The generics of translation

[Fabian Kreutz]

Saluton!

MM> In other words, I could have used established technical terms like
MM> transmit/retrieve in English and _intentionally_ chose not to. Instead I
MM> chose to introduce a specific non-technical metaphor push/pull[1].

AB> The current "de" translation of the help text for the push command is a
AB> bit inconsistent:
AB> It has:
AB>  -b --branch BRANCH [+]        Revision, die geschoben werden soll

AB> hg push [-f] [-r REV]... [-e CMD] [--remotecmd CMD] [DEST]
AB> push changes to the specified destination

I totally agree here!  a) this is a bug in the de translation.
b) While the metaphor is great for the command name ("hg push" instead
of "hg check-differences-and-add-missing-changesets") it looses a lot
when it's used ALSO inside the definition text.

So there does not seem to be a problem in the de.po file.
The definition of the "hg push" command describes it as a transfer, as
the english version should also do.

MM> I am
MM> quite confident that people in Germany push and pull physical objects
MM> just as we do here in the US, so I won't believe for a second that the
MM> metaphor isn't just as valid in Germany as it is here.

As Adrian mentiones, a push is not actually a Sokoban operation. Maybe that's
why I always felt "schieben" as an insufficient description.
I guess it's in general less common in german to give new specific uses to
general words. That's why anglizism enter the language so easily.
Nobody would understand "auf-der-Linie" (which simply means "on (the) line")
as something connected to the internet - it's too generic. As a result there
is no translation of the word "online". We rather take a new word with weird
pronounciation, than give a new meaning to old words.
But this fact does not mean that english words must be preserved. The natural
solution for me is to find a word which repeats the helpful metaphor (subjectively
as I understand it), even if it is not literally the same.

I heard the argument that people will be lost in public forums when they
use "uncommon" words.  I simply cannot imagine such an occasion.
If in the worst case somebody who always uses the german words goes to an english
forum to ask about a pull and says "So after I called up the changes..." then it
will be understood!
 *) "call up" would be a really bad re-translation of "abrufen".
In the end we do not rid the topic from the original command names. So even the
pure german reader will know the word "hg pull".

Fazit: I don't see a problem with the current solutions.  It's made with common
sense (or so I'd like to believe) :).

Bye, Fabian

PS: I'm on a train, your argument is invalid! ;)
I'm surprised to realize that there is free WLAN in many finnish trains.