Re: i18n/gettext?

[Richard Stallman]

    Each translation could be written by a different person, and their
    combination might not be predictable in advance.

It isn't a disastrous problem, and there's no good way to avoid it, so
we just have to live with it.  Therefore, we may as well not worry
about it.

                                                      For example, there's
    no reasonable way you could try all possible mixes of major and minor
    modes that put items into the menu bar.

Some mixes won't work in English anyway.  Basically, there is a range
of combos that will work, and outside of that are combos that won't
work (though in principle it would be good if they did).  We're
talking about the precise borderline between that range and the
outside.

                                             Some of the combinations might 
    be okay with English names of menu items, but not in German, say.

Does it really matter if the borderline varies from language to language?
I don't think so.  There is nothing particularly "right" about it
in English.