There has often been speculation about the names of IKEA furniture (especially about the desk Jerker and the bed Gutvik). An article in German in Stern reveals a surprising amount of planning.

Thus bathroom items are named after Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays; sets of bookcases after occupations; dining tables and chairs after Finnish placenames; carpets after Danish placenames; and much more. There’s a long list on the second page.

ADDED LATER
See overleaf for a summary in English. Continue reading →

Markus Morkel is one of the few Germans who post (occasionally) to the alt.coffee Usenet group, a mecca of abstruse information on temperature testing, roasting, tamping and brewing. There is an article about him in Der Spiegel.

Im Spiegel steht ein Artikel über Markus Morkel aus Berlin, ein Kaffeefanatiker, der manchmal in der Usenet-Gruppe alt.coffee postet.

A first attempt by Andy Schecter to convey the article in Babelfish translation was bizarre:

bq. Der Laie ist stets vom Scheitern bedroht. Mal ist der Trank zu bitter, mal zu sauer, mal schmeckt er nach altem Frittenfett. Das Mehl ist zu fein gemahlen oder zu grob, das Wasser läuft zu schnell oder zu langsam durch den Presskuchen. Im Internet flammen immer wieder Debatten auf über den Kraftaufwand, mit dem das Mehl in den Siebträger gestopft gehört. Die Rede ist von 15 Kilogramm – außer bei feuchter Luft, da genügen vielleicht 13 Kilogramm, weil das Mehl ein wenig aufquillt.

bq. The layman is always threatened from the failure. Times the drink is too
bitterly, times too sourly, times tastes it after old frit fat. The flour is too
finely husbands or too rough, the water runs too fast or too slowly by the
presskuchen. In the InterNet debates flame again and again on over the energy
expenditure, with which the flour belongs into the filter carrier plugged. The
speech is from 15 kilograms – except with damp air, there are sufficient perhaps
13 kilogram, because the flour a little swells.

The rendering of gemahlen as husbands is interesting.

bq. Denn auch der Schaum ist eine Wissenschaft für sich. Dem Anfänger gelingt meist nur seifenhaftes Geblubber, das bald zusammenfällt. Begehrt ist der hochfeine, sämige, ja, fast schleimige “Mikroschaum”, der sich nur bei den Kundigen einstellt. Man muss dafür mit dem Dampfrüssel nach einem erprobten Ritual in der Milch herumstochern.

bq. Because also the foam is a science for itself. Usually only soapful Geblubber, which collapses soon, succeeds to the beginner. Desired the high-fine, saemige, are nearly slimy “micro foam”, which adjusts itself only with the Kundigen. One must for it with the steam trunk after an established ritual in the milk herumstochern.

A much nicer job was done in alt.coffee by Jim Schulman. You can read Usenet groups at the Google groups site. This should be the thread.

I don’t read alt.coffee much nowadays, since my espresso machine is sitting at the other end of Germany and has been since May. Every week I phone up and am told it is going to be sent out the very next day or the very next morning, but I am gradually wondering if it might not make more sense to drink tea.

While I’m on the subject, here are some useful links on coffee: Sweet Maria’s, CoffeeGeek, Espresso Vivace, Danny McNulty, and in Germany, Espresso Factory and Kaffee-Netz.

The Bavarian local election campaign continues. Must find out when the voting takes place – I’m allowed to vote in this one.
Some parties resort to having the candidate hang his own poster. This one is sending a mixed message, to judge from the results (click to enlarge).

The German Federal Ministry of Justice has published a PDF file containing the draft of a statute to modernize Costs Law (in German; on 28th August, entitled ‘Einfach, transparent und zeitgemäß’). With regard to translators and interpreters, it says that the principle of ‘compensation’ is to be replaced by ‘payment’ (translators and interpreters for the courts have till now been regarded as being ‘compensated’ for the time they have lost, rather than paid for work done). There is to be a new statute for translators, interpreters, expert witnesses and lay judges (ehrenamtliche Richter). There are to be clearly defined payment groups with fixed hourly rates, which are to be more closely approximated to free market rates (hmm, that will give them a wide field!). It sounds as if the range of rates is to be narrower, thus avoiding some of the customary disputes. Refer to ‘Zu § 11’ on p. 225 for more details (thanks to Chico Moreira).

