Saturday, January 16, 2010

English Mangled

I've been working on a new client, building an application in Oracle's Application Express -- a web-based toolset. The details don't matter really, but I had to register a minor boggle at some of the verbiage used in the app. Mangled language is everywhere!

The application has a default 'you can't log in now' sort of message that appears if you try to log in and the system in unavailable. The default is
"This applications is currently unavailable at this time."
Huh? The message was obviously designed by the Department for Redundancy Department.

C'mon people, either "This application is currently unavailable" or "This application is unavailable at this time" -- using both is a bit awkward.

And this is a worldwide, major corporate release. Where have all the editors gone? Did this actually sound right to someone?

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