[GRASS-dev] Re: [GRASS-CVS] carlos: grass6/raster/r.his main.c, 2.6, 2.7

[Martin Landa]

Ciao Carlos,

I am not sure too (it is the question for native speakers...)

http://www.nabble.com/message-standardization-on-wiki-tf3559274.html#a9939189

"Cannot open raster map" X "Unable to open raster map"

Martin



2007/7/6, Carlos Dávila <cdavilam at jemila.jazztel.es>:
>
>  Martin Landa escribió:
> Hi,
>
>  just a stupid note
>
>
> -               G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map [%s]"), name_h);
>  +               G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map <%s>"), name_h);
>
>  wouldn't be better to use "Cannot open raster map <%s>"?, see wiki and
>  discussion in grass-dev mailing list...
>  For sure I may be wrong, but I've been revising wiki and lists (dev and
> translations) and I can't see where it is suggested to use cannot instead of
> unable to.
>  What I found is:
>  >From wiki
>
>  Standard messages sandbox
>
>  First letter should be capitalized
>  Use the present tense (cannot instead of could not; better: unable to) ...
>
>
>  G_open_cell_old "Unable to open raster map <%s>" >From translation list:
>  > > > I would prefer not using "Cannot...". It's bad grammar. I would much
> > > > prefer "Unable to..." or something to that effect.
>
>  > >
> > > While I can see your point, that construction is quite common in error
> > > messages, e.g.:
> > >
> > > $ ls -l foo
> > > ls: cannot access foo: No such file or directory
> > >
> > > Neither "cannot ..." nor "unable to ..." form complete sentences.
> > >
> > > If you're concerned about grammar, you can provide an explicit subject
> > > ("The program cannot ..."), or use the third person (e.g. "The file
> > > cannot be found").
> > >
> > > Personally, I don't have a problem with just omitting the subject.
>
>  > Point taken. I was really referring to the usage of "Cannot". Some
> > dictionaries do not recognize it as 'real word', yet others (that are
> > generally more progressive with slang and contractions) say that it
> > should replace "can not" in modern English.
>
> >
> > It's a non-problem. In modules I've [re]written, I've used "Unable to",
> > but I can go back and change them for consistency.
>
>
>  It seems to me that "Unable to" is the most impartial form.
>
>
>
>  Martin
>
>  PS: Thanks to Carlos for this hard job!
>  Thanks to all of you for the support.
>
>
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-- 
Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com> * http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa *