6 ms·

> Although as the OP suggests, maybe less of the confusion and more of the deliberate misdirection. Or, even simpler, a translation mistake - if that much, I'd

• bell-cot 4y ago
  Oh, yes. Why should any journalist spend time & money on competent translation, when the typing "what does 'panzer' mean in English?" into some search engine gives them cool-sounding ideas for stories? Back in Realityville...the Germans officially called this little baby a "Panzerschiff" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_DVM_10_Bild-23-63-06,_Panzerschiff_%22Admiral_Graf_Spee%22.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_DVM_10_Bild-... - and what % of native speakers of English would call it a tank?
  • someweirdperson 4y ago
    When concatenating nouns in the german language the base noun is at the end. That ship has tank-like properties, it is not a tank that swims like a ship.
    • bell-cot 4y ago
      Ships similar to that one were a regular item in navies long before the British decided to call their secret new armored & treaded battlefield thingies with guns "water carriers", "water tanks", or "tanks", in an attempt to avoid the attention of spies. The German term for gauntlets, in the sense of "hardened leather or metal glove, worn in hand-to-hand combat by knights" is "panzerhandschuhe". What if, in German, the root meaning of "panzer" is something far closer to "armored" than to "motor-driven, treaded, all-terrain direct fires combat vehicle"?
      • andrewflnr 4y ago
        It does, that's literally all discussed in OP.
  • hnaccount_rng 4y ago
    I don't think the argument was, that you should call it a competent translation. Only that there is a charitable interpretation. Yes I'd agree it's done intentionally, but not out of incompetence.
• logifail 4y ago
  > The vehicle in question does in fact bear the word "Panzer" in its official German designation So does the German word for "bulletproof glass"[0], and that's not "a tank" either! [0] https://dict.leo.org/german-english/Panzerglas https://dict.leo.org/german-english/Panzerglas
  • brazzy 4y ago
    The difference is that the base noun is at the end. "Panzerglas" literally translates as "armored glass" "Glaspanzer" would be a "glass tank" And the Gepard's official designation is "Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer" - "anti-air cannon tank"
    • logifail 4y ago
      > The difference is that the base noun is at the end The German [base]noun "Panzer" cannot simply be translated to the English "tank"[0] without context, and specifically the noun "Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer" shouldn't be translated to any kind of tank. Unless of course one thinks any vehicle with tracks and a gun is a tank(?) > The Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer Gepard ("anti-aircraft armoured fighting vehicle 'Cheetah'", better known as the Flakpanzer Gepard) is an all-weather-capable German self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG)[1] Like the Bradley[2], it's an armoured fighting vehicle.[3] [0] https://dict.leo.org/german-english/panzer https://dict.leo.org/german-english/panzer [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_fighting_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_fighting_vehicle
      • brazzy 4y ago
        Yes - it's a translation mistake because (as is often the case the words in different languages) the words do not cover exactly the same concepts. Therefore I see little reason to assume that it's "deliberate misdirection" as you wrote in your original comment.
• mcv 4y ago
  Even OP admits that language and culture matters, so taking a foreign ambassador to task for not adhering to the American purist's definition, might be somewhat unreasonable.