Shoddy/concise style in the German translation

[Jochen Kemnade]

Hello pyriel,
 
pyriel mandragora schrieb:
> At least in Pidgin 2.3.1 the English term "Buddies" in the menu was
> translated "Buddys" which is no translation at all imho but it is no
> English term either.
You are right, it is not a translation, as well as for example "Babys" or "Jobs" are not translations, but German plural forms of English words.

> A translation would be "Freunde" or "Kontakte" etc.
No, that's not correct. Both of those words are not translations. While "Freunde" would be a rough equivalent, "Kontakte" is something different. A translation would be for example "Kumpel". There have been discussions in the past wheter to choose the word "Kontakte" or "Freunde" over "Buddys", but Björn and I decided not to choose them because they have a slightly different meaning. Also we agreed not to use the actual translation "Kumpel", because it is already quite a silly word by itself and becomes absolutely ridiculous in terms like "Kumpelliste" (buddy list).

> Frankly "Buddys" could be written right next to "Petra's Sofas" (or
> worse "Petra's Sofa's") - just another wrongly adopted borrowing.
No, you are wrong. "Sofa's" is a wrongly formed plural, "Buddys" is not. And the wrong genitive "Petra's" has nothing to do with this case.

Regards,
Jochen Kemnade

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