3 ms·

Probably most of the math is right, you're just (quite reasonably) expecting something that turns out not to be true. Languages, both natural and technical, ev

Probably most of the math is right, you're just (quite reasonably) expecting something that turns out not to be true. Languages, both natural and technical, evolve, and don't always converge. You simply need to spend more time learning about, and then internalizing, the mappings between languages, and sometimes the mappings are neither exact nor precise.

k__ 10y ago
Yes, I already knew that. But coming from a relative new field of computer science, where most terms simply aren't translated into German and the English terms are used, I probably expected something different.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  Or they have been translated literally and stuck, even though there had been a German word for it in the first place. Example: The computational side effect is translated as Seiteneffekt, which is a word no sane person would use outside that context. It makes you think of an effect that takes place on a sheet of paper ("Seite") or - when you just hear it - some acoustic phenomenon involving strings of a guitar ("Saite"). Other side effects are much rather called Nebenwirkung, Nebeneffekt, Begleiterscheinung, or something like that. You would not think of "side = Seite" here. "On the side" would naturally be "nebenbei" or "nebenher", except when it is literally "on his side" as in team, then "Seite" makes sense. There are multiple other sometimes funny examples. The benefit of this is that you create a more specific term, the downside is that you sound like an idiot to normal people when using them.
- Someone 10y ago
  'Old' math often was written in different languages (with 'old' being fairly recent. I know mathematics students used to learn a bit of Russian in order to read papers even back in the 1980's, not only to read older papers, but also to read recent ones) In this case, the original term appears to have been the French semi-groupe. http://jeff560.tripod.com/s.html http://jeff560.tripod.com/s.html: "The term SEMIGROUP apparently was introduced in French as semi-groupe by J.-A. de Séguier in Élem. de la Théorie des Groupes Abstraits (1904)." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semigroup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semigroup, which also claims the first significant paper was in German. So, halbgruppe might be the better term)

k__ 10y ago

Yes, I already knew that. But coming from a relative new field of computer science, where most terms simply aren't translated into German and the English terms are used, I probably expected something different.

allendoerfer 10y ago
Or they have been translated literally and stuck, even though there had been a German word for it in the first place. Example: The computational side effect is translated as Seiteneffekt, which is a word no sane person would use outside that context. It makes you think of an effect that takes place on a sheet of paper ("Seite") or - when you just hear it - some acoustic phenomenon involving strings of a guitar ("Saite"). Other side effects are much rather called Nebenwirkung, Nebeneffekt, Begleiterscheinung, or something like that. You would not think of "side = Seite" here. "On the side" would naturally be "nebenbei" or "nebenher", except when it is literally "on his side" as in team, then "Seite" makes sense. There are multiple other sometimes funny examples. The benefit of this is that you create a more specific term, the downside is that you sound like an idiot to normal people when using them.
Someone 10y ago
'Old' math often was written in different languages (with 'old' being fairly recent. I know mathematics students used to learn a bit of Russian in order to read papers even back in the 1980's, not only to read older papers, but also to read recent ones) In this case, the original term appears to have been the French semi-groupe. http://jeff560.tripod.com/s.html http://jeff560.tripod.com/s.html: "The term SEMIGROUP apparently was introduced in French as semi-groupe by J.-A. de Séguier in Élem. de la Théorie des Groupes Abstraits (1904)." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semigroup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semigroup, which also claims the first significant paper was in German. So, halbgruppe might be the better term)