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Comment by jaclaz | Hacker News Reader

Also, sometimes, translations have a different (perceived) meaning.

A pet peeve of mine is "by default".

In Italian it is translated (correctly) "per difetto", and it is "fine" when other people already know the term, but otherways "difetto" is also the translation of "defect", and you will have a tough time explaining to a layman that it is not a "defect" in that other sense.

Another "queer" word (I found it in the Italian version of some database tools) is "ometti" (which is the correct translation of "omit") but that actually I normally read as "little men".

In Excel there is "MODE" (statistical function) that is translated into "MODA" which I read as "fashion" and "MOD" (modulo operation) which is translated into "RESTO" (which has a more common meaning of "change" in the sense of what a cashier gives you back when you pay besides that of "remainder").

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> translations have a different (perceived) meaning

I think the problem you're running into is that you just aren't used to these words. I imagine people having the exact same complaints about a computer "mouse" actually reminding them of the animal or "paste" reminding them of glue, but once you get used to them they just become the terms for things.

A very long time ago, I worked technical support for Bellsouth Internet, and occasionally we would get people from the bayou in Louisiana calling in, and the language difference was striking.

There was one memorable time when this happened, and as I was walking the user through their Dial-Up Network Settings configuration, I asked him to right-click on his dial up connection icon, and he had trouble understanding me. I said something to the effect of, "does your mouse have two buttons?", and he replied, "yes, and I'm mashing this critter right here".

So the parallels of the peripheral and the rodent are not lost on everyone.

Or maybe the problem is that translations are wrong, but appear correct if seen by English speaking person through reverse translations, because literal English-Italian translation mapping for said expressions happen to be robust and consistent within itself, despite being inconsistent with actual Italian language in actual real world context.

If the term doesn't exist in Italian and you're translating it for the first time, it can't be wrong (by definition). I had never seen the Greek translation of "by default" in Greek, but now it's just one more computer term.

No I disagree, it can be wrong: You cannot translate "by default" with "quando si mangiano le mele" (trans.: "when eating apples"). That is wrong.

And you can do even worse: translate "by default" with "in caso di successo" (trans.: "in case of success")

Or also very bad: translate "by default" with "alla scrittura su disco" (trans.: "when writing on disk")

At least the new term must not mean anything else than what it should.

> maybe the problem is that translations are wrong

La moda in statistica è il corretto termine classico.

  As a native speaker I would never read - in context - "ometti" as little men. IE: "Se ometti un parametro...". Every language is context sensitive.

  Same for "moda", when I read: "moda, mediana e media..." I would never - ever - think that "moda" is, in the context, "fashion".

  "resto" - as used in: "Here is your change" - "Ecco il tuo resto" - would never be read as such in context. IE: the nursery song [1] "Quarantaquattro gatti, in fila per sei col *resto* di due" is an example of unambiguous use in the context of maths.

  So: in context all these words make sense, as it's the case with many words in many languages.

  
  [1] https://youtu.be/2jDOj0Xhcc8

I always remember “mode” as coming from “moda”, i.e. popular. The mode is the peak of the distribution, the most “fashionable” number.

Maybe it’s fake etymology, but it works

I was sure this was the etymology, but apparently "mode" in statistics is quite a modern use, from a work by Pearson in 1895 in English. Whether he was influenced by the Romance languages is not clear, but there certainly isn't a direct path from Latin or French as one might have expected.

https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/7675/what-is-the-ety...

Sure they do make sense in context.

You're just not used to it.

Now look at programming in English and it has the same "issues". "bug" means defect when it could also mean a little critter. "super" means the parent class? How do people know you don't mean the superlative? How does "short", "float", "long" describe numbers? You "catch" things? "map" and "dictionary" certainly aren't the things I have on my coffee table by the same name. I've heard of race being a "protected class", but not a "BeanFactory" being one.

It was always arbitrary from the start.

You're making the same mistake that beginners make when they think "ugh, English is so much more precise than this language I'm unfamiliar with!" when they are completely blind to the ambiguities of English that we take for granted.

Even within English, a lot of the terms we use are kind of unnatural. I had an American professor once who complained about the use of the term "default" in computing. "Default" is what the bank does when it runs out of money. What does that have to do with me choosing something in the computer?

Similarly, a "file" is a bundle of papers, not an individual document. A "program" lists things that will happen in a performance, but it's not an instruction sheet. An "application" is a form that you fill in for a bureaucrat. Etc.

Default makes sense to me... according to your own definition. It's the choice when you're out of choices. You fail to fulfill your obligation to specify behavior, so, default behavior.

