On 10/06/2012 09:34 AM, Tom Davies wrote: > Hi :) > Don't worry about getting it wrong. Most native English speakers get it > wrong too anyway and it's not a fixed target. Companies usually have a > "house style" to guess at, sometimes it's written down. To add to the confusion; different versions of English (US/UK/etc) have somewhat different rules about usage and particularly spelling (litre vs liter). So, being in the US, I will normally follow US usage and style not UK, Canadian, Australian, etc.
One person remarked (Churchill?) that the US and Britain are two countries separated by a common language. As, said below, do your best but do worry about it, let the editors clean up the style and usage so its reasonably consistent. > > Also language evolves. Names such as G.N.U. are tiresome to type out or > write in full if written often so they gradually become GNU, then Gnu and > along the way may start to be used in other ways, to describe a similar > system. So if the word was used in a medical text-book it would be G.N.U. > but in an OpenSource context it's more likely to be Gnu or even gnu. > Likewise there are medical words and legal jargon that we would write in > full. > > Trying to understand it by reading a rule-book is going to make things > confusing. Rule-books are a good place to start to get a good foundation. > Then you just have to adapt through experience. > > If you are confused it's because it is confusing. Don't worry about it. > Native English-speakers get confused too. People have often used this > mailing list to ask about specific words and circumstances and we have tried > to be consistent but circumstances might be subtly different and mistakes are > possible. > > If there is a specific example that you think is wrong then let us know and > we'll either try to justify it or encourage you to fix it. It helps us all > learn. > > Regards from > Tom :) > > > > --- On Sat, 6/10/12, Robert Großkopf <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Robert Großkopf <[email protected]> > Subject: [libreoffice-documentation] Translation "Base-Handbuch" - capitalize > Headers? > To: "[email protected]" > <[email protected]> > Date: Saturday, 6 October, 2012, 9:58 > > I haven't learned English so well, that I can say: This should be > capitalized and that shouldn't. > > I remember, that there were rules to write a word with a capital, when > it's a name or it's a noun (in a heading/title). Then I had a look at > the English "Introducing Writer", which I downloaded at > http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/e/e3/0201WG3-IntroducingWriter.pdf > After reading the contents I am confused. Some nouns are written with a > capital letter at the beginning of the words, others are not. > > Now I want to add or correct something in > http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/base-handbook/drafts/base-3.5-chapter-3-tables/view > , because I have written the German "Base-Handbuch". > > If there is any rule for writing words with a capitalized letter at the > beginning, which somebody like me could understand, please let me know. > > Regards, > > Robert > > -- Jay Lozier [email protected] -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
