[OJFord]

> Walter Scheel was never Chancellor, he was fulfilling the duties of the Chancellor while

I think this is really an issue of semantics & translation, because that is just what 'acting X' means? (Admittedly not always while still doing something else too, but I don't see that as significant - if it had gone on long perhaps a junior minister in the foreign office would've been named acting FM in his place too.)

[RandomLensman]

That is not semantics. The law is very clear: Scheel was not a Chancellor (and indeed he is not counted as one in Germany: https://www.bundeskanzler.de/bk-en/chancellery/federal-chanc...).

Article 69 Grundgesetz has a sort of "Caretaker Chancellor" that has the function but - importantly - not the office. They way to have the office is through article 63.

It works differently in Germany to the US, for example, where the vice president could become the president, while the vice chancellor only ever gets the function, not the office (unless through a proper vote for Chancellor).

When there is actually ground truth, machines should be able to recover that, not take weird turns.

[OJFord]

What distinction are you making between 'acting X' and 'caretaker X'?

I'm British, not American, so I'm not assuming something like the vice president automatically becomes president, we don't have that either. If anything it's even less than Germany since (at least in theory and history, modern media etc. makes it a bit different in practice) there's nothing special about the PM, it's just the governing party's leader. I suppose though you could say the heir apparent to the throne immediately becoming the monarch on the death of the previous one is like vice taking over - but I don't think that detracts from my point because nobody would call that 'acting monarch', they just are.

'Acting X' means doing the necessary duties, but not any major decisions that can be avoided/deferred, while the 'real' replacement is found. Sometimes it ends up being the same person, e.g. the head of some division is 'acting CEO' for a while as the board searches for a new CEO, ultimately ends up going with that person and title changes to just 'CEO' - or they don't, and go back to old job, or maybe quit in a huff, and the person they found is just 'CEO' taking over from the 'acting'.

[RandomLensman]

The real issue here is that people stick to the word "Chancellor", not the "acting" as such.

There is no named role of "Acting Chancellor" created in the basic law, instead someone is just tasked with performing certain duties (and people might sometimes call it "acting Chancellor" or whatever). However, the position "Chancellor" is a well defined & special role (unlike perhaps PM) and whatever that other "acting" role is, it isn't a Chancellor. It is a bit like adding Oliver Cromwell to list of English Kings or Kamala Harris to the list of US Presidents - you can do it but you then move beyond the "standard" definitions.

[OJFord]

Charles III was for years described as a 'King in waiting', nobody was confused that perhaps he was already king just because the phrase used that word.

I don't think in English usage there is any meaning attached to 'acting X' which 'caretaker X' (as you're happy to call it) doesn't also carry. Both are used interchangeably, the former you'd put on your CV, the latter might be used by the media when your employer put out the less release announcing it, but same thing: for some reason there is not currently an X, but you are fulfilling some necessary duties that that person would do in the meantime.

[RandomLensman]

When used in a narrow sense "acting X" can capture it, but then sometimes people start to use it somewhat interchangeably with "interim X" etc. and it depends on the specifics what happens in successions etc.

[dragonwriter]

It is exactly what “acting X” means in English.

[RandomLensman]

You can clearly see it is confusing the heck out of people here by seeing "acting X" as a version of X when it is not in this case here.

[dllthomas]

Yeah, but those people are just wrong. To be fair, it's not something most people have much direct experience with.