Muckefuck

14:33 Oct 14, 2009 

All is fine; Susan sent me a congratulatory complementary cup of genuine real virtual metaphorical false coffee and it was delicious, tasting slightly murky , lukewarm - and green.

12:13 Oct 14, 2009 

I will work on it. <br>Thanks,<br>Susan<br>

P.S. - Diana, if you send me your email address privately, I will deliver. Your profile has no contact line.

12:00 Oct 14, 2009 

You are totally right, justified and everything else. I knew something like this was going to happen, that's why I didn't answer. Kudoz has substantially deteriorated over the last couple years. Hopefully you were around in the past.

11:54 Oct 14, 2009 

Dear Susan,
I do see your quandry and that you decided that in this case the term was just not translateable and you couldn't award any points. I certainly enjoyed the discussion, anyway.. But as my second suggestion got to the top of the ratings with five peer votes I feel justified in claiming the prize of "one cup of lukewarm Muckefuck" you offered.
How are you going to send it to me in Germany, though??

11:07 Oct 14, 2009 

In the end, I agree with Darin and Erich that the attempt to find an English idiomatic equivalent did not work. I found the suggestions "green swill" and "watered-down greens" colorful and intriguing, but not quite right. The linguistic discussion was interesting (including that various people, including native speakers, disagree about the nuance of using this word in this context). Conferring with the original translator, we decided to leave "ersatz green" as he had it, adding a footnote saying that the German term is "Muckefuck," which means a coffee substitute made of chicory or barley. This allowed us to retain the humor of the original (yes, Erika, it is humorous here), as well as the hilarious false cognate in English. I'm not a fan of putting footnotes in translations, but in this case it seemed justified, and less distracting to the reader than putting in a parenthetical note. Thanks to all for your help.

13:00 Oct 12, 2009 

I find "ersatz" to be anything but colorless. Of course, it depends on the tone of the rest of the article, but "ersatz" accurately captures the dismissive and somewhat contemptuous opinion of the writer.
Any reference to coffee substitutes and deprivation is not likely to have any traction with US readers. If you think that humor is needed, I'd suggest a reference to "soy milk" or something like that.

06:51 Oct 12, 2009 

Erika's reference supports my "acorn coffee", which I now no longer support for other reasons...thanks!
Our problem now is that polyglott's "murkiness" is a negative term for the water in a stream or pond, whereas Muckefuck is negative because it is NOT murky enough compared to proper coffee (eine dünne Plempe). The only way I can envisage any liquid metapher being used is by saying "watered down". I am still in two minds as to whether the word "party" need be used yet again.

21:30 Oct 11, 2009 

That's a very interesting reference. Thank you.

19:35 Oct 11, 2009 

Also mit Humor hat der Begriff Muckefuck nun wirklich nichts zu tun - eher mit Entbehrung. Ist schlicht ein umgangssprachlicher Begriff für Ersatzkaffee. Siehe auch: http://www.br-online.de/bayern1/heimatspezialitaeten/heimats...

18:32 Oct 11, 2009 

I hear what you're saying! OK, how about "a party engineering its own descent into the murky waters of an ersatz green party"?

14:42 Oct 11, 2009 

I do like Bianca's imagery, but it is perhaps a bit too subtle and rather on the long side for the relative clause we are translating here. Would the reader realise that "hell bent on hastening its own descent" is "eine Selbstdemontage"? And the descent into murky waters adds a whole new dimension and another metapher to the idea of pseudo-Greenness.

14:19 Oct 11, 2009 

The suggestion "a party hell bent on hastening its own descent into the murky waters of an ersatz green party" (broad brush what polyglot45 said, with tweaks) strikes me as both idiomatic and effective.

It may not be quite as colourful as Muckefuck is in German but "ersatz" in English gives a pretty strong thumbs-down to what is being described. If you use lower case "green" you can play on the word Green as in Green Party and "green" as in "environmentally conscious" in a general way.

07:45 Oct 11, 2009 

a party hell bent on hastening its own descent into the murky waters of pseudo-greenness (or even ersatz greenness)

07:27 Oct 11, 2009 

Dear Susan,
Thanks for posting the translation as it now stands. I reckon "self-degredation into pseudo-Greenness" would suffice, without the text using the word "party" for the third time in the sentence

22:01 Oct 10, 2009 

The full sentence was translated as:
By the next elections, these parties will be in the same
shape as the SPD is now, a party which, even after the elections,
intends to hasten its self-degradation into an ersatz green
party.

20:05 Oct 10, 2009 

how about "surrogate coffee"?

16:02 Oct 10, 2009 

I thought that was self-evident, but in any case, the idea is that the SPD is trying to sound more green than the Greens. What EditK says is right.

15:52 Oct 10, 2009 

or even plastic leather

15:42 Oct 10, 2009 

since the term asked for is "Muckefuck" and not "green Muckefuck". green - grün applies to any of the suggestions here.

15:38 Oct 10, 2009 

As far as I understand this, the green bit refers to the fact that the SPD want to jump on the green success bandwaggon

15:35 Oct 10, 2009 

I posted this question under the category of "idioms," because it is clear that the author is not talking about actual ersatz coffee, but is using an idiomatic/metaphorical turn of phrase. The idea is to capture something of the humor of that, in English. thanks