The generics of translation

[Matt Mackall]

On Tue, 2012-07-03 at 19:57 +0200, Martin Schröder wrote:
> Matt:
> > Discuss, please.
> >
> 
> I like, what's going on here (besides Adrian's and Matt's
> misunderstanding...).
> 
> Matt:
> > Given that I have zero experience with translation, I'd be very
> > surprised if a first draft off the top of my head doesn't draw _any_
> > objections.
> 
> I was happy because someone finally said something one can work with. I
> didn't have the time to reflect all remarks and proposals.
> 
> It's very hard to "translate the components of the metaphor". I have
> never heard someone say: "Ich habe die Änderungen _gezogen_" ("I
> _pulled_ the changes"). The current translation is "abrufen", which is
> semantically between "pull" and "download".

And I never heard anyone say "I pulled the changes" in English before
the advent of DVCS, so I'm not sure that tells us much. Now, of course,
I hear it and say it every day and it's quite natural.

Perhaps a better example is "head" or "bookmark". If you translate
"bookmark" to something that doesn't refer to a place marker in a
physical book, I think you're doing users a disservice. The English
words here are chosen to convey a natural metaphor of usage.

I bet that Germans use "öffnen" (open) and "schließen" (close) to
describe basic operations on files, am I right? That's no more metaphor
than push/pull, it's just been with us much longer.

It'd be another thing if the word were something like "torrent". While
that does sort of metaphorically describe a whirlwind of activity, it
doesn't help create a natural analogy of use in the way open/close or
push/pull do.

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.