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Falsehoods programmers believe about languages (www.lexiconista.com)

submitted 19 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I can’t believe nobody has done this list yet. I mean, there is one about names, one about time and many others on other topics, but not one about languages yet (except one honorable mention that comes close). So, here’s my attempt to list all the misconceptions and prejudices I’ve come across in the course of my long and illustrious career in software localisation and language technology. Enjoy – and send me your own ones!

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Icons that are based on English puns and wordplay are easily understood by speakers of other languages.

This reminded me of one of those Top Gear "drive across a foreign country in weird vehicles" specials where Jeremy Clarkson needed to borrow a cable to jump-start his car, and laboriously mimed out jumping for "jump", and walking a dog for "lead", to a perplexed local. Richard Hammond was cracking up but finally managed to point out what a fool Clarkson was being.

Geolocation is an accurate way to predict the user’s language.

And as an addendum to this, in 2025 nobody should be using Windows' "Non-latin/-unicode character set" setting to guess the user's preferred language. That's a pre-WinXP kludge. I'm specifically looking at you, Intel integrated graphics software writers, but you have plenty of company, don't worry.

[–] fluckx 28 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Geolocation is an accurate way to predict the user’s language.

This makes me so angry. It really really really really really does.

Despite setting everything to English I still get my receipts in French. And all because my IP is CG-NAT to the capital which is marked as french speaking.

What is so hard about letting me decide. The absolute fucking arrogance thinking you as a company know better than me in which language I would like to be served.

Eat a dick Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

For real. I've seen the fingerprinting info, I know your website can see what language I've set, so display your website in that language!