XDG critical grammar issue

Pat Suwalski pat at suwalski.net
Fri Jun 21 12:34:33 UTC 2024


On 2024-06-21 04:50, David Chmelik wrote:
> No literate person would write "I'm going to My Garage to get My Toolbox
> and My Hammer and My Saw and My Nails to work on My Project" because one
> doesn't capitalise nouns except proper nouns, which aren't used in that
> example (only exception is academic context, such as Science/Mathematics
> Department or Class/Course, but not when talking about science/mathematics
> or classes/courses in non-academic context).  However, this ungrammatical
> style is sadly what most user interfaces do, including XDG-specified!  I
> don't know that's because most copied early versions of Windows and/or
> similar software on UNIX that had program groups with capitalised names
> despite being similar to garages & toolboxes and not being academic
> subjects.  It's also wrong in standard/classic menus such as 'File Edit
> View Help' though as those capital letters get underlined, may improve
> their readability.

The title-style capitalization is appropriate. It's uniquely English, 
and many translations address casing locale-specifically.

--Pat


More information about the xdg mailing list