My pet peeve is when I have an application crash and the error message has been translated. Now googling it is extra fun, not to mention bug reporting.
Fortunatly with Linux, I usually can get the proper message with "LC_ALL=en_US.UTF8" if I can, and desire, repeat the exact same error.
Now I understand that this is done for openess and diversity. But technical terms should not be translated. I'm french, and I accept that english has won as the business language, and the IT language. Let's move on.
Honestly, we are wasting humanity potential for not having a common language. I really, really wish we would all learn english as the second language, and that all laws, forms, labels and signs would be translated to english everywhere (as an addition to the local lang, not a replacement). It's an imperfect language, but it won half of the world, and the other half will have an easier time learning it that us learning theirs. Plus it has a very simple alphabet, and is already used for science, business and international politics.
At this stage, I would gladly agree for all the french books and movies being burned and lost forever if it means one language, any language really, becomes magically the main one for humanity. We have too many communication problems.
But since magic doesn't exist, what about getting off the ego train and just adopt the imperfect status quo and make something awesome with it for a change ?
English in terms of number of speakers has already reached the point where the number of ESL speakers outstrips the number of native ones by a good margin. The simple alphabet is a plus. I wish the spelling wasn't so godawful.
One of my favorite aspects of the English language is that not only is it shameless about stealing other languages' words, but it seems to take it as a point of pride. It's a good feature to have if you want something global- it means that useful words will accumulate without regard to origin, which benefits everyone.
"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
and also by extension, Greek (directly in many cases -- almost every english word that starts with 'ph' was a greek word -- but also a large portion of medical and mathematical terminology)
I suspect english words starting with 'ph' come from french, french words with 'ph' used 'ph' instead of 'f' (same sound) to emphase the fact the word borrow greek root (but who care the word come from greek, does it make it easier to learn? one more shitty rule of french).
Granted I don't have hard data on the "ph" fact, the source is pretty credible in my opinion. The fact appeared in an article written for the British Council, co-authored by Martha Peraki, a Linguistics PhD recipient from American University.
Heuristically, the "rule" passes the eyeball test: philosophy, physical, photo, phrase, philanthropy, phobia, phage, phalange, phalanx, phallic, phase, pharmacy, phantom, phenomenon, phone, photons, photosynthesis, physician, physique, phytoplankton, so on and so forth
Fortunatly with Linux, I usually can get the proper message with "LC_ALL=en_US.UTF8" if I can, and desire, repeat the exact same error.
Now I understand that this is done for openess and diversity. But technical terms should not be translated. I'm french, and I accept that english has won as the business language, and the IT language. Let's move on.
Honestly, we are wasting humanity potential for not having a common language. I really, really wish we would all learn english as the second language, and that all laws, forms, labels and signs would be translated to english everywhere (as an addition to the local lang, not a replacement). It's an imperfect language, but it won half of the world, and the other half will have an easier time learning it that us learning theirs. Plus it has a very simple alphabet, and is already used for science, business and international politics.
At this stage, I would gladly agree for all the french books and movies being burned and lost forever if it means one language, any language really, becomes magically the main one for humanity. We have too many communication problems.
But since magic doesn't exist, what about getting off the ego train and just adopt the imperfect status quo and make something awesome with it for a change ?