English speakers of the fedi.
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
I answered "infinitive" but only because these don't feel like imperatives. I do not feel like I am commanding the software to *OPEN MY FILE!*
As an aside, I think your expansion of an infinitive-based reading may be misleading since, in English, "to do this" could be read as a declaration of purpose, which is not what the infinitive (or the gerund, come to that) represents.
My feeling is that these labels work just as labels, with it being purely a convenience of space and habit whether they are expressed as verbs or nouns, i.e. Open = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with opening files", but Settings = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with settings".
That's closer to a noun-form for a verb than a command, so it's more infinitive-adjacent than imperative-like, but I think the categories are inappropriate.
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I believe German systems tend to use the infinitive. In English both are "Edit". When you use an English app, which way do you interpret it?
Infinitive: Bearbeiten (Nennform, zu bearbeiten, the idea to edit something, we can edit something, I want to edit something.)
Imperative: Bearbeite [dies] (commanding order: Edit this now. Or maybe first person: I edit this.)
@krinkle @eltonfc now I understand. For me it's clearly the infinitive, because it' more a command of things that I want to do. "I want to Edit -> Rotate something" and less a list of things I want the computer to do for me "please Edit -> Rotate something for me"
But perhaps that's only because the infinitive is the standard in German.
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I answered "infinitive" but only because these don't feel like imperatives. I do not feel like I am commanding the software to *OPEN MY FILE!*
As an aside, I think your expansion of an infinitive-based reading may be misleading since, in English, "to do this" could be read as a declaration of purpose, which is not what the infinitive (or the gerund, come to that) represents.
My feeling is that these labels work just as labels, with it being purely a convenience of space and habit whether they are expressed as verbs or nouns, i.e. Open = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with opening files", but Settings = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with settings".
That's closer to a noun-form for a verb than a command, so it's more infinitive-adjacent than imperative-like, but I think the categories are inappropriate.
@dhobern @eltonfc In my native language it is very clear it's me commanding the machine to "Open my file. Now!"
I've switched to using English in tech as a default long time ago, but I've always read and understood the English options as similar commands, too. (Subconsciously of course, I've never stopped to think about it until now). :D
But it's really interesting to read this chain and suddenly realize we interact with machines differently in our thoughts.
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@eltonfc@bertha.social note that translations to different languages will treat it differently (e.g. russian always uses infinitive, while polish always imperative), so non-native speakers most likely would be biased according to that
For me personally - i initially didn’t think much of it so treated it as infinitive same as in russian, then i realized that some languages actually do use explicitly imperative forms, and so english is probably meant to be that too
(Didn’t vote, queering the binary ig)@alice actuality that's why I made the poll in the first place. Depending on the language, the same English verb is translated in the infinitive or the imperative, depending on the language.
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I answered "infinitive" but only because these don't feel like imperatives. I do not feel like I am commanding the software to *OPEN MY FILE!*
As an aside, I think your expansion of an infinitive-based reading may be misleading since, in English, "to do this" could be read as a declaration of purpose, which is not what the infinitive (or the gerund, come to that) represents.
My feeling is that these labels work just as labels, with it being purely a convenience of space and habit whether they are expressed as verbs or nouns, i.e. Open = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with opening files", but Settings = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with settings".
That's closer to a noun-form for a verb than a command, so it's more infinitive-adjacent than imperative-like, but I think the categories are inappropriate.
@dhobern I guess the noun-form is most likely the intention of (the founding generation of) UI designers, now that youentioned it. And probably that's how it's trans later to the lqngiages7that don't use the imperative form. Good point!
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@dhobern @eltonfc In my native language it is very clear it's me commanding the machine to "Open my file. Now!"
I've switched to using English in tech as a default long time ago, but I've always read and understood the English options as similar commands, too. (Subconsciously of course, I've never stopped to think about it until now). :D
But it's really interesting to read this chain and suddenly realize we interact with machines differently in our thoughts.
