[Mailman-Users] Posting acknowledgements global option?
Stephen J. Turnbull
stephen at xemacs.org
Mon Oct 4 10:57:18 CEST 2004
Maybe this option could be more precisely described as "acknowledge
receipt by Mailman of each post to the member who posted it". I'm
afraid the cascade of prepositions is more confusing than the simpler
phrasing, though. I think the best solution is to just fix the German
translation.
>>>>> "Kai" == Kai Schaetzl <maillists at conactive.com> writes:
Kai> But I think even the English phrasing is somewhat ambiguous:
Kai> "Acknowledge the member's posting" could mean automatic
Kai> allowance of the member's mails. That's obviously also what
Kai> the translator had in mind.
Sounds like English-German dictionaries are as bad as English-Japanese
dictionaries. "Acknowledge" simply means (in this context) a report
that the post was received. It makes no other promise about delivery,
archiving, or anything. It is the exact English word for this purpose.
Kai> English: Send confirmation (*) for each posting to the member
Not good; "confirm" generally means you intend to _do_ something about
what you are confirming. For example, the users "confirm" their
subscriptions, which means that the subscriptions _should_ take place.
Although it's a stretch, a native speaker could mistake your phrasing
to mean "approve the post" as well as report receipt.
--
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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ask what your business can "do for" free software.
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