Hacker News Reader

Comment by pifm_guy | Hacker News Reader

Avoid words with multiple meanings, particularly where you intend to use the non-primary meaning.

For example, 'dialogue' to many people means a dialogue box on a computer screen. So that word is ambiguous. But a discussion has a primary meaning that is what the writer desires to use.

Particularly for non-native speakers, using secondary meanings of words can be confusing.

View on HN

You are thinking of a 'dialog box'.

From Wikipedia:

> The dialog box (also called dialogue box (non-U.S. English), ...

This is a British government website, so "dialogue box" might not be uncommon.

I don't think I've ever seen anybody call it a "dialogue box". Feels like at this point, along with "disk", "dialog" is a separate word with a separate (but not unrelated) meaning.

As a Brit, I would never use 'dialogue box' (and don't recall ever seeing it)

Some of us distinguish between program (software) and programme (a collection of projects)

Or Dialog for short

Where in the world are you? I am in the UK and I have never heard 'dialog' refer to a dialogue box.

I am in the uk and have never heard "dialog" used by British speakers any other way. My experience has near universally that everybody that knows the term spells it "dialog", same as nobody spells "disk" with a c when it comes to the rectangular computer variety.

I've never seen the words "dialogue box". If I'm speaking of drama, that's dialogue; but but an interactive box in a computer UI is a "dialog".

In the same way, the instructions controlling a computer are a "program"; the TV drama with the dialogue is a "programme".

/me British English speaker (obv)

Check out GIMP - its window menu includes an entry for "Dockable Dialogues", at least on macOS. Might be close enough? I don't think I've ever seen anybody else spell it that way though!

(This would also, if you squint a bit, serve as an example of "dialog" being short for dialog box.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com