LL-L: "Software" LOWLANDS-L, 26.OCT.1999 (07) [E]

[Lowlands-L Administrator]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 26.OCT.1999 (07) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
 Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/~sassisch/rhahn//lowlands/>
 User's Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic
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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Software

Dear Lowlanders,

The following is meant to be a software review predominantly in a lighthearted
vein and must under no circumstances be construed as advertising (or whatever
the opposite of that is) of any manner, shape or size, or hue, or ilk, even
though this is being brought to you from Seattle, which is a de-facto part of
Greater Microsoft Land.

Last Friday I started using Microsoft Office 2000, which is a new software
package that, among other programs, contains Microsoft Word 2000.  To me the
most exciting advertised feature of this issue was multilingual capabilities,
including automatic language detection and automatic switching in the use of
spell checkers and thesauri in different languages even within the same
document.

Please allow me to share my experience.

Immediately, virtually drooling, I  went to the multilanguage-enabling setup
and excitedly clicked on the boxes of all the languages I ever expect to or
hope to use or dream of using in my documents ... and then some.  Boy!  Not
only were there Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Turkish, Azeri, Tatar,
Kazakh, Uzbek, Faroese, Galician, and Basque, but also lovely and lekker
lowlandish lingos: Dutch (goed!), Afrikaans (lekker!), and ... what?! ...
Frisian!!!  (Obviously it's "only" Westerlauwer Frisian, but, hey!, let's not
be picky now!)  Wow!  Of course there was no Low Saxon (Low German) and
Scots.   Who would expect that anyway, what with those two not getting their
standardization and orthography acts together.

I checked off and thus enabled all the languages like crazy.  So then I
proceeded to run some tests.  Sure enough, I clicked on a word in English, and
"US English" appeared on the bottom bar.  I had also chosen UK English,
because I sometimes actually still use it, but US English seems to override it
as the default system.  So I typed "colour," clicked on it, and "UK English"
appeared!  I clicked on a word in German, and "German" appeared, and so on,
and so forth.  But the spell checkers and thesauri other than those for US
English didn't work.  A message told me that I'd have to buy special
multi-language packs for that ... and they cost extra, and not peanuts
either.  Uh-huh ...  There had to be a catch, didn't there?

So then I just forgot about all that fun stuff and proceeded as normal,
writing mostly in English and occasionally in German and Low Saxon.  Here is
what happened:

German documents were just fine while I created them, saved them and exited
them, though I got a nebulous error message.  But when I went back into them,
all the "special" characters had been replaced by boxes.  Huh?!  I tried to
consult the help program, managed to shut up the pesky Office Assistant
cartoon, could find relevant topics, but they would not open when I clicked on
them (psst ... because it wanted to open the German help program).  Finally, I
had the bright idea to go and disable the multilingual capability, and -- lo
and behold! -- my German document once again looked the way it was intended.
Obviously, what had happened was that the program used the German keyboard
layout, and my "special" letters therefore drew blanks.

So the moral of the story is that you have to buy the extras, even though the
bare-bones program does have the capabilities (can even type right-to-left and
vertically!).  If you don't buy the extras, forget it!  You'd end up with a
mess like I did.

However, here's a sparkling little pearl of information:

While the multilingual capabilities were still on, I opened a Low Saxon
document and started clicking on random words.  If I clicked on a word with,
say, an "ü" in it, the language label would appear as "German."  But -- and
hold on to your hats! -- if I clicked on most other types of words or selected
an entire paragraph the language label would appear as "Dutch" ("Dutch" that
overriding "German" when a number of words were selected at the same time)!
Clever little program!

Perhaps any of you know how to deal with all of this more successfully without
having to buy several plug-in packages.

Thanks, folks!

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

____
P.S.: Ian wrote under today's "Celtic connections" (06): "Ronald and Ron,
..."  I'm relieved he didn't refer to us as "the two Ronnies" and leave people
with the impression that we are clowns.  (Folks, you can't get this one unless
you watched British TV comedy shows from a decade or three ago.)

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