Today’s linguistic oddity: I’m currently in possession of a computer part that I’ll be delivering to its rightful owner in good time. The box lists specs and a marketing blurb in three languages: English, French, and German. I don’t know enough German to comment on that translation, but I’ve still got enough French to find this a little weird:
S’auto-configure avec l’ordinateur hôte
It’s a little more concise than the original English (“Auto-configures to host system’s logic”), but that’s not the strange bit. It’s the reflexive form — that s’ which expands to se, and is used to indicate that the subject of a verb is also its object. But that’s more or less implies by the “auto-” prefix, isn’t it? Surely there’s a less awkward way to phrase that.
Alternatively, “auto-” here means “automatic”, and I’m growing curmudgeonly about language use as I get older.