I know regular readers have been waiting impatiently with the next post to the series after How many ways can a developer say 'File Not Found?' (aka Making your localizer's life easier, Part 1)....

Yesterday, Larry Osterman had a pretty funny blog entitled "We're back and...".

And it is pretty funny when a T-Shirt slogan like

Lan Manager... We're back and we're BAD.

gets translated to the other language equivalent of

Lan Manager... We're back and we're not very good".

and to stop for a moment to take a joke and make it decidedly unfunny by dissecting it, there is an important lesson in localization to be learned here.

the problem is simply stated, and I'll add a bit to it so that items that you may yourself be guilty of can show up in the list:

Avoid colloquial words and phrases, and minimize the use of abbreviations and acronyms

Here are some great negative examples that have been purported to have ended up having localizers needing to do something with them:

  • Wait for the handset to go dead before replacing it.
  • I don't trust this module.
  • You are dangerously low on disk space.
  • Uninstallation killed: Uninstallation of the following update is killed by the agent.
  • You are no longer required to stay in your office or den when using your computer.
  • Could not create user OBO token.
  • The DHCP server issued a NACK to the client.
  • Extraneous ACK apparently to an %1
  • Allow IPSec or &MPPE encryption.

Interestingly, just like as in Part 1, the advice is also a recommendation for the original pre-localized product as well -- too much of this is likely to be hard for regular users of the unlocalized product and there are often strict guidelines in both user interfaces and documentation guiding behavior here.

But geeks will be geeks, and it is a constant battle to get the right results.

And the guidelines themselves often fail to assist: for example, in documentation on the first occurrence of an acronym one is expected to spell out the acronym. But if one finds GDI confusing one is unlikely to find GRAPHICS DEVICE INTERFACE to be the magical road to understanding. In fact, the guidelines can often increase confusion!

The T-Shirt is a great example of what localization can add to the mix when it is entirely possible for a localizer to either "not understand the text" or "miss the joke", and the results can be less than stellar.

Though admittedly quite hilarious (when not dangerous!).

(Hat tip to the three people who sent me the link to Larry's blog between midnight and five in the morning, all several hours after most of this blog had been written!)

 

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