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Subject:Inane Abbreviations (Was RE: Bad translations?) From:Scott Havens <SHavens -at- ELCOTEL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:32:46 -0500
Suzette says:
> Ok, at the risk of sounding stupid... what does the 18 stand for? The
> word
> localization contains 12 letters (I counted 3 times to make sure - I'm
> not
> great at math). Eighteen certainly isn't the number of letters in the
> word
> Internationalization, that's 20. What am I missing here?
>
What you're missing is that the "10" stands for the number of letters
BETWEEN the "L" and the "N." For "Internationalization," the "18" is
the number of letters between "I" and "N." As far as I can see, this is
just another idiotic buzzword manufactured by some high-profile author
or manager and adopted by others who want to sound like they're "on
board" with the latest "cool manager stuff." It may be a lame attempt
to abbreviate the words in a manner that doesn't favor anyone's spelling
above others'. (For example, it would still be L10N in Spanish
[localización], but German might be another story!) However, to my
mind, it simply confuses the issue and DISfavors everyone's language
equally. In my opinion, people who think up abbreviations like these
should be shot...
Scott Havens
Defender of the Language and Professional Curmudgeon
Tampa Bay, FL