"Default" means someone being unable to do the thing they're supposed to do. If your opponents don't turn up to a darts match, they have defaulted, and so you win "by default".

You can just about support the computer sense by thinking that a default choice is used when a user has failed in their duty to make an explicit choice, etc. But it is a bit of a stretch.

Of course, by now, the computer sense has fed back into broader usage, so it just seems like a perfectly ordinary use of the word.

> "by default" ... In Italian it is translated (correctly) "per difetto"

No way: the correct translation of "by default" is "valore predefinito", anyone who translates it "per difetto" has serious issues with Italian language.

Correct, "per difetto" means flooring a number.

I am appalled.

" "by default". In Italian it is translated (correctly) "per difetto" "

Correctly? Not at all!

Please don't take as given Google Translate's translations.

Is the dictionary of Repubblica (one of the main Italian Newspapers) authoritative enough?

https://dizionari.repubblica.it/Inglese-Italiano/D/default.h...

Nowadays it is not used much, but it has been for years in texts related to IT, a reference:

http://vietatoridere.blogspot.com/2012/06/default-significat...

BTW "per difetto" is also used in legal matters to mean "in mancanza"

No, that dictionary has lost all its authority with this, and no, I would not take texts related to IT as reference: those give the worst examples of bad translations.

Take a look at this http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/difetto/

The only use of "per difetto" that existed before a translation of "by default" was ever needed is in the expression "approssimazione per difetto", and the new meaning forcefully attached to "per difetto" makes sense only in the worst nightmares after a "peperonata co' e cozze".

Picchi probably is only witness of a niche neologism, that was probably bred from a bad technical translation. But it was a bad neologism in the first place, it was incorrect right from the start.

EDIT Nevertheless I take your point: you did your research before you wrote "correctly".

>The only use of "per difetto" that existed before a translation of "by default" was ever needed is in the expression "approssimazione per difetto",

No, as said it is used in legal matters, example:

https://www.brocardi.it/massimario/59534.html

And you go tell this Italian professor:

http://www.diit.unict.it/users/alongheu/linguaggi/aa0910/lez...

The point is that it is actually correct in Italian, if you think about it also in "arrotondamento per difetto" (as opposed to arrotondamento per eccesso")[1] the meaning is that of "arrotondamento per mancanza", i.e. meaning #1 in the Treccani dictionary while it is much more commonly perceived as meaning #2.

[1] respectively "round down" and "round up"

OK you were right, it is correct.

At first sight this (default = difetto) looked like so many careless anglicisms, where a faint similarity in sound and meaning induces someone into believing it is a translation.

And this happens really more than needed in technical texts. My point was that you cannot trust technical people to make good translations, an it is outrageous that a translation is considered correct just because it was written in a book. But this does not apply here.

I am making up my mind that this was instead a delicate and careful intellectual construction that dutifully just failed to convey the meaning.

So be it.

> ...like so many careless anglicisms

Actually, I believe the etymological root of "default" is exactly the same as "difetto."

"from Old French defaute (12c.) "fault, defect, failure, culpability, lack, privation," from Vulgar Latin *defallita "a deficiency or failure,"" [1]

The issue is that in English this was then used to mean "failure to pay a loan" (in 1850s) and then someone in the 1960s started using it in computing to mean the option chosen if the user fails chose."

So English just stretched the meaning way beyond the original, so it's no surprise that this new meaning doesn't really match in other languages' cognates for the word.

1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/default

On the other hand, the RAE has adopted that same expression from the same latin root into the Spanish language in the IT/computing category:

https://dle.rae.es/defecto

It's not something ridiculous out of left field.

On the other hand, "moda" is the correct translation, and the function "resto" gives you... "il resto della divisione" (the remainder).

It's probably just a matter of being used to it, because nobody would complain that mean(array) is about the moral qualities of the array (seeing mean as an adj.)

A fun one is: “throwing an error”, which can be translated in “lanciare (launch) un errore” or “tornare (return) un errore” or “causare (cause) un errore”.

I don't understand what's you problem with "lanciare". In C++ you have the couple "throw" and "catch", like "you throw the ball and I catch it". In Italian that is perfectly translated with "tu lanci la palla e io la prendo". What's the problem with that?

"return" in this context is "restituire", so "restituire (return) un errore" .

tornare is probably more likely unless you caused the error on purpose.

I would not use that: a common programming idiom is that of "returning an error code", and "ritornare un errore" may be confused with this. As in "return error;" where "error" is some error code, against "throw error;" where "error" is whatever exception class.

"Moda" and "resto" are the standard names of those functions in mathematics. All the Latin languages have a similar name from them.

I will never read "ometti" in the same (sane) way again.

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