3-volume scholarly translation and commentary of a medieval Sanskrit work, amounting to some 2,800 pages.
In short: When it comes to English, I know what I'm doing. And I can make a decent contribution here. But I think what's going to have to happen is that someone "up there" in the Drupal hierarchy is going to have to decide to just trust me.
I know that may sound high-handed or immodest. But I think it's realistic.
Yes, I can make mistakes. And where I most need others watching after to me is to make sure I haven't misunderstood something technical about Drupal itself, or introduced an error in coding.
But as for my English--it's good enough that if I edit some text in the Drupal interface the English will be better, not worse. And probably a lot better.
Chris, I understand that this predicament isn't one created by you. And again I'm grateful: You actually took the trouble to go through the whole patch! Now I think we need to hear from "the people who make the decisions."
Thank you again, Chris. And all the best.
Cordially,
O Govinda
www.jswami.info
Comment #4
webchickAdding to shiny new documentation component!
Will try and review this later.
Comment #5
ChrisKennedy CreditAttribution: ChrisKennedy commented@O Govinda: I did not ask for a line by line description of every change. I asked for a longer description than the one given, which added no information to the title of this issue issue "english fixes." You need to be reasonable here: a 30k patch needs more than one unhelpful line of description. Things like: giving examples, providing change counts by type, and summarizing routine errors. This is standard practice.
I'm in a sort of predicament here. If I'm going to write more such patches, documenting them at this length would get mighty tedious. Fixing text is something I can do fast, as a diversion when I need a break from heavier work. But documenting them this way. . . . that's another story.
Wrong, false dichotomy. I never asked for a line-by-line description, nor did I want one. Use your editing skills to write a concise summary next time.
I've done professional editing for some thirty-five years....
That's great - save it for your resume. Experience and/or expertise does not guarantee perfection, nor does it give you cart blanche right to change whichever strings you see fit without any discussion.
Now I think we need to hear from "the people who make the decisions."
This is open source - we make the decisions. The core committers do not need to comment on this issue until it is RTBC, which I, webchick, or anyone else can do. They are very likely to trust any string decision made in this thread as long as it was adequately vetted, which is what I am trying to do.
Regarding the strings: I would prefer "produce" to "turn out". I know the meaning of "turn out" - quoting a dictionary is unnecessary and rude, frankly. Where I am from (Austin, Texas and Washington, DC) "turn out" in this context is uncommon and unclear.
Comment #6
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedThank you for the response, Chris. I accept your chastisements.
Thanks also for the instruction on standard practice. Standard practice in open-source documentation is not something I'm well acquainted with. (I suppose you've already figured that.)
I never asked for a line-by-line description, nor did I want one. Use your editing skills to write a concise summary next time.
Understood.
That's great - save it for your resume. Ouch!
Experience and/or expertise does not guarantee perfection (My text acknowledged that), nor does it give you cart blanche right to change whichever strings you see fit without any discussion. Fair enough.
The core committers. . . are very likely to trust any string decision made in this thread as long as it was adequately vetted, which is what I am trying to do.
Appreciated. Again, I'm not well acquainted with the protocols and procedures here.
Regarding the strings: I would prefer "produce" to "turn out". I know the meaning of "turn out" - quoting a dictionary is unnecessary and rude, frankly. Where I am from (Austin, Texas and Washington, DC) "turn out" in this context is uncommon and unclear.
Sorry if I came off rude or condescending. Your comment--"unclear"--was unclear to me. And so that quote from the dictionary. (Where I come from, when other editors question a word or phrase, that's the first thing we do: check the dictionary. And we consider citing it to be within the realm of good manners.)
Truth be told, I'm still perplexed as to why "turn out" would be unclear (and I grew up only a few hours by car from DC). But, as I said, if you'd prefer "produce" that's fine with me.
Thanks again.
Cordially,
O Govinda
www.jswami.info
PS: Oh, webchick, I love that shiny new documentation component! Thanks.
Comment #7
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedComment #8
Freso CreditAttribution: Freso commentedO Govinda:
Now that you and Chris have talked a bit back and forth, do you think you could reroll the patch, incorporating what you've discussed so far? Or do you now feel that anything need to change?
For the record, as a fluent but non-native English speaking Dane, I'd have to say that "produce" is more clear than "turn out". "Turn out" sounds to me like something dialectical, whereas "produce" is simpler/more natural – or at least is closer to generic Indo-European languages for the same thing. :)
Comment #9
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedThank you, Freso.
I'm not experienced in rolling and re-rolling patches. What I've done here is taken the patch, used a text editor to make slight changes to the revised English text, and then saved the patch as "r1." I hope this is all right.
Here are the changes (with explanations):
(As suggested by Chris.)
(As suggested by you and Chris.)
(Chris suggested spelling out "JavaScript." And I've further broken down the noun pileup.)
Though Chris comments that "Ideally should be zero" should be made a complete sentence, to me it looks fine as is. It's what the module has, and I haven't changed it.
By the way (just for academic interest):
"Turn out" is idiomatic rather than dialectical.
