| If you send
a letter and misspell the street
name, a sharp-eyed postal worker
can still make sure it reaches its destination.
But the internet doesn't work that way. It needs
precise information, and a single mistake in the address
means that a message won't get through.
While western alphabets are largely similar, many others, like
Chinese, vary from country to country,
making it even more difficult to provide the computer the right
data.
So there's now an effort to iron out
differences between the Chinese characters used on the
mainland, in Taiwan, South Korea and elsewhere, so internet users
can communicate more easily.
The same principle can be applied
to Arabic, Thai and languages in the Indian sub-continent.
Agreement would also allow non-English
equivalents for 'dot com' and 'dot biz' and the like, so-called
top-level domain names, to be developed in other languages.
The organisation leading this discussion, the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, says it will be a
major step forward in de-anglicising
the web.
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misspell: spell wrongly
sharp-eyed: here, clever, attentive
precise: exact, accurate
get through: be delivered
vary: are different
iron out differences: if you
iron out differences, you make them disappear
the same principle can be applied:
if the same principle is applied to different things, they are
treated in the same way
non-English equivalents: the
same things expressed in different languages
a major step forward: a big improvement
de-anglicising: if you de-anglicise
something, you make it less English
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