[Lazarus] Error messages: cannot versus can't

[Chris Kelling]

> On Oct 17, 2014, at 8:01, Giuliano Colla <giuliano.colla at fastwebnet.it> wrote:
> 
> 
> Il 17/10/2014 12:52, Reinier Olislagers ha scritto:
>>> On 17/10/2014 12:50, Giuliano Colla wrote:
>>> Il 17/10/2014 12:21, Reinier Olislagers ha scritto:
>>>>> On 17/10/2014 12:16, Mattias Gaertner wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, 17 Oct 2014 11:58:21 +0200
>>>>> Reinier Olislagers <reinierolislagers at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Googling gives lot of pages saying that cannot is more formal than
>>>>> can't. And MS Word prefers cannot over can not.
>> 
>> If you have better references, as I said, I'm very interested!
> [edited for brevity] ...
> misinterpreted. Being "can't" very frequent in my e-mails (they usually ask for features which either can't be done for free, or can't be done at all), I draw from my direct experience the conclusion that "can't" does not possibly "slow down comprehension" as Microsoft geniuses claim.
> 
> Giuliano
> 
> 

How about throwing your hands up in exasperation and just use "aint" (which IOS wanted to correct to ain't - which isn't [is not] as funny)

Seriously though, in my technical writing class, contractions were discouraged as standard fare.   If you had several of the base words (like a lot of cannot, should not, I would), the first occurrence would be expanded, and each successive one in the paragraph you use the contraction. 

As far as a dialog box for a program, I'd use the expanded base words. 

-Chris

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