My guess is that you are not aware of the fact that German speakers don't ask English speakers about what is pedantic in German. Now speicher that on your Festplatte.


EDIT: a propos pedantic, no, l'utilisateur is not pedantic, my french speaking students use it naturally and judging by their language skills in essays, nobody can call them pedantic, really not...

It would be nice and would make sense if it were the same in German. Actually, exactly the opposite is true: If ever possible and wherever possible, use foreign words, preferably English, no matter if they are correct and no matter if there is a perfectly usable German equivalent.

Go to a news stand and read the front pages of magazines. "FASHION NEWS // Spot on Paris // In and Out // Make Up Do's & Dont's / Models on TV // Must Have: Metallic Lip Gloss // Hottest Interviews" etc. etc.. You think, "Great, I found some English reading." You buy it. You open it, only to realize it's 96% German with some scattered English words, some of them ridiculously wrong, such as "Body Bags for Kids" (can't get much more bizarre!).

I don't remember how many times my American OH fell for that. And she still wonders what people are doing in the Do It department at Migros.

In IT and the like, German terms are used mainly by purists, but the wannabees think they are better off using English terms, although they often don't even know how to pronounce them. It's not even funny.

Hence my interest in that glossary in the first place — I hope to be interviewing for IT-related positions soon, and in case someone wants to test the extent of my German knowledge, I don't want to look like I expect English terms to be the norm, even if they often are.

From www.mylife.com: Denglish is a typical IT people and wannabes phenomenon. The users of IT as private persons just use the terms they understand and see on their screens, and that is far more German-german than IT-Denglish the computer people here know from work. In daily life and slang, you here der Rechner for a computer far more often than in an IT-helpdesk team. Same Drucker (printer) and a couple of others.

The Sprachgebrauch (linguistic use?) is not restraint to the IT offices and the German in the street likes to understand and describe with German words what he uses because he understands German words better than the English terminology that sounds strange and new to the ears. That says at least the "German of the street" Faltrad.

In French, it is even more the case. It is perfectly normal to say fournisseur d'acces for provider or télécharger for download in real life. Those two French words are far easier to pronounce for French speakers and does not stop the natural flow of speech in their language like the English words do. Nobody believes me but that is also what French of the street Faltrad is talling you.

Also bear in mind that many English words have been Germanised in their spelling, for example Bätch, Mäc, Bäckup, even Komputer, or more as a joke, Mehl, Windoofs etc.

Komputer, Bäckup?? Not that I am aware of... and I tend to be. Duden write Computer even after 1997 reform and the reform's reform later on.
But that is the pronounciation. English /a:/ is pronounced German /ä:/.

Come on, that's not even a joke.

When I e-mail my li'l bro', I may type "Kompjutr," "Brausr" and even "Ättätschmnt" (please note the deliberately missing "e" in all those words). But that's between us notorious jokers. We may also write, "Xundheit," "Schattonöff dü Pahp" or "Dschordsch Dabblejuh Busch." That does not make that kind of kakography official, let alone correct.

Nobody would ever use in earnest the spelling you mentioned. Spelling used in SMS (Texting for you Americans) does not reflect proper language.

On the othert hand, some time in the 'seventies or early 'eighties, the Duden folks seriously considered replacing "Computer" with "Komputor." All language-minded people in German speaking nations had a collective laughing fit that was strong enough to make the Duden crew shelve their project.

A few months ago I was seriously questioned by a couple of experienced IT folks for having a CV in German.

No! Do it in English! was their comment.