bug#13409: [patch] make some error messages clearer

[Pádraig Brady]

On 01/10/2013 08:06 PM, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 01/10/13 11:20, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > Several error messages in some of the utilities say things
> > like "reading %s".  They sound like progress messages, and
> > translators might be tempted to translate them as if they
> > said "busy reading %s"
>
> -          error (0, errno, _("reading %s"), quote (src_name));
> +          error (0, errno, _("error reading %s"), quote (src_name));
>
> Surely a translator who read the message in context will see
> that it's an error message, since 'error' is being called.
>
> I'm not sure we want to change the wording, but if we do change
> it I suggest "cannot read %s" rather than "error reading %s",
> as the gerunds make the wording less clear.

I'd nearly take the opposite view, as I don't
think there is any practical ambiguity in:

cmd: error reading 'file': Permission denied

In fact it's very common to search for "error"
in log files, which I do all the time looking
for make errors in build logs.

thanks,
Pádraig.