Attesting to the use of "turn out" to mean "to produce (usually implying rapidity, facility, or skill)," the Oxford English Dictionary cites examples going back at least as far as 1878. For example, "No place. . . could. . . turn out more splendid ships' figure-heads" (1878). And: "La Touche. . . is one of the best half-backs Sedbergh has ever turned out" (1913).
But I accept that "produce" is likely to be simpler for translators. And that's a good enough reason to use it.
Thanks again, Freso.
Cordially,
O Govinda
www.jswami.info
Comment #10
catchThis is in double quotes, doesn't need to be. Also "Recommendation: Turn this on". No capital required after the colon, and I think it could be worded better than this. Don't have alternative wording at the moment though but maring to needs work.
Comment #11
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedLower-case “t” is fine. “Could be better worded”--we need more help. What aspect of the wording would you like to see improved?
O Govinda
www.jswami.info
Comment #12
catchBit more awake now.
"This setting can interfere with module development and its use is not recommended until your site is in production."
How's that?
Comment #13
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commentedI think that having two short sentences--one idea per sentence--gets across faster. And a brisk command--"Recommendation: Do this"--is more clear and definite than the passive-voiced "is recommended."
Also, "in production" seems like Drupal insider jargon. We understand it to mean that your site has "gone live." But non-techies could easily misunderstand it to mean "under development" (the opposite of what we mean).
Of course, a site is never "complete," so that word can be confusing too. Should we say "until your site has gone live"? Or "until your site is up and running"?
Comment #14
catchI'd say "until your site has gone live" is much better.
Comment #15
Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commented". . . until your site has gone live."
Fine.
Comment #16
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedThere's a lot of stuff here!
However, much of it now outdated due to changes since this issue was submitted -- new features have been added that have substantially impacted some of these old text strings, including some actions (triggers) modifications, custom date/time formats, etc.
Additionally, some of these items have already been addressed by recent, smaller patches to user-facing text.
I went through the original patch and cherry-picked out several of the changes that still applied, found a few other instances of text that could use a bit of tweaking, and have included these items in the attached patch for review.
(Note that I did not include several proposed changes only because I know that there are still pending patches in the documentation queue that directly address them.)
Comment #17
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedI realized after a patch for installer task descriptions earlier today, that "Setup" vs. "Set up" may be a more pervasive problem. So, I went through all the instances of "Setup" and "setup", and changed them if necessary, and rolled these changes into this kitchen sink style patch.
Comment #18
Freso CreditAttribution: Freso commentedAFAIK/CT,
should remain "setup" (and thus not get changed into "set up"), as it is indeed referenced as a noun ("a setup") here and not as a verb ("to set up").There are a few
'#description' => t("...")
, where the text int("...")
doesn't contain any apostrophes or characters that need to be parsed – they should be quoted in apostrophes. (Also, there are a few'...' => t(...)
that doesn't end with a comma, even if the coding guidelines clearly state they should.)sound a bit awkward. How about something akin to ? I'm sure y'all are able to come up with something better, but the current text (with or without the patch) isn't good.
Comment #19
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedOops. Yep, I zoned out on a few of these. Thanks for reviewing, Freso.
I *believe* I addressed the issues you raised, plus corrected a typo the earlier patch would have introduced.
Since this is a kitchen-sink of grammatical junk, I also expanded the issue title, and have added some it's and its fixes.
Please review!
Comment #20
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedRerolling to remove a bit of fuzz.
Retitling to more appropriately reflect this issue.
This patch will conflict with the one in http://drupal.org/node/175876 ; whichever one (if either) makes it in, I'll reroll the other.
Note that this patch now basically contains spelling error cleanup, mostly
it's
/its
andset up
/setup
confusion.Comment #21
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedI encountered several double spaces between sentences here and there, and decided to roll them into this patch, which has now officially gotten about too big to realistically review (so I'm going to try to not poke more stuff in here).
Note that the block module help text touched by this patch (eliminating some double spaces between sentences) should likely now be expanded with information about the drag-and-drop interface enhancements. There is another patch in the documentation component queue that is directly related to block module help text, so I'd probably prefer to just let this clean up the space and make substantive changes to the help text in the other issue.
So to recap, this kitchen sink patch now has:
-- some few system module strings coming over from this issue's origin
-- numerous changes adjusting "set up" and "setup"
-- numerous changes adjusting "its" and "it's"
-- numerous changes adjusting double spaces between sentences
Comment #22
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedThis will need rerolling due to the commit of the patch in http://drupal.org/node/175876.
I'll do this tomorrow. Setting to CNW temporarily.
Comment #23
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedRerolled after two hunks failed due to recent commits.
Comment #24
Dries CreditAttribution: Dries commentedWow, this is great work. Thanks for the detailed issue comments. That helps. Committed to CVS HEAD!
Comment #25
(not verified) CreditAttribution: commentedAutomatically closed -- issue fixed for two weeks with no activity.
Comment #26
InfinityMark CreditAttribution: InfinityMark commentedIgnore this post...