Payment per line is to give way to payment for a number of keystrokes, that is, it is recognized that translations are done on computers and computers can make it easier to count text. And here it comes:

bq. Maßeinheit für die Vergütung soll die im Bereich des Übersetzerwesens
allgemein eingeführte Standardzeile sein, die sich aus 55 Anschlägen einschließlich der Leerzeichen zusammensetzt. Zwar vertritt die ganz herrschende Auffassung in Rechtsprechung und Kommentarliteratur die Meinung, Leerzeichen seien keine Schriftzeichen im Sinne des § 17 Abs. 4
ZuSEG, weil sie nicht der Kommunikation dienten und damit auch keine Übersetzungsleistung erforderten. Wegen der weitverbreiteten Akzeptanz der Standardzeile erscheint es jedoch angebracht, diesen Umrechnungsmaßstab aufzugreifen.

bq. The unit by which payment is measured is to be the standard line, which is generally recognized among translators, consisting of 55 characters, including spaces. The overwhelmingly prevailing opinion in case law [how many court cases have there been?] and in the commentaries takes the view that spaces are not characters in the meaning of section 17 (4) of the ZuSEG (Gesetz über die Entschädigung von Zeugen und Sachverständigen, Act on the Reimbursement of Witnesses and Expert Witnesses) because they do not serve communication [have these people tried written communication without spaces?] and therefore require no work on the part of the translator. However, in view of the widespread acceptance of the standard line, it appears appropriate to use this measure. [How condescending!]

However, if the translator or the costs clerk lacks the technology for this highly modern form of counting, counting by lines will still be possible in certain circumstances.

I’ve just finished reading Bernhard Schlink’s Die gordische Schleife (literally ‘the Gordian bow’, referring to the idea that every Gordian knot can be untied), a thriller that appeared in 1988. It reads well, especially at the beginning, but its plot and the relationships between its characters are not very credible, and at the end it suddenly gets tied up in unexpected philosophizing. Schlink’s strongest suit seems to be observation of the world through the eyes of a reflective young man – thoughtful observation of detail is the strongest element of Der Vorleser too.

Before I bought it, Schlink had written two better-thought-of crime novels whose main character, Selb, was a 68-year-old private detective with a Nazi past. A further one, Selbs Mord (literally, Selb’s murder: SelbsTmord means suicide) appeared in 2001. But Schlink is now internationally famous as the author of Der Vorleser (The Reader) (not just because it was an Oprah selection in the USA). But The Gordian Knot (as it will be called when it appears in English in 2004) has a main character who is a German ex-lawyer turned translator, living in France. Continue reading →

Lex Scripta is an Australian law portal (Essential Web Links for Queensland Lawyers). It’s the link of the week at the University of Saarbrücken (German). Lex Scripta contains a large number of links of wide interest. It’s opening page includes a Google search of AustLII (I did a quick search on ‘kangaroo’ and got 1085 hits, but I admit this was superficial of me). The site describes itself as follows:

bq. Lex Scripta, as the name implies, is intended primarily as a guide to finding Leges Scriptæ – written legal reference resources – wherever they exist on the Internet. But it is much more than a catalogue or index of legal reference sites. Through the links found on this site, practising members of the legal profession, as well as legal academics and students, should be able to locate any web-based resource likely to be useful in the course of their daily work.

and it says it is of interest to laypersons as well as to lawyers.

Perhaps it bears repeating that AustLII is the Australasian Legal Information Institute, a first-class portal for Australian and New Zealand law that aims to link all freely available statute and case law and has been copied, but not bettered, by BAILII (Britain and Ireland), CanLII (Canada), HKLII (Hong Kong), PacLII (Pacific Islands) and WorldLII (the world).