@sara in Finnish is it simpler to just write the verb in the imperative? Does have a single form or does ir flex with the person (formal, informal, etc?)
I remember a guy that shoved a whole lexical analyzer in a SNES ROM just to properly translate and decline the player's name in a Finnish translation of Chrono Trigger
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc ( c. ) never thought about it, it’s just interface
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc @futzle
Imperative. I am ordering the software to take the indicated action.In Japanese they often use the noun form such as 保存 which would probably be translated on its own into English as "saving", but doesn't quite have a direct grammatical equivalent.
The dictionary (Japanese doesn't have an infinitive) form in Japanese would use the verb する, which has a lot of meanings but with a noun like this verbises the noun and wouldbe translated as "to save".
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc I, second speaker, read them as nouns most of the time: The menu is about the file, the view, the tools. For edit, I think in the infinitive. Seeing the followup question, it became clear to me, why. In German it's usually nouns, except for edit where it's in the infinitive. (With the notable exception of tools, which, because Werkzeuge would be quite long, is simply "extras". Very clever, I think)
Nice question, never thought of it! -
@eltonfc I grew up in the days when all these functions were commands you could enter into the terminal so to me, they're imperative because they're literal command inputs.
@threetails @eltonfc same, abeit non-native speaker.
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Iff English is your second language, how are these verbs tusually translated to *your* language in software interfaces?
@eltonfc
One of the many reasons I don't use local language settings. -
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Iff English is your second language, how are these verbs tusually translated to *your* language in software interfaces?
@eltonfc
Somewhere in between (second language) -
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@dhobern I guess the noun-form is most likely the intention of (the founding generation of) UI designers, now that youentioned it. And probably that's how it's trans later to the lqngiages7that don't use the imperative form. Good point!
I think it was always somewhat messy. I worked for IBM in the late 80s and early 90s and there was a lot of focus on Common User Access.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access
The standard for OS/2 was that each window application's menu was supposed to start with File, then Edit, and a couple of other standard menus.
Even then, although File could be interpreted as a verb, in context it had to be the noun, while Edit would seem to be the verb.
The "The Windows interface : an application design guide" is at the Internet Archive. Pages 79 and 80 say that menu items may be the names of actions, documents or windows and that the top level items should accurately reflect what's under them.
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@eltonfc @seachaint Native speaker and, I said imperative but. Oh! Er it's a bit more subtle than that for me.
Menu entries (leaf nodes) are definitely imperative. "Save!" "Open!" "Undo!!".
Menu bar categories ("edit", "format", "view") are infinitive, *except* when navigating the menu where they can take on any form including the noun inside a (usually reverse ordered) verb phrase. "edit, undo", "Format paragraph", "file: open." are all different. -
Oh, that's very true. Or not even verbs. The "File" menu is a collection of commands which relate to file handling (open, close, etc.), not a command _to file_.
(Although it occurs to me that reading Edit as a verb may be how "Preferences" got stuck there in some standards, even though it doesn't have much to do with other Edit operations cut/copy/paste.)
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@sara in Finnish is it simpler to just write the verb in the imperative? Does have a single form or does ir flex with the person (formal, informal, etc?)
I remember a guy that shoved a whole lexical analyzer in a SNES ROM just to properly translate and decline the player's name in a Finnish translation of Chrono Trigger
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I answered "infinitive" but only because these don't feel like imperatives. I do not feel like I am commanding the software to *OPEN MY FILE!*
As an aside, I think your expansion of an infinitive-based reading may be misleading since, in English, "to do this" could be read as a declaration of purpose, which is not what the infinitive (or the gerund, come to that) represents.
My feeling is that these labels work just as labels, with it being purely a convenience of space and habit whether they are expressed as verbs or nouns, i.e. Open = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with opening files", but Settings = "Here is the menu or item that has to do with settings".
That's closer to a noun-form for a verb than a command, so it's more infinitive-adjacent than imperative-like, but I think the categories are inappropriate.
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