Talk:Direction générale de l'armement

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was move per request (without the unnecessary disambiguator per WP:PRECISION and WP:DAB), though based on neither !vote below, which are not founded in naming conventions policy. If the name had no English presence then the proper title would be the French name (see Foreign names and anglicization). Where it does have an English presence, we go with the common name used in English language reliable sources, and whether we think it is or is not a good translation is irrelevant; we follow the world's decision on what things are called. Here, a Google book search shows no hits for the current title and seventeen for the target between plural and singular usage (and only 20 for the French title limited to English books).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

General Direction for Ordnance (France) → General Directorate for Armament (France)
 * The current tittle "General direction for Ordnance" is a misleading and inaccurate translation for the French "Direction générale de l'armement ". The proposed new title for this article : General Directorate for Armament, gives a better account and description of the French Defence procurement Agency. User:Fretisson 12:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Move to Directorate General of Armament (France), which is the better English translation of the current name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Translation and capitalization
I think the article needs another move, for two reasons:
 * Isn't it French convention to capitalize major words of acronyms, the same as we do in English? This is also our style for article titles when the phrase is an acronym; therefore it should be "Direction Générale de l'Armement". Does our style guide read differently in the case of foreign phrases?
 * There is an even bigger issue; I don't think the French rendering is correct. I never studied French, but I've picked up enough to know that the preposition "de" translates as "of", and Wiktionary confirms this. A defense-aerospace.com article identifies the agency as "Delegation Generale pour l'Armement", which is consistent with what little French I know (and Wiktionary also confirms): "pour" translates as "for". (Notice also the use of "delegation" instead of "direction", and the slightly different spelling of "generale".)

Therefore, Delegation Générale pour l'Armement ("general delegation for the armament") makes better sense than Direction générale de l'armement ("general directorate of the armament"). Are there any sources which give "de" instead of "pour"? JustinTime55 (talk) 14:47, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

That's not how translation works. Prepositions don't have one-to-one translations. French often uses "de" where in English we'd use "pour". This is a French organization, so the original name should be used, which is with "de". The best English translation, in my opinion (as a professional translator), would be "pour". --192.91.247.212 (talk) 13:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

List of delegates general section
This is lame: "The list of successive Heads of the DGA, whether they are from the Corps de l'armement, from the Corps des mines or from the French Armed Forces, whether they are more technology-oriented or "cost-cutting"-oriented, whether they originate from the DGA itself or from outside, gives an idea of the evolution of the institution," Then the list, which is incomplete in terms of years served. And absolutely nothing is said about any of the information talked about.

Also, the wikilink is kind of stupid, since it just redirects back to this article. JustinTime55 (talk) 14:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)