deutschWhat do you find out if you search for a translation of a German word ?
After Ben asked here if “square” and “Spießer” have the same meaning, I asked some online translation services. The translation of the German term “Spießer” revealed following:
I present the not-winners of the day for this specific term (I do not use term loser with purpose):
IATE (result)
Google Translator (result) and
Babelfish (result)
(or could be said following ? IATE was so honest to tell nothing, instead telling something wrong or something which does not make sense - or does there exist a term “spiesser” in English ?)
From the results one could infer perhaps “Spießer” should be translated with “bourgeois” or “babbitt” ? But I will ask better a native English speaking person to help me out here. Perhaps someone who knows the context of the term since our recent slogan game 
Erkan YILMAZ
btw: why do I post about such things ?
- to help Michael and others to assess the quality of online translation services
- I am curious and might gain some interesting info (e.g. do some services use the same database: Beolingus and ergo4u; Google Translator and Babelfish ?)
- you never know where and when you can see a bug. E.g. is the behaviour of Google translator and Babelfish wrong ?
a. From my point of view: yes.
BUT: “A bug is anything about the product that threatens its value. And: Quality is value to some person (who matters).” (James Bach and Michael Bolton, Rapid Software Testing, slide 12, slide version 2.1.3)
And I am not sure, if I matter at Google
So far, I am not quite sure, if there exists really such an English term “spiesser”. So let me ask someone, because I do not know (also: cost value factor of asking a native English speaking person is better than me now doing a search - well: it is also a little late - I hope you excuse me for that). Let’s see what I can investigate afterwards.
b. From your point of view: ?
edit 2007 May 04:
I got a ping and “square” seems the best translation (when used to refer to a person)
and this would make LEO the winner of the day
edit 2007 August 21:
there is an updated graphic available - which includes also dict.cc and woerterbuch.info - see here
at
I agree that “square” and “spiesser” mean the same when referring to a person.
The terms “bourgeois” and “babbit” are not common terms in America today — at least not in my circles.
In English, the term “bourgeois” is mostly limited to communist writings and is used to refer to the ruling classes or the upper-middle class people that want things to stay the same.
Babbitt is a character in and the title of a 1922 Sinclair Lewis book that is a satirical commentary on middle-class society. The Babbitt character definitely meets the definition of square.
Ben