diff -r 86fc364ca5f8 -r fc8c7a5ccc4a mercurial/commands.py
--- a/mercurial/commands.py	Thu Dec 08 16:39:00 2011 +0100
+++ b/mercurial/commands.py	Thu Dec 08 16:01:44 2011 -0600
@@ -862,6 +862,8 @@
                                  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())