Cantr II Discussion Forum

Now, as not a native English speaker this is not too much of a problem for me personally, but sometimes it feels weird that in English Cantr there is no standardisation for using UK-English or US-English in the Cantr menu's. Most clearly for me is the usage of both pants and trousers.

How do y'all feel about this? Should there be separate translations for each kind of English? Should a single version of English be chosen for all of Cantr?

I’ve noticed this and as an English (British) speaker it’s a little strange but I just tend to overlook it and use trousers in speech unless I’m talking about underwear and then it’s pants or knickers, etc.

It would be nice for it to be standardised with a majority vote version of either pants or trousers.

I don't really care and I usually use both in conjunction But then again I am non-native speaker and very often for example in my school's teaching both versions are mixed together

Yeah I've noticed it. I think it's because of the revolving door in Resources Dept (or whichever department handles adding new items to the menu). Similar to how there's inconsistencies in skill requirements for different type of mining (i.e digging for gold but mining for silver). It would be nice to see it consistent but for me it isn't a big priority.

There's also perhaps more ppl from US region that say british and I have noticed that quite often people use the one they are familiar

To me it seems fine to just have it mixed like it is now, but if people felt very strongly about it, we could perhaps use the translation system to have a US and a UK version of the interface. There is still only one English game world, though, so for that we would have to choose between either.

To me it seems this creates a lot of work, a lot of hassle, unnecessary debate about which English is more appropriate to play the characters in, etc. - all without any real purpose other than language snobbery

Jos Elkink wrote:To me it seems fine to just have it mixed like it is now, but if people felt very strongly about it, we could perhaps use the translation system to have a US and a UK version of the interface. There is still only one English game world, though, so for that we would have to choose between either.

To me it seems this creates a lot of work, a lot of hassle, unnecessary debate about which English is more appropriate to play the characters in, etc. - all without any real purpose other than language snobbery

I recon it'd be silly to make people play in a certain language, it's more a point of what type of English the interface would be in. At the very least it'd be nice if the RD could choose a standard for how to name new items.

Of course I do agree that it is a very minor issue

Bmot wrote:I recon it'd be silly to make people play in a certain language

Ah, sorry, that's not actually what I meant - I just mean the interface language once you log in for a particular character. Currently the interface changes depending on the language of the character. So if we decide to have two versions of the game interface - one in UK and one in US English - then the characters in the English world can still only have one of those two interfaces. not both. So we can't avoid having to have one standard. And I don't really think it's worthwhile having a discussion about what that standard should be and I prefer to just leave it agnostic as it is now.

I have the same opinion as Jos. Also, given the nature of Cantr, where all languages are mixed in the same world, and Cantr is intended to be its own world separate from real life, it's up to individual characters to decide whether to consider "pants" and "trousers" as synonyms or words of distinct meaning, for example.
We do try to use British spelling, though there may be inconsistencies (and if you let me know I can correct them).

I'm a proponent of regional localization to improve user experience, but I don't think that doing this for the interface would be worth it/beneficial in Cantr's case. However, it's possible that there would be benefits of this distinction that I'm unaware of, including on the front page and with marketing texts.

Joshuamonkey wrote:We do try to use British spelling, though there may be inconsistencies (and if you let me know I can correct them).

You might use British spelling, maybe, but American words like suspenders, pants (sometimes, we have hide pants but cotton trousers) and garter belt.