From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 30 17:15:04 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6414637B404 for ; Fri, 30 May 2003 17:15:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phoenix.welearn.com.au (phoenix.welearn.com.au [139.130.44.81]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 125A843FB1 for ; Fri, 30 May 2003 17:15:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sue@welearn.com.au) Received: from phoenix.welearn.com.au (localhost [127.0.0.1]) h4V0ExgC090783; Sat, 31 May 2003 10:14:59 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from sue@phoenix.welearn.com.au) Received: (from sue@localhost) by phoenix.welearn.com.au (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id h4V0EwRm090782; Sat, 31 May 2003 10:14:59 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from sue) Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 10:14:58 +1000 From: Sue Blake To: Andi Scharfstein Message-ID: <20030531101458.U33085@welearn.com.au> Mail-Followup-To: Sue Blake , Andi Scharfstein , chat@freebsd.org References: <3ECD3A8C.1040506@potentialtech.com> <00ae01c32668$2ff5ad70$2441d5cc@nitanjared> <20030531072026.O33085@welearn.com.au> <20030530213625.GA41089@wopr.caltech.edu> <20030531080645.Q33085@welearn.com.au> <15697888640.20030531014208@myrealbox.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <15697888640.20030531014208@myrealbox.com>; from calvin8@t-online.de on Sat, May 31, 2003 at 01:42:08AM +0200 X-PGP-Fingerprint: E9A3 7B97 C563 DBB1 979E BC04 D2A2 9DA3 1274 7885 cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: grammar X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 00:15:04 -0000 On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 01:42:08AM +0200, Andi Scharfstein wrote: > Hi, > > >> > Recently I provided some IT staff with the documentation for a > >> > new piece of software. Many times it said things like "In case > >> > Foo, do Bar". The users (correctly in my view) read that as > >> > advice of a precaution worth taking, and took it. > >> > >> Could this be a .us-vs-.au issue? > > > Possibly. If so, I wonder which way the rest of the world goes. > > Given this particular instruction, I would have done Bar only if Foo > had occurred... but then again, I'm from Germany, and the terms "if" > and "in case" translate to "falls" and "Im Falle" or "für den Fall, > daß". I think you can easily see the linguistic relatedness. If I can remember some tourist Deutsch from decades ago, we might have soemthing like this: English German in the case of im Falle in case foo happens ??? when foo happens (wenn?) if foo happens wenn I don't know if that's right, but if it is, perhaps to a German speaker "if" has too many connotations of "when", so they feel that using "in case" would make it clearer (but it confuses me). But I suspect that it is English speakers who get confused over wenn (myself particularly), not the reverse. How would you handle, in German, "in case" as a precaution, e.g. In case you break a fan belt, take a spare. Would that also use "im Falle"? If so, that might point to the overlapping concepts that cause some of the confusion in translation. Let's take that a bit further. In case you break a fan belt, take a spare. If you break a fan belt, you will have a big problem. When you break a fan belt, replace it with the spare. In the case of breaking a fan belt, you would be pleased have a spare. Does German differentiate between these sentences, using different words? When Grog wakes up he might have a strong opinion on this. -- Regards, -*Sue*-