Eugene Volokh has ‘discovered’ some lost maxims of equity:

bq. Equity abhors a nudnik.
Equity delights in a good practical joke.
He who seeks equity must do so with full pockets.
Equity is not for the squeamish.
Equity, schmequity.
Equity can be grumpy before its first cup of coffee.
Equity is crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.
Equity is a mean drunk.
Equity, like all of us, prefers the rich and good-looking.

There must be more of these. They sound a bit American. I think ‘like all of us’ is stylistically weak. Again, ‘He who seeks equity must do so with full pockets’ is funny, but it has no depth. Continue reading →

According to Meisterkoechin in Vienna (only German), the asparagus season is over. This is a relief because there are times when it seems to be the only topic of conversation among Germans here in Franconia. German asparagus is pasty white and they try to slaughter it before it sees the light of day. As a result of the growing method, it apparently has to be attacked severely with asparagus peelers.

(Photograph taken in Weilheim at the end of May)
Now for something much nicer: the strawberry season.

According to Meisterkoechin in Vienna (only German), the asparagus season is over. This is a relief because there are times when it seems to be the only topic of conversation among Germans here in Franconia. German asparagus is pasty white and they try to slaughter it before it sees the light of day. As a result of the growing method, it apparently has to be attacked severely with asparagus peelers.

(Photograph taken in Weilheim at the end of May)
Now for something much nicer: the strawberry season.

The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations, by Benson, Benson and Ilson, 1997, ISBN 90 272 2166 9 (that’s the European paperback ISBN) is a superb book for anyone writing English, even native speakers. The first edition was called The BBI combinatory dictionary of English and appeared in 1986, filling a gap – when I learned to write serious German at university, I used to use the Duden Stilwörterbuch to find which verbs and prepositions went with which noun.

This book is also surprisingly reliable.

The first edition is available online (via Languagehat).

Languagehat has a quote from the introduction showing the kind of collocations that can be found. I will quote the new edition on damages:

bq. damages n. [“compensation”] 1. to award ~ (the court awarded ~) 2. to claim; sue for ~ 3. to pay; receive; recover ~ 4. compensatory; exemplary, punitive; nominal ~ 5. ~ for 6. in ~ (to award one thousand dollars in ~)

The book is surprisingly reliable – most dictionaries are not that reliable.

The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations, by Benson, Benson and Ilson, 1997, ISBN 90 272 2166 9 (that’s the European paperback ISBN) is a superb book for anyone writing English, even native speakers. The first edition was called The BBI combinatory dictionary of English and appeared in 1986, filling a gap – when I learned to write serious German at university, I used to use the Duden Stilwörterbuch to find which verbs and prepositions went with which noun.

This book is also surprisingly reliable.

The first edition is available online (via Languagehat).

Languagehat has a quote from the introduction showing the kind of collocations that can be found. I will quote the new edition on damages:

bq. damages n. [“compensation”] 1. to award ~ (the court awarded ~) 2. to claim; sue for ~ 3. to pay; receive; recover ~ 4. compensatory; exemplary, punitive; nominal ~ 5. ~ for 6. in ~ (to award one thousand dollars in ~)

The book is surprisingly reliable – most dictionaries are not that reliable.

I have been irritated by sites that give me German if my browser is set to German. One such used to be Thompson and Morgan’s famous seed catalogue. They are famous for promising you can grow all sorts of obscure things that in my experience don’t come up, but the catalogue in English and German, together with colour pictures of the flowers and vegetables, is nice, or would be, if it weren’t for the language problem. Here’s a link to the German version.

But just now I had the English version, because I had my browser set to US English for Google experiments. Anyway, there now seem to be language flags to click on, although I still find the site a bit confusing. It would be easier just to order the catalogue in two languages – they have a lot there, but it isn’t easy to find. Continue reading →