[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [PATCH] More explicit message when a unit is killed by barbarians upon entering a hut.

[Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 11:05:04PM +0200, Big Gaute <gs234@xxxxxxxxx> was heard 
to say:
> I'm not a native speaker of English any more than you are (I
> presume--judging by your name, you're Polish or at least from eastern
> Europe, though I've been known to be wrong about these things many
> times before,) but I'd say that you are.  Compare:
> 
> Your Settlers was killed by barbarians!
> 
> and
> 
> Your Settlers were killed by barbarians!
> 
> The latter reads much better.

  Actually, I think that the first one is better in this context (believe it
or not!)  And I'm a native English speaker :P  It's not a "Settler" unit; it's
a "Settlers" unit.  That's my excuse, anyway.

  OTOH, eliminating the ambiguity (as much as possible) is probably better
anyway..

  I also think that "Barbarians have killed your %s" is probably a more
concise and less akward way to phrase the message than your original
suggestion (and it conveys the same information)..

  Until someone perfects Natural Language Processing, I don't think we can do
much of anything about the word-gender issues :)

  Daniel

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