Colloquialisms (was: Re: [hatari-devel] Re: IDE byte swapping options)

["Roger Burrows" <anodyne@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 18 Oct 2018 at 9:48, Thomas Huth wrote:
> 
> I meant "colloquial" in the sense of "should not be used in written
> English texts like manuals", not in the sense of "unprofessional". At
> least this is what our teachers taught us in school. Looking at some
> pages in the internet, it seems that some agree (e.g.
> https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/9096/usage-of-contractions-like-it
> s-and-thats-in-textbooks
> ) while others say that it could also rather be a regional thing (e.g.
> https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/20275/are-contractions-like-didnt-
> forbidden-in-written-english
> ) ... I'm also not a native speaker, but as far as I can see, "it is"
> sounds "safer" for formal texts to me.
> 

As a native English speaker (currently living in Canada, but originally from 
the UK), I'd say that:
1. you would almost always use "it's" in spoken language
2. you would almost always use "it is" in a printed document

Online is somehow between the two, so it's hard to be dogmatic.  For me, "it 
is" creates an impression of greater accuracy & precision, but less 
friendliness.  So I would use "it's" in a FAQ, but "it is" in a manual.  But 
that's just an opinion, and "honest men may differ".

> By the way, looks like we're rather informal in the manual:
> 
> $ grep -i " it's " manual.html | wc -l
> 22
> $ grep -i " it is " manual.html | wc -l
> 11
> 
> ... maybe we should standardize on one of the two spellings?
> 

I think that is definitely something that should be fixed.

Roger Burrows