Re: [csswg-drafts] Informal spellings in specifications (#5850)

I'm not opposed to linguistic activism in general, but I think specifications are a poor place to do it. As a non native speaker of English, who is nonetheless reasonably fluent, I'd like to mention the effect this sort of things has had on me: broadly speaking I have not faced particular difficulties understanding documents that used informal language (including unusual spellings, colloquialisms, in-jokes, jargon, etc). However, since reading W3C specifications represent a significant percentage of my exposure to English, in the absence of contradicting information, I tend to assume that whatever is common in such documents is "normal written English". Occasionally though, something I learned there is not (yet?) accepted as mainstream or formal English, and when I later reuse these words in other contexts, it can lead to people being surprised or even confused at the language I use.

To some degree, this achieves Tab's goal: if people start to use these spellings after seeing them, they spread, which is what he wants. But spreading them through people for who English is a second (or third, or…) language isn't at no cost to those people if it occasionally causes additional communication difficulties or social faux pas.

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Received on Monday, 11 January 2021 07:09:05 UTC