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Czech technical terms for form controls


Picture the form control written as [HTML tag missing from the export] and tell me
what the Czech technical term for it is. A colleague asked me that question while
writing documentation for a web application. With a straight face, I
said, “Well, it’s obviously a zaškrkávátko [sic],” a mangled version of the Czech word for checkbox. Unfortunately,
my colleagues’ snickering kept me from sneaking the word into the documentation. But it made me realize
we don’t really have settled terms for the other form controls either.

I wasn’t the only one advising my colleague on the other controls. It was interesting
to hear the terms people threw out. Their terms, and mine too, surely
came from the names of the families they knew them from. What I call a
select box, someone else calls a combo, and someone else calls a
dropdown menu. I tried putting together the different names I know
for each form control. Keep smiling!

  • - vstupní, textové, zadávací, and editační pole (input, text, entry, and edit field)
  • - menu, rozbalovací menu, rozbalovací seznam, roletkové menu, combo, kombáč, and select box (menu, dropdown menu, dropdown list, roll-down menu, combo, colloquial combo, and select box)
  • - rádio, přepínač, radio button (radio, switch, radio button)
  • - zaškrtávátko, also called zaškrkávátko, čekátko, zatrhávátko, and check box (the Czech variants play on marking or checking a box)
  • - button, tlačítko, tlačidlo, knoflík, čudlík (English button, Czech and Slovak button, and the more colloquial knob and little button)

Medium version

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