diff -r 09b200396384 -r 41885892796e mercurial/commands.py
--- a/mercurial/commands.py	Mon Dec 05 17:09:11 2011 -0600
+++ b/mercurial/commands.py	Thu Dec 08 14:32:44 2011 -0600
@@ -855,6 +855,8 @@
                                  hint=_("use 'hg update' to switch to it"))
         repo.dirstate.setbranch(label)
         ui.status(_('marked working directory as branch %s\n') % label)
+        ui.status(_('(branches are permanent and global, '
+                    'did you want a bookmark?)\n'))
     else:
         ui.write("%s\n" % repo.dirstate.branch())