BBC News reports:

bq. An American woman has been left with a British accent after having a stroke.
This is despite the fact that Tiffany Roberts, 61, has never been to Britain. Her accent is a mixture of English cockney and West Country.

Apparently the first case of this kind occurred in Norway in 1941, where a woman recovered from shrapnel injuries to the head with a German accent – not popular at the time.

From Desbladet
There’s an article at Oxford University with a before and after audio example of another case. It says:

bq. The kind of accent a patient develops is not dependent on any knowledge of a particular foreign language. It is rather the combination of certain changed features such as lengthening of syllables, altered pitch, or mispronouned sounds, which make a patient’s pronunciation sound similar to a particular foreign accent.

Another article is at the Science Blog, a rather interesting community effort.

I know someone else blogged this, and said: how did they know the accent was British? It must have been someone British and facetious (is that possible?) I will acknowledge it later if it comes back to me.
LATER NOTE: of course, it was Ciaran on CompuServe, followed by Wil and Paul. Thanks!

The Belgian version of Expatica reports this tale. The dead man’s family are suing the undertakers for negligence, if I understand it right. (Sources: Brian’s Culture Blog, via Samizdata.net, ultimately from Dave Barry.

Expatica is a series of papers based in various European countries, written in English, for expats (whatever they are). I sometimes look at the German one. It seems to have an American slant.

Jurawiki calls the clauses that are sometimes attached to emails Angstklauseln (anxiety clauses), and it appears the term is used by others too. They seem to be called disclaimers in English, although they aren’t just disclaimers – they sometimes tell you not to read them (rather like the test messages people send to mailing lists saying ‘Test – please do not read’.

There’s also a big collection here. Both links from AdvobLAWg via The New Joerg Times.

Jurawiki also links to another meaning of Angsklausel:

bq. Angstklausel lautet ein Vermerk, durch den der Aussteller des Wechsels seine Haftung für die Annahme und der Indossant (Aussteller eines Wechsels) seine Haftung für die Annahme und Zahlung ausschließen (so genannte sine obligo, Art.9 II WG, Art. 15 I WG).

Zahn calls this escape clause, non-liability clause, or clause permitting a party to avoid liability.

The Internet has more such collections. For instance, stupid email disclaimers, with links, including one to a site advocating the use of these disclaimers; The Register’s longest email disclaimer award. Here is more information in English.

And this is all to say nothing of fax disclaimers…

I’ve been translating an Austrian case which came with a summary in English. Here, Geschäftspartner is translated as business partner. I am using the other party. I asked myself yet again if I am being too fussy here. In English, a partner is someone you work together with, either in a partnership or on some kind of venture, whereas Geschäftspartner in this case means the other party to a contract. Of course, the other party is a more cumbersome expression than business partner, but at least it makes sense.

I had a brief look in Google, and I found support for my point of view. There was a partner on a Netherlands site, and some British sites given advice on partnership. I didn’t look very long.

I consulted some EU sources and found three hits for counterparty. That was new to me. But I discovered it has a specific meaning in business, in swap contracts.

I followed the EthicalEsq? weblog for a few weeks until it unfortunately closed, for health reasons, on October 11th, after only 19 weeks in existence. However, the archives are still there and still worth reading.

The last-but-two entry was on the popular quotation ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers’ and about respect for lawyers in general.

It is argued by lawyers in the USA that this quote is taken out of context and is really pro-lawyers – here is Howard Troxler of the St. Petersburg Times (link from EthicalEsq?):

bq. Lastly, for the record, so lawyers will quit accusing me of being ignorant, I am perfectly aware of the context of the original “kill the lawyers” quote. It comes from Shakespeare (2 Henry VI, Act IV, Scene 2), in which there is a conspiracy to establish a dictatorship.
The plotters are boasting about how they will make everybody bow down to them. That is when one of the conspirators chimes in, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” His goal was to destroy the law, so that the citizens would have no legal protection. I admit this freely.

However, EthicalEsq? says, this is mistaken: history and Shakespeare saw the lawyers in this case as protecting a corrupt establishment.

The American Translators Association held its annual conference at Phoenix, Arizona two weeks ago. Large numbers of photographs are available at the ATA site.

(LATER NOTE: the photographs are of the Atlanta conference in 2002 – sorry about that)

There was also media coverage, in particular on the topic of the U.S. government’s new National Virtual Translation Center (apparently the translators are real). The director of the NVTC, Everette Jordan, gave a keynote address on the subject at the conference. Video and audio clips are available at www.atanet.org/media. Downloading is apparently recommended. To quote Kevin Hendzel on Compuserve:

DESCRIPTION OF TELEVISION COVERAGE:

1. TV interview with ATA President Tom West on Fox News TV (national) ednesday November 5.
2. TV interview with ATA PR Committee Co-Chair Kevin Hendzel, NBC TV (Phoenix) Thursday November 6.
3. TV coverage with short comments by Kevin Hendzel and Everette Jordan, including conference shots, ABC and CBS TV (Phoenix).
4. TV interview with Everette Jordan, CNN Live, Sunday morning November 8 (Phoenix).
5. TV coverage with short comments by Kevin Hendzel and Everette Jordan, CNN Headline News national and international (rebroadcast all Sunday evening.)
6. TV coverage on local CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox affiliates in 21 national markets taken from CNN coverage.

__________________________________________

DESCRIPTION OF RADIO COVERAGE:

1. Radio interview on NPR Radio Marketplace (national) on Friday November 7 with Kevin Hendzel.
2. Radio interview on Radio America (national) on Saturday November 8 with Kevin Hendzel.
3. Radio coverage of conference, quotes by Everette Jordan on KFNN, KFYI and KTAR radio (Phoenix).