Devel Digest, Vol 20, Issue 22

[Micheal Cooper]

> From: "Ed Trager" <ed.trager at gmail.com>

> So while I have no objection to simple English which will be easily
> understood by younger learners of the language, we must also be sure
> that we do not proscribe an incorrect idea regarding the usage of the
> pronoun "you" in imperative sentences in English.

I understand completely and agree. My examples were forced and
hastily-chosen. I wanted the use of the second person to be clear in
my explanation, and I made the mistake of making it too clear. That is
what happens when one concentrates on form over effect. I was not
thinking that the docs would repeat "you" all the time.

> But in many other languages (perhaps most other languages?) we would
> not use possessive pronouns here at all.  All of these English
> "your"s, if translated quite directly into foreign languages, results
> in very annoying and unnatural sounding texts in my experience.
>
> So I would advise we try to fix the English from the start by avoiding
> unecessary invocations of possessive pronouns, especially "your":
>
>       I will explain how to switch the screen to black-and-white.
>       First, press the X button on the keyboard...."

Writing to accommodate a particular target language would not be wise
because there are many target languages and many differences. These
kind of adjustments would have to be made by the translator. That
being said, I agree with you that omitting the possessive would
introduce the less misleading information, so it would be best to
leave it out. The examples above are just as easy to understand and
less wordy.