Talk:veräußern

Translation 'to sell'

The translation to sell has been removed twice, although I am yet to find any other dictionary that doesn't include this meaning. Duden and dwds include 'verkaufen' or to part with something for money as a definition. Cambridge and Collins also include this translation into English. Gedney2001 (talk) 15:00, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Gedney2001: What about the Bible? He sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Equinox ◑ 15:35, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes that is the most common translation as far as can see. There are some quotes on the wikipedia page for mess of pottage. I'd never heard of it before though haha Gedney2001 (talk) 16:43, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

But yeah I agree veräussern sounds a bit odd there. Gedney2001 (talk) 17:10, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Fay Freak Equinox ◑ 15:35, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Gedney2001, Equinox:

You can’t put the word “veräußern” there indeed, sounds odd. This is not a synonym of verkaufen, nor a “near-synonym”.

It’s “to part with something for money”, and regularly also not requiring even for money (in tax laws contexts such as one I have cited indeed for money). In Germany, unlike in Romance and Common Law where they have the “natural” Konsensprinzip, a sales contract does not entail switching ownership, this needs a separate contract, for movable things defined in § 929 S. 1 BGB, this is called Trennungsprinzip, and also switching possession, Traditionsprinzip / Übergabeprinzip or one of its surrogates. This contract does not even depend on the validity of the sale, Abstraktionsprinzip, though in other (almost all) legal systems it does, Kausalprinzip: so the sale may be null and void, the ownership still in different hands—which is much more common than both contracts being void (due to identical error, Fehleridentität). The ownership (Eigentum) will be reclaimed on unjust enrichment grounds.

Therefore, in the exercises that law students get in Germany, they word specifically “A hat … veräußert” to mean this divestment of in rem right irrespective of legal cause; “selling” in meaning the particular contract (in the law of obligations as opposed to property law) of “agreeing to exchange an item against money” is “verkaufen” and nothing else. Principally this is also the implication in any economic discourse, as it is governed by the legal environment of civil law, there is no contravening usage of a different meaning when not law specifically (Rechtslage) is the subject-matter talked about, only lacking specification. “Cause” is here the technical term of unjust enrichment law why anyone can keep a transferred good: the obligation which may have been created through a sales contract, or for brevity the sale.

The first Wiktionary definition of sell “to transfer goods or provide services in exchange for money” is also incorrect, trying to circumscribe the usual Common Law environment in which it occurs, where sale does cause transfer of goods; this isn’t what it means, as seen in a comparative law context or EU English (the usual language of the EU lawmaker), where it is also clear that “to sell” is not applicable to provision of services (he distiguishes sales and service contracts). @Theknightwho might decide whether due to these circumstances even from a purely English perspective it is insufferable to maintain the definition given at sell: I would add the two words “agree to” for it to read “to agree to transfer goods”, but then also the “provide services” part has some colloquial grounds at least which have to be reflected somehow differently. Our Wiktionary definitions of English terms should be general enough to ease defining terms in legal systems of foreign language with as little misunderstandings as possible, defining technical language with technical language, for which we need technically correct definitions. Fay Freak (talk) 15:52, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I can see that in a legal context, it has a very specific meaning. Would you say veräußern is used solely in the legal world though? Perhaps it would be a good idea to discuss it with some native speakers on the veräußern page of german wikipedia. If you get consensus there to remove verkaufen, it would clear things up hear. What would you suggest is a good translation into English in the following sentence. "Er veräußerte seinen ganzen Besitz, bevor er ins Ausland ging." I was going to put something similar as an example. Gedney2001 (talk) 16:49, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Ooops meant here Gedney2001 (talk) 16:49, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

@Gedney2001 “He divested of all his tangible assets before moving to abroad.” You see that in this case it obviously not sold, since in such circumstances you can’t get money for everything timely so you also give it away to friends and remaining relatives for free. What was reported when Bushido left Berlin for Dubai last year: friends got hands on luxury clothing he had no use for anymore. It is also certain however that an exercise for law students would have avoided the word Besitz here which would be taken as the technical term for possession here, in favour of some other colloquial word like Habe or Hab und Gut.

I have already pointed out that it is not used solely in the legal world but outside of it does not mean “sell” either, as this example you have provided yourself shows: it does not specify a sale having taken place; what it does specify is that it one got rid of it by transactional act, such that it is gone, außen, äußerlich to a previous owner or possessor. Like you see the German terms setzen, stellen, legen have an implication of how a thing is “put” which is not expressed in English at all and usually gets lost in translation.

Dictionary glosses written for laymen or covering the language as a whole give what likely is semantically related when a word occurs and circumscribe it thus instead of describing it, inasmuch as there are lots of basic words that are not really “defined” in general dictionaries, employing only a chain of similar words to help understand people who don’t know the meaning at all, indeed then equating veräußern with verkaufen brings them closer, but so only containing fig-leaves for definition not actually unbaring all essential peculiarities of the meaning, and as a second step for full definition we need not to equate but contrast the terms.

Formally, due to the linearity of language, you don’t automatically see a difference between circumscription vs. description and gloss vs. definition, so there are many English lexemes which Wiktionary has with some hint about the meaning but does not earnestly define and German lexemes which Duden authors would also have to problematize as reaching only a fraction of truth if they were not paper; Wiktionary has copied such old paper dictionaries to at least have the entries: “One class of circularity occurs in definitions taken from MW1913. Common definitions from there of common words include a list of synonyms, usually also common and polysemic. See keen Adj. defs. 1-6 and sharp Some only have multiple synonyms as definitions.” This is how Wiktionary needs to distinguish itself from other dictionaries. Note also, for a simple example, Talk:كلف, on how word equations of philologists that would have to be as easy as naming a particular medical condition fail as well in bilingual dictionaries by the “similarity” approach: Knowledge of the primary material trumps dictionary copying luckily. Some dictionary editor recently quipped that he is a low-quality lexicographical drudge which is why his abilities to distinguish things correctly end: it happens all the time in word references, which are regularly fallible in exactitude, therefore unlike on Wikipedia they regularly don’t have “authority” on Wiktionary. Fay Freak (talk) 22:14, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Cool maybe it s a good idea to get a second opinion. How do you transfer this to a discussion somewhere else? I've never done it before. Would the tea room be a good place? — This unsigned comment was added by Gedney2001 (talk • contribs) at 06:32, 18 May 2023 (UTC).

@Gedney2001: It’s the correct place to discuss treatments of specific words. Welcome. Fay Freak (talk) 07:08, 18 May 2023 (UTC)