[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#2565) Plural form needed for unit types

["Guest via RT" <rt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jason Short via RT <rt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> [guest - Fri Jan 10 13:22:15 2003]:
> > [rfalke - Thu Jan  9 14:41:23 2003]:
> > > What do you think if this is changed to
> > > 
> > > "Game: 1 unit of type legion upgraded to ..."
> > > "Game: 1 unit of type carrier upgraded to ..."
> > 
> > I do not think it is an improvement over what is in CVS now. Like I
> > said before, I do not think that this particular message should be
> > tweaked before the greater plural issues are fixed, even if that
> > would not happen in the near future.
> 
> From what I've been told, even if the English string is unchanged it
> would be beneficial to introduce a PL_() to allow languages that need
> to have the verb match the number translate it correctly.

In the previous swedish version of the message the verb needed plural
support but then I found a rewording that doesn't and is at least as
good. So I don't consider it needed by the swedish translation. So don't
change it until a translator requests it. Maybe someone else already
did, because you write "From what I've been told"?


> And, do you still have the opinion even if "in the near future" is
> "ever"?

Yes.


> One alternative would be to have a "short form" and a "long form".
> The long form has singular and plural.  So we have for instance:
> 
> Short: "settlers"
> Long singular: "unit of settlers"
> Long plural  : "units of settlers"
> 
> Short: "legion"
> Long singular: "legion"
> Long plural:   "legions"
> 
> which I think can be done without hurting gameplay, but takes a lot of
> work.  But I'm not entirely sure it would work...

This looks like the best solution so far. It would produce grammatically
correct messages where desirable and short messages where desirable.


> I have yet to see an explanation of how plural forms can be introduced
> while supporting all languages and not hurting overall gameplay.

I thought your suggestion above was that explanation. The "Short" form
(named after the inventor :-) takes care of not hurting the gameplay,
while the "Long" forms are used in longer messages.

Let's decide that this is the way it should be done, but maybe put it on
the shelf until there are more messages that need the functionality. I
assume that the support for PL_ in the "registry" is the largest part of
the work needed also for this solution.