Hermes shutdown tweak

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Edit: thelondonthing has quite correctly pointed out this is neither a spelling (obviously) or grammatical error, more a quirk of our modern use of the English language. Read the full topic for more info!

Anyone who's being reading my blog will know that of late I have developed something of a fixation on misspellings and grammatical errors in public.

Now I don't claim to be the worlds best writer, but i'd like to think that I wouldn't put a sign up or make a service available to the general public without spotting the most basic of spelling mistakes.

When travelling to Boston recently, I turned off my phone before getting on the plane, and spotted something that was set to annoy the hell out of me. The same wording seems to be present on all Hermes variants, as shown below on my TyTN.

Thankfully, help is at hand, I have a simple reg tweak for you, attached to this post, that will fix the problem.

Before and after pics:

To use it, simply install the attached CAB, reboot your device, and you're done :rolleyes:

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Hermes_Shutdown_Message_Tweak.CAB

[Guest thelondonthing]

I'm confused. I've read the Shutdown dialogue from the screenshot over and over again, but I can't find any spelling mistakes, nor grammatical errors.

Judging by the "correction" that you have created, my only conclusion can be that you have identified the apparent conflict between "data" and "them". However, this is in fact grammatically correct. "Data" is a plural, and should be referred to as a plural; it is the plural of "datum". In practice, the flimsy use of the English language in society now means that using the singular "datum" is generally confined only to scientific references, and "data" is used interchangeably as a singular and a plural.

In reality, however, it is in fact grammatically correct to refer to "data" as "them", so while it may sound or appear awkward to refer to data as a plural "them", rather than a singular "it", it is wrong to suggest that that correct use is a mistake or an oversight.

One might have expected the message to say that "you may lose data if you have not saved it", but that is technically more incorrect than the original message, despite sounding more vernacularly pleasing.

Of course, I'm wary of the great possibility that having explained all of this, I've actually glossed over a far more obvious and genuine error, in which case I'm going to look rather foolish.

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Nope... you're absolutely right, I am 'making it sound right' rather than 'fixing a grammatical error' :rolleyes:

Still annoyeed me tho... hehe...

This raises an interesting question too... I wonder if the dialogue was written by someone for whom perhaps English was not their first language, and who wouldn't be familiar with the quirks of modern usage versus that that is technically correct.

I'm thinking this having seen some of the shocking manuals / boxes etc. etc. to have originated from Taiwanese OEMs.

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[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Perhaps the real issue here is a comma followed by an 'and'? :rolleyes:

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[Guest Monolithix (MVP)]

I'm with thelondonthing on this one. He's absolutely correct. In all my years of A-level maths and sciences, and now my engineering degree, data is actually plural and should be used as such, whether you're from Taiwan, the UK, the USA, or in any other case where English is used!

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Oh, agreed that that is technically correct, but would you agree the original configuration of the dialogue, in the context it is used, sounds odd?

It's the combination of 'data' and 'them'...

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