GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 414197
Bad formulation in notification string at disconnection
Last modified: 2007-12-28 21:46:44 UTC
When the network is disconnected, a notification appears, saying: "The network connection has been disconnected." This is one of the sentences you show most often on your desktop, and it is quite grammatically incorrect. You can't disconnect a connexion, you disconnect a cable; I'd rather say you stop/interrupt/bring down a connexion. This is like saying "prices are expensive" or "speed is fast": just ridiculous... ;-) Moreover, the title of the pop-up is "Disconnected", so the term appears twice. What to do: replace this string in gnome/applet/applet-dbus-devices.c:959 by "The network connection has been interrupted." for example (I'm not English so I let you think about nicer terms). Just my 2 cents, but not really *expensive* ;-) for a nice improvement.
If you want to be pedantic, it is quite grammatically correct. Grammar dictates sentence structure, not usage. For example, "the round triangle slept through the night" is correct grammatically, but is nonsensical. But then again, if you want to be that pedantic, one can also say that a wireless connection isn't really a connection because it isn't connected to anything. Colloquially, however, this is what is used. Anyway, while the more common definition of connection is "the state of being connected", another valid definition is "a channel of communication", and such a channel can in fact become disconnected, and this usage has become colloquial for such things in English. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/connection As a native English speaker, this is clearly not a bug. :-)