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Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

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Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#41

Post by playingalong »

ginko wrote: post #30
matsemann wrote: post #5

I'm a but wary in general about how US tech used around the world slowly erodes the nuances of different cultures. Often the software doesn't take into account how things work in other languages, different regions etc. I'm also not sure I'd blame the engineers in SV too much, of course they design software based on their own context. But with tech becoming global, it's a bit sad how it's not prioritized more. Example…

Another example I recently ran into is Google translate stripping gender from words even when translating between languages with grammatical gender. (German) die Banditin -> (Spanish) el bandido (Spanish) la bandida -> (German) der Bandit So it always turns a female bandit into a male one.

Because it goes via English?

I am not sure but I think I heard Google Translate always goes via English.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#42

Post by notahacker »

mikepurvis wrote: post #16
matsemann wrote: post #5

I'm a but wary in general about how US tech used around the world slowly erodes the nuances of different cultures. Often the software doesn't take into account how things work in other languages, different regions etc. I'm also not sure I'd blame the engineers in SV too much, of course they design software based on their own context. But with tech becoming global, it's a bit sad how it's not prioritized more. Example…

Related to that is all the angst about how Sim City basically just lets you make car-centric hellscapes, not at all unlike San Jose, the city in which it was birthed. And City Skylines inherited a lot of that legacy, that designs centered around mass transit and cycling (such as one would find in Europe or Japan) really only become fully practical with a bunch of mods installed.

Its not just the car centric hellscapes, but the assumption the only way a local authority exerts any control over building is zoning (for residential or commercial, never both), the grid, the assumption that high density means towers with parking lots in between, the lack of any social housing (and indeed the assumption low income workers are entirely unnecessary to a properly functioning city), the assumption that the best way to make your city really attractive is regressive taxation to attract the rich and scare away the poor etc etc...

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#43

Post by ginko »

playingalong wrote: post #41
ginko wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example I recently ran into is Google translate stripping gender from words even when translating between languages with grammatical gender. (German) die Banditin -> (Spanish) el bandido (Spanish) la bandida -> (German) der Bandit So it always turns a female bandit into a male one.

Because it goes via English? I am not sure but I think I heard Google Translate always goes via English.

> Because it goes via English?

That's my understanding, yes.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#44

Post by cubefox »

matsemann wrote: post #5

I'm a but wary in general about how US tech used around the world slowly erodes the nuances of different cultures. Often the software doesn't take into account how things work in other languages, different regions etc. I'm also not sure I'd blame the engineers in SV too much, of course they design software based on their own context. But with tech becoming global, it's a bit sad how it's not prioritized more. Example…

A lot of those points also apply to other European countries.

Though regarding the quotation marks, that seems to be more the fault of the local keyboard layouts. I don't understand why German keyboards don't have the keys to write „ord“. MS Word relies on a software solution to automatically convert "ord" into the German format, but most software (like browsers) understandably don't bother with implementing such replacements. The same thing applies to ' and ’. (Is this even the character I have in mind?)

Regarding ChatGPT being bad at Norwegian: That's excusable, as the performance of the model is dependent on the amount of available training data.

American prudishness. Yeah. Every country has its own preferences, but among Western countries, the US seems special with their aversion to nudity. Excluding Australia perhaps. In the US violence is okay but nudity isn't, in Germany violence isn't okay but nudity is, in France both are okay. The US has a stronger aversion to nudity than most European countries, but it's interesting that in the US a sex scene without nudity appears to be less offensive than a nude scene without sex. As a German, that always seemed absurd to me, and presumably most Europeans would agree. But in the end it means that, because Google is an American company, YouTube globally allows no nudity (not even boobs), while being completely fine with strong violence and even gore.

Regarding am/pm, yeah, that sometimes still trips me up. According to Wikipedia:

> Other than in English-speaking countries and some Spanish-speaking countries, the terms a.m. and p.m. are seldom used and often unknown.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#45

Post by notahacker »

pm215 wrote: post #21
otteromkram wrote: post #2

> Write a word ending in "-ise" and it will suggest changing it to "-ize" [...] Sounds like it's working fine to me. Joking aside, this is a great article with many strong points, but disabling or mitigating spellcheck is always a possibility. I usually disable it since many of the grammar suggestions Word provides are questionable. In a workplace setting when consistency is key, it seems like grammar and spellcheck…

I think the point the article is trying to make there is about the power of defaults. Sure, you can disable the grammar and spellcheck (I do that too), or you can configure it to specifically UK English and otherwise adjust it, but most users will not, and so on aggregate the choice of default setting will exert some pressure on the user base.

Tbh I find most UK spellcheck's determination to replace "-ize" (a valid spelling in British English which the Oxford English Dictionary actually prefers for most words) with "-ise" even more annoying...

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#46

Post by crabmusket »

ginko wrote: post #34
Jenk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow - Noon is 12pm, midnight is 12am.

Which is very confusing. Why does 12pm follow 11am and 12am follow 11pm?

Maybe because 12:00 being consistent with 12:01 was more important than it being consistent with 11?

I personally enjoy using 24-hour clocks on all devices I can.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#47

Post by karaterobot »

Pretty thin soup here. Basically, the argument comes down to grammar and spelling suggestions, and then a couple of other features like document templates. I would need stronger evidence to believe that Word's grammar suggestions have empirically affected the language people use—outside Word itself, possibly. It would be much more tenable to say that Word influences how people write Word documents, but they seem to be saying the languages of the world have been influenced in some marked way by it, which I haven't observed. Nor did I observe a lot of evidence in that article, as opposed to speculation.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#48

Post by macintux »

cebert wrote: post #29

I was in middle school in the late 1990’s. Microsoft Word and Encarta were popular with some students, but the teachers weren’t necessarily tech savvy. If you copied text from an encyclopedia entry in Encarta to Word, the text would change to red burgundy. Students would copy content in their papers and wouldn’t even bother to change the color. I remember seeing examples of good papers in the hallways with the red te…

I was in the IT industry in the late 90s and this is the first I've heard of it. Not surprised teachers weren't in the loop.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#49

Post by bloak »

notahacker wrote: post #45
pm215 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point the article is trying to make there is about the power of defaults. Sure, you can disable the grammar and spellcheck (I do that too), or you can configure it to specifically UK English and otherwise adjust it, but most users will not, and so on aggregate the choice of default setting will exert some pressure on the user base.

Tbh I find most UK spellcheck's determination to replace "-ize" (a valid spelling in British English which the Oxford English Dictionary actually prefers for most words) with "-ise" even more annoying...

That one should be a configuration option. Most British publishers (I think) use -ise, but some use -ize, and no publisher would be happy with a paragraph in which both spellings are used (unless they are in quotations in an academic text).

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#50

Post by yakubin »

carlosjobim wrote: post #27
panzi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but because if analog clocks here in Austria we have no problem to convert back and forth. Are there no analog clocks in Norway?

People in 24h cultures always use 12 analog hours in normal situations, but the 24h system is needed for situations where it is easy to make a mistake. When is dinner? - It's at seven. When does the flight depart? - At 19:00

> People in 24h cultures always use 12 analog hours in normal situations

No, we don't. The only person I know who by default uses 12h is my grandmother. Everybody else always uses 24h.

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