[Ubuntu-l10n-eng] Gaim/Pidgin's buddy

[Nigel Titley]

Matthew Smith wrote:
>
> It *is* a colloquialism for friend, but it has different shades of
> meaning; I would say "alright, mate" and americans would say "hey,
> buddy" as a greeting to an acquaintance or a stranger - but i wouldn't
> call them "friend". the terms are synonyms, but they have different
> connotations. The less colloquial 'friend' carries more weight. It's
> why AIM, and in turn Pidgin, selected 'buddy' in the first place. It
> gives the app a friendly feel, without being too definite about the
> relationship you have with your buddies - that's what we should be
> trying to capture, although as we can't have 'mate', I guess 'friend'
>   
"pal" used to be a much closer synonym for "buddy" but has fallen out of 
use these days. The problem is, as Matt says, that there is no real 
equivalent for "buddy" in modern day English. It can be used to cover 
the whole range from close friend through to someone you bump into in 
the street. I think the best we are going to come up with is "friend". I 
noticed to my horror recently that BT has started to refer to the person 
who organises a meeting and takes the minutes as the meeting's buddy....

Nigel