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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

#71

Post by tomrod »

tomrod wrote: post #6
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…

I appreciate your thoughts. You made me realize AM (antemeridian, before noon) and post meridian (after noon, 24 hours mod 12) aren't universal standards!

If I could edit the comment after a few hours, I would fix the spelling. Apologies! (Ante meridiem & post meridiem)

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

#72

Post by tgaj »

tomrod wrote: post #66
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are, but we just skip the AM/PM part most of time, because it's obvious from context which one you mean. And if it's not you'll just say "... in the morning/afternoon/evening"

AM: morning, PM: afternoon/evening

Yeah, but this is the problem - why noon is "afternoon"?

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

#73

Post by crazygringo »

cubefox wrote: post #44
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 rep…

> why German keyboards don't have the keys to write „ord“

I'm assuming for the same reason American/English keyboards don't have the keys to write “place”, just "place". Which is because American/English typewriters didn't -- they invented straight quotes to save extra keys. And looking up on Google Images, it looks like German typewriters were the same -- Shift+2 was a straight double quote.

It's my personal opinion that this was the original sin -- that typewriters implemented straight quotes rather than curly quotes, to save an extra column of keys. Imagine there's a parallel universe out there, just like ours, except straight quotes were never invented, and everybody actually types opening and closing quotes explicitly, and word processors never had to invent any "smart quotes" feature at all...

Still, I'm more surprised by German typewriters than English ones. In English, you can "get away" with straight quotes, they don't stick out too badly. But in German, the opening quote is in the totally wrong position, at the top instead of the bottom!

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

#74

Post by mcpackieh »

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.

Yandex Translate gets it wrong in the same way, suggesting that they also go through English instead of Russian, or something else is going on.

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

#75

Post by delecti »

Jenk wrote: post #25
Lukas_Skywalker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noon and midnight are especially difficult for people used to the 24 hour system. Noon is neither ante nor post meridiem. And midnight is both.

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

Noon is the meridiem that AM and PM reference. At precisely 12:00 it is neither before nor after noon, because it is noon. That makes it hard to intuitively know whether the mid-day 12:00-12:59 should be AM or PM (and vice versa with midnight).

It can obviously be learned, but it's something lots of people have trouble with. I was probably in my teens before I finally got that memorized enough to keep them straight. Lots of things happen at 11:59 PM (due dates being the most prominent example) because it's less potentially ambiguous than 12:00 AM the next day, even though it's functionally the same thing.

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

#76

Post by chrismorgan »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #4

> Word introduced line breaks, along with bold and italic fonts on screen. Forgot about WordStar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar

On screen. It’s talking about the WYSIWYG paradigm, which WordStar didn’t do, judging by that screenshot.

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

#77

Post by JCharante »

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…

> With global networks, we're now moderating to American "prudeness".

We're moderating things to the most influential country that uses that language. If you don't use English then you'll see tons of content that would not fly in the English internet. Searching for "watch rick and morty free" gets you to paid services and malware sites, while searching for that same show in a less popular language gets you a very fast pirated stream with subtitles in that language as the first search result. This is very useful for watching pirated English content as long as you don't mind the foreign subtitles.

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

#78

Post by brookst »

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…

Any information exchange erodes culture. Movies, music, academia, anything.

But I think that’s a good thing. Other people feel differently and want to preserve small patches of “pure” cultures, but I think the world is better and richer when hugely diverse cultures are diffused widely.

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

#79

Post by mcpackieh »

chrismorgan wrote: post #69
Mordisquitos wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with you. Another gripe to add to the list is the Anglocentric expectation made by American software [0] that any full personal name with three words must necessarily mean (given_name) (middle_name) (surname) , to be displayed as "Givenname M. Surname" and initialised as "GS" (skipping the ostensible "middle" name). Nevermind the diversity of conventions across cultures [1], every name must obviously fo…

A funny/sad aspect of it is that I get the impression that violation of the /^(? \S+) (? \S+) (? \S+)$/ custom isn’t even all that rare in the USA because it’s still moderately common to reuse names and add ordinals, a practice which has largely fallen out of practice in other English-first countries (so that violation of the convention has become rarer in them, though certainly there are other deviations—e.g. I have…

I also know Americans who go by their middle names because everybody in the family has the same first name, with the first name turned into an initial before their middle name. Usually software can handle this by entering "J Bob" in the first name field, but not always. Sometimes software asks for first name and middle name separately, and then you know you're going to have trouble because another system thinks "J Bob" is your first name and the two won't match.

I think a single field for the entire name would be ideal, with an optional second field for "how should we address you?" so that the software doesn't have to play games with asking gender and breaking out the last name to fill out a form letter with "Dear Mr. Smith, ..."

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

#80

Post by fostware »

smt88 wrote: post #64
unsupp0rted wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a but wary in general about how US tech used around the world slowly erodes the nuances of different cultures This is a plus, not a minus. It doesn't matter what (reasonable) standard we go with, as long we go with one. I'm excited for a time when all humans speak (and read, if reading is still needed by then) the same easy-to-learn logical language from childhood. When English and Norwegian become special inte…

It would be cool to have a universal language, but English is the JavaScript of spoken languages – universal because of coincidence rather than good design.

... and not afraid to steal bits from another language.
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