"Donn Cave" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > | Could any native speaker please enlighten me? > > I can understand only a little German, but a quick web search suggests > that they use "Principal"! The language seems to be degenerating a bit, > with all those words borrowed from Latin usw.
Well, I think that's mostly the fault of the German translations themself. Most of them just don't have the `flow' the English names have. It could also be that we Germans are just surprised how real computer terms become, once they are translated into our everyday language. The `Heap' for example translates to `Halde', but that also is, where your garbage is dumped. The 1:1 translation for it would actually be `Haufen' (pile, crowd in English), which we also, but not only, associate with a dogs No.2. =) You see, its not always easy to use a German word. In the paper I'm writing I try to use as much German as I can, but using `Schl�ssel-Verteilungs-Zentrum' or `Zentrum zur Verteilung von Schl�sseln' instead of KDC is really too much for me. I see it this way: English terms are international, so why not use them. As long as it doesn't make it easier to read a text with translated words, I don't see why I should use them. And then: a KDC is a KDC, and not a `SVZ'. A good example would also be the German versions of MS products, where everything is translated, making it hard what they mean sometimes, even if you know what they should mean. To get back to the topic: `principal' actually has a nice translation. `Auftraggeber' that would be. It is exactly the word for what Bill Sommerfeld found in the on-line merriam-webster's in definition 1c, later in this thread. BTW: Thanks to you all for your replies! Greetings Heiko
