Re: highlighting and fontification

[Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann)]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

> Okay, I suppose that I should have said that it is an American
> typographical convention.  There are a lot of little differences
> between American and European typography.  This is one of them.

Ah.  So, to borrow some HTML:

Americans emphasize like <em>this?</em>
And Europeans emphasise like <em>this</em>?

Very interesting.  I care about these little differences.  But since
I'm not a native English speaker, things start to get vague for me.
For instance, should I assume that I'm writing British English if my
text contains a lot of `old chap' and `lift' and adjust my typography
accordingly, as opposed to `hey, guys' and `elevator'?

The situation is worse for Germans writing about computers (in
German): the German word for `to backup' is `sichern', which is a
homonym (or polyseme?) and also means `to make secure'.  Thus, the
word `Backup' is likely to be used as a noun in a German text, but it
is not clear at all how to make that into a verb.  In speech, one will
say `wurde gebackupt' (for `has been backed up'), but the spelling is
not at all clear: maybe `wurde gebackupped' with a pseudo-English
suffix which is pronounced the same as the other one?  But in German,
the prepositions are separated from the noun, maybe `wurde upgebackt'
would be better?  Even though Germans would laugh when seeing that,
they don't think twice about saying `Ich bin eingeloggt' (I am
logged in).

I think the French approach the whole thing by not using English words
(at least officially) -- ordinateur instead of computer and so on...

How do other nations deal with this?

8-)

Sorry for the off-topic posting, hope it is interesting anyway.

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.