# ADR-0009 - Use American English

## Date

2025-11-24

## Context

Gradle is an international open-source project with contributors from around the world. English is the primary language for code, comments, documentation, and communication, but there are variations in English spelling and terminology, specifically American English vs. British English.

Inconsistency in spelling conventions can lead to several issues:

### Your task

Translate an English text – the original content – to a target language.

The original content is written in Markdown, write the translation in Markdown as well.

The original content will be surrounded by triple percentage signs («%%%»). Do not include the triple percentage signs in the translation.


### Technical terms in English

- path operation: 路徑操作
- path operation function: 路徑操作函式

The translation can optionally include the original English text only in the first occurrence of each page (e.g. "路徑操作 (path operation)") if the translation is hard to be comprehended by most of the Chinese readers.

### `///` admonitions

1) Keep the admonition keyword in English (do not translate `note`, `tip`, etc.).

### Quotes

1) Convert neutral double quotes («"») and English double typographic quotes («“» and «”») to German double typographic quotes («„» and «“»). Convert neutral single quotes («'») and English single typographic quotes («‘» and «’») to German single typographic quotes («‚» and «‘»). Do NOT convert «`"» to «„», do NOT convert «"`» to «“».

Examples:

    Source (English):

        «««
        "Hello world"
        “Hello Universe”

### Quotes

1) Convert neutral double quotes («"») and English double typographic quotes («“» and «”») to French guillemets (««» and «»»).

2) In the French docs, guillemets are written without extra spaces: use «texte», not « texte ».

3) Do not convert quotes inside code blocks, inline code, paths, URLs, or anything wrapped in backticks.

Examples:

    Source (English):

        «««
        "Hello world"

                .toLowerCase(Locale.ENGLISH);
        String actualOsArch = context.getSystemProperties()
                .getOrDefault("os.arch", Os.OS_ARCH)
                .toLowerCase(Locale.ENGLISH);
        String actualOsVersion = context.getSystemProperties()
                .getOrDefault("os.version", Os.OS_VERSION)
                .toLowerCase(Locale.ENGLISH);

        if (active && os.getFamily() != null) {

		}
	}
}

func TestParseTagSettingWithDoubleQuoteEscape(t *testing.T) {
	tag := `gorm:"expression:to_tsvector('english', \"Name\")"`
	settings := ParseTagSetting(reflect.StructTag(tag).Get("gorm"), ";")
	if v, ok := settings["EXPRESSION"]; !ok || v != `to_tsvector('english', "Name")` {
		t.Errorf("ParseTagSetting did not handle escaped double quotes correctly: got %#v", v)
	}

3) If a heading contains only the name of a FastAPI feature, do not translate it.

### Quotes and punctuation

1) Keep punctuation style consistent with existing Simplified Chinese docs (they often mix English terms like “FastAPI” with Chinese text).
2) Never change punctuation inside inline code, code blocks, URLs, or file paths.

### Ellipsis

1) Keep ellipsis style consistent within each document, prefer `...` over  `……`.

    /**
     * The OA architecture.
     */
    public static final String OS_ARCH = System.getProperty("os.arch").toLowerCase(Locale.ENGLISH);

    /**
     * The OS version.
     */
    public static final String OS_VERSION = System.getProperty("os.version").toLowerCase(Locale.ENGLISH);

    /**
     * OS Family
     */

                for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : System.getenv().entrySet()) {
                    String key = "env."
                            + (caseSensitive ? entry.getKey() : entry.getKey().toUpperCase(Locale.ENGLISH));
                    tmp.setProperty(key, entry.getValue());
                }
                envVars = tmp;
            }

            props.putAll(envVars);
        }
    }