Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

>> The question would have been why
>>
>>   (format-string #f ("Package variant ~a is not translatable" x))
>
> Strings are not applicable.  You probably meant:
>
>   (G_ "Foo ~a bar")

Sorry, I don't know where the extra parens came from in hasty mail.
(I was Scheming around the time of T...)

What I meant was something like

  (description (format-string #f "Package variant ~a is not translatable" x))

Anyhow, thanks for the explanation in the new doc which clears the
confusion I had.  I don't understand the mechanism, but I guess it's not
worth researching.

Here's a revised patch.