10 Sep
2007
10 Sep
'07
3:21 p.m.
Now, imagine you'd bought a French computer. If
the port was clearly
labelled IMPRIMATEUR. Would that help you?
I thought it was actually 'Imprimante' but anyway...
Probably not.
What if it were clearly labelled in Russian? Or Arabic? Or Chinese?
No bally use at all.
Yes it darn well is.....
There exist these wonderful things called 'foreign language dictionaries'
that I cna look up said words in (and for the record, I have managed to
use a Russian dictionary to =figrue out the repair manual for a Russian
camera). Or, if I can't use, say., a Chinese dictionary, there are plenty
of people who speak both Chinese and English and who could help me by
translating the 'words' on the back of my machine.
The problem with the icons is that they're not universal. If I can't find
the manual for whatever I am working on, there's no 'dictionary' I can
look them up in. Finding a native speaker of the language of the country
where the machine was made (or intended to be sold) won't help.
I've had electornic devices with the connectors/controlls labelled in
French, German, Russian, and problaby several other languages. None has
caused me any problems -- unlike those darn icons.
-tony