[Ubuntu-l10n-eng] setup/set-up, plugin/plug-in and login/log-in

Sridhar Dhanapalan sridhar at dhanapalan.com
Sun Aug 27 15:56:11 BST 2006


On Monday 28 August 2006 00:08, William Anderson <neuro at well.com> wrote:
> Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> > How should we handle setup/set-up, plugin/plug-in and login/log-in?
> >
> > For instance, which of these three sentences would be more correct?
> >
> > * "I am going to login to the box."
> > * "I am going to log-in to the box."
> > * "I am going to log into the box."
>
> You missed one:
>
> * "I am going to log in to the box."
>
> If we're going to deprecate "login", which personally I prefer and is
> listed on dictionary.com, but isn't in the OED, then I would think "log in"
> - and ergo "log in to" - are preferable.  However, I would still favour
> "login" in the same manner as "program" and "dialog box".
>
> I would utterly disagree with using "log-in".

Firstly, dictionary.com is based on The American Heritage Dictionary, and 
hence is incompatible with en_GB. Secondly, "into" is a valid word in the 
Cambridge and Chambers dictionaries, and I believe that it better reflects 
spoken usage (for most people, the words run into each other).

I would like to have some consistency across the three words mentioned in the 
Subject header of this thread (along with other similar words). The simplest 
rule I can think of, keeping the en_GB dictionaries and spoken usage in mind, 
is to use hyphenated versions for nouns and separate words for verbs.

I completely disagree with "dialog box". All it does is introduce 
inconsistencies into the English language (unless you want all of the *logue 
words to change along with it) for little benefit. "Program" might be an 
exception to this due to its widespread general use. I don't think your 
average person would even know what a dialog[ue] box is.

-- 
Sridhar Dhanapalan
  {GnuPG/OpenPGP: http://www.dhanapalan.com/yama.asc
   0x049D38B4 : A7A9 8A02 78CB AB1B FCE4 EEC6 2DD9 249B 049D 38B4}

"Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic."
			- Arthur C. Clarke
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-l10n-eng/attachments/20060828/c9d89bde/attachment-0001.pgp 


More information about the Ubuntu-l10n-eng mailing list