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Re: [LUG] Foreign words

 

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 22:37:34 +0000
Neil Williams <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:43:59 +0000
> Neil Winchurst <neil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > I can manage to spell foreign words (eg cafe, fiancee) in OO writer to
> > get the accent on the letter e. But how do I manage that in an email
> > client or a browser (for example when writing a blog)?
> 
> You need that locale data installed on your system, the server system
> and supported by the particular app for this to work smoothly. On
> Debian, dpkg-reconfigure locales allows you to add the specific locale
> to support the accented characters - add the base locale and the UTF-8
> version. Then you can change to this language by simply prefixing any
> command with LANG=$language_name. You may or may not have to repeat the
> same on the server, depends how the blog software is configured. Then,
> see if you can get your client application to use a choice of
> languages. Keep en_GB as default but add support for the new language.
> Switching to that language is app-specific.
> 
> This is the 'correct' way to support multiple languages / locales that
> does not require the use of escape characters - naturally, it's easiest
> if you also set up multiple language keyboard support.
> 
> Having said all that, cafe and fiancee are correct in en_GB without
> accents so the only time that you *should* use accents is when using
> these words in a foreign language sentence, not in a British English
> sentence. i.e. when quoting a French speaker.
> 
> One sneaky way is to configure en_CA - Canadian English - with the
> Canadian dual psyche, this may allow you to insert accents into en_CA
> sentences but IMHO it would still be incorrect to do so. (British)
> English does not support accented characters and using them for words
> like cafe and fiancee is actually incorrect (British) English. The
> British English word for the person to whom someone is engaged to be
> married is fiancee - without any accents.
> 
> --
> 
> 
> Neil Williams
It may be correct, but I like such words to include the relevant
accents. Perhaps this is partly because I lived in France at one time
and French is my second language.

Neil

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