i18n-de: Translation of "merge"

[Adrian Buehlmann]

On 2012-07-01 14:34, Simon-Martin Schröder wrote:
> Moin Rupert,
> 
> You proposed to use "verschmelzen" as the translation of "merge". My
> notion is, that the previously used "zusammenführen" fits much better,
> regardless of what leo sais. Additionally that is a far more common
> translation, I think.
> I'd like to hear what other german speakers think.
> 
> Before changing an established translation, we should better get the
> opinion of other native speakers.
> 
> Does anyone know a tool to easily accomplish that? A tool where I ask
> the question "What is the best translation of 'merge'?" and where people
> can vote for the best answer?
> Maybe we could use http://german.stackexchange.com/ ?

Ok. So here is my honest opinion. Sorry for the length, but I'll try to
be precise. I'll base my findings on observations among Swiss-German
speaking developers here (which I am one of), so this might not be that
relevant to you.

Note that there are significant cultural differences between Germans and
Swiss-Germans. Despite the fact that we use (to some extent) the same or
similar languages. This has absolutley nothing to do with disliking
people from different cultures, or based on history, or something
similarly stupid. FWIW, I do like to work with Germans. And I have done
so with quite a couple of them.

Basically, Swiss-German people here laugh a bit about Germans searching
for a German term for the English word "merge". Really.

What do the Swiss-German speaking natives do? Well. We just use "merge".
Almost no Swiss-German developer would ever remotely feel the urge to
find a replacement for the English word "merge". I have yet to find such
a person.

We say sentences here like these:

"Hast Du schon gemerged?" ("Did you already merge?").

"Nein. Ich muss noch mergen." ("No. I did not merge yet.")

"Mergen kann echt mühsam sein!" ("Merging can be really onerous.")

"Du hast einen Fehler gemacht beim Mergen!" ("You made an error when
merging!").

"Beim Mergen kann es Konflikte geben." ("You can get conflicts when
merging.").

"Adrian hat das doch schon gemerged, oder?". ("I thought Adrian already
merged that, didn't he?").

If I would call a Swiss-German developer on the phone and tell him that
he made an error while "zusammenführen", "verschmelzen" or "vereinen",
he would probably drop the telephone receiver because he got a laughing
fit. No kidding.

So there you go with my story. I hope I got this story right. English is
not my native language.