This sounds like what UseMod does. Anyhow, its free software so I'll quote from it for a moment.

# This could have alternate languages if extended.
%Translate = (
    'Edit text of this page' => 'Edit this page',
    'Index' => 'All Pages' );

# ... T('showing current revision instead') ....

sub T {
  my ($text) = @_;

  if (1) {   # Later make translation optional?
    if (defined($Translate{$text}) && ($Translate{$text} ne ''))  {
      return $Translate{$text};
    }
  }
  return $text;
}


# &ReportError(Ts('Could not create %s', $DataDir) . ": $!");

sub Ts {
  my ($text, $string) = @_;

  $text = T($text);
  $text =~ s/\%s/$string/;
  return $text;
}

# Improved Ts
sub Ts {
  my ($text, $string) = @_;

  return sprintf $text, $string;
}
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