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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: [KWORD] little error in an i18n message
From:       Tim Colgate <tim () mettalogic ! uklinux ! net>
Date:       2003-10-06 0:06:11
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At the risk of prolonging this somewhat off-topic discussion...

On Sunday 5 October 2003 7:01 pm, Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 05, 2003 at 06:44:20PM +0200, David Faure wrote:
...
> > BTW anonymous "you" exists in English too, AFAIK.
>
Although anonymous you is more common, an alternative is to use "one", e.g. 

This can happen sometimes. One gets hours of delay.

This is rather formal; rarely heard in speech these days (except by the 
Queen), but it has the advantage of being unambiguous, unlike "you". It is 
also more similar to the French "on" or German "man", as it is in the third 
person.

> I always put the word 'plural' after it when it might be confusing.  But
> when you talk to non-experienced-english speakers its better to rewrite the
> sentence.
>
> - This can happen sometimes. You get hours of delay...
> + This can happen sometimes. An email can get hours of delay...
>


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