distinguish between "on" and "about"

Sat Mar 17 15:22:10 UTC 2018

Hi Luigi, Steve, Yuri and other KDE Plasma enthusiasts

I was up late at night and could not sleep, so I began to read the KDE
manuals. And I thought,
to raise some fun and awareness about international writing.

About me.
-----------
I live in Quebec (read/write both in French and English).  And when I began
learning French 25 years ago,
I had surprises.  Automatic translators would translate "on" to be "sur",
to mean  describing "a location".
An expedient fix was to replace "on" in the English with "of".
Similar rules apply when translating English to the other Latin based
languages.

"In translating, as I indicated, we had to modify the English for each "*on*"
to substitute "*about*", "*of*" "*concerning*",
or "*appropos*". In French, there is a requirement for precision.  A legal
document in French will more easily pass scruples
than a similar document written in English, simply because of its use of a
"most precise" word.
One last example,  "I have a cold", translated, means I am cold. In French
we would write
I have the grip or flu or illness.

While learning French, I had to work with automatic translation software.
Before using the translator, I had to
distinguish between on, onto,  etc.  This precision requirement has stayed
with me.

*Here is my friendly message.*
There is a whole international "English speaking world outside of the USA",
from India, Philippines, Canada, Australia, parts of Africa and other
English speaking communities.
My intention is to raise awareness to remind authors to use less American
speech and more international.

In my pre-closing, I want to give a last example:

In my youth, the following two sentences would not pass an editor's eye.

"There are  five options to choose from."       We had to write "There are
five options from which to choose".
"There are  five foods to choose from."       We had to write "There are
five foods from which to choose".

I am closing with my American writing style.  I'm *gonna* let this go. Its
just my friendly way of creating an awareness
that the English language is both regional and international.

By the way, I'm an old grandpa. Every day I am getting closer to 80 than
to age 75.  My hobby is to ask friends from other
languages to give me their translation of the Confidentiality Notices shown
below. If you have one written in Italian,
German, or other, I would appreciate appending it to my list below.

Regards from Canada.

-- 
Leslie Satenstein,
leslie.satenstein at gmail.com
lsatenstein at yahoo.com

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गोपनीय सूचना: इस ई-मेल की सामग्री गोपनीय है, यह विशेषाधिकार द्वारा प्राप्त
हो सकती है और इसका उपयोग केवल सम्बोधित व्यक्ति ही कर सकता है।किसी भी अन्य
व्यक्ति को इसे प्रकट करने, वितरण या पुन: प्रजनन का अधिकार नहीं है। अगर आपको
यह ई-मेल गलती से मिला है, तो कृपया हमें तुरंत टेलीफोन द्वारा सूचित करें और
सभी प्रतियों को हटा दें।धन्यवाद।
ᐧ

On 17 March 2018 at 06:19, Luigi Toscano <luigi.toscano at tiscali.it> wrote:

> On Saturday, 17 March 2018 06:45:32 CET Leslie Satenstein wrote:
> > Consider
> >
> > Chapter 1. Introduction
> > Welcome to KDE!
> > This guide will introduce you to the many features of the Plasma
> workspace
> > and applications and describe many common tasks you can perform.
> > For more information *on* KDE, visit the KDE website.
> >
> > You can be on topic or off topic, or you can be on a table or chair
> > But do you want        "For more information *about* KDE?"   USA uses on
> in
> > place of about.  The English world is larger than the USA.
>
> Hi,
> this basic language used for the guides (and most of technical
> documentation
> in English) is American English. This is the reason why another language
> available is en_GB (others flavors - or flavours - are possible, provided
> that
> there are maintainers).
> Unfortunately not all the documentation is available for en_GB.
>
> Regards
> --
> Luigi
>
>
>
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