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What 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:

• 

  original picture from:
  2007-05-03

• 

  new results:
  2007-08-21

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

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

comment

• by Ben Simo:

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

Author: Erkan Yilmaz (2007-05-03)