On the pt mailing list (for German translators, at Yahoo), Silvia Grabler recommended this site where Upper Austrian dialect terms are collected. Here’s a sample:

Heilezn: alles was glatt ist (Glatteis, nasses Laub…)
Heisl: Toilette
Henagschroa: Hühnergeschrei
Henamek: McChicken
Heni: Honig
Herast: Herbst
herumbandeln: trödeln
Hetschepetsch: Hagebutte
hifia: vorwärts
himlötzen: blitzen
himmlizn: Blitze ohne Donner, Wetterleuchten
hinfallerde Krankheit: Epilepsie
Hoagneissi: steiles Feld, mühsam zu bearbeiten
hoamli: leise, heimlich, geheim
Hoarbea: Heidelbeere
Hoagochtnbeng: Garten-, Hausbank
Hoawa: Heidelbeere
Höbahl: kleine Bank zwischen Küchenherd und Mauer
hob die stad: halt still
Hodan: Fetzen auch schlechte Kleidung
Hödeidl: Lausmädchen
Hodidl: Neunmalklug
Hödün: Obergeschoß
Hogistecka: Gehstock
Hoibaobend: später Nachmittag

There’s a map showing Oberösterreich on the site on the webcams page.

In an entry on translators, iggy in Blogalization links to a profile of Bill Porter in the Fort Wayne News Sentinel. Porter dropped out of college and spent 20 years in Taiwan as a virtual hermit.

My reaction to the piece hovers between wanting to simplify the way I live and wondering whether to believe the slight air of bullshit.

bq. Who says monks can’t be Mariners fans?

bq. “He’s a completely refreshing soul,” said Porter’s friend, the writer and fellow Buddhist Gretel Ehrlich, who lives on the Northern California coast.

bq. When it’s cold, Porter will don his knit, black monk’s cap, a reminder of his Buddhist roots. His daily routine starts with an hour of meditation but ends with an episode of “The Simpsons.”

bq. In between, Porter usually takes walks along the beach, soaks in a hot bath, naps, relaxes with some tea and cooks dinner for his two kids, William, 21, and Iris, 17. His wife spends much of her time with family in Taiwan.

Handakte WebLAWg reports that the EU commission has published a leaflet on competition in professional services. PDF file.
It doesn’t relate to translators but is nevertheless of interest.
Über Handakte WebLAWg: PDF-Datei mit dem Bericht der EU-Kommission zu Wettbewerb bei freiberuflichen Dienstleistungen. Es geht zwar nicht um Übersetzer, ist aber indirekt relevant.

Dirtgrain at Blogcritics.org writes about buying CDs with German beer drinking songs on them:

bq. Singing and screaming German beer drinking songs while on your way to work is a remarkably good way to lift your spirits for the day (note: not recommended for hung-over people or for those on the verge of the DTs). Filled with the power of German tradition and umpa rhythm, somehow making it through another day doesn’t seem so daunting.

bq. You don’t need to know how to speak German. The words of the German language are easy enough to make up. You mix a few mumbles and hums with an occasional “ü,”[sic] “-heit,” or “-ich,” and you will be right on par with the most famous of the bier garten singers. Of course, drinking a beer helps–with the singing and with the rest of your day.

However, the ‘singing is good for you’ finding by German scientists referred to is about singing in a church choir.

From Lifechanges … delayed on February 11th:

bq. This morning, the story that the radio awoke us with was about the British Library’s new Collect Britain website, and specifically the collection of English Accents and Dialects. The site features audio clips from the “Survey of English Dialects” and the “Millennium Memory Bank,” capturing regional variation in English language.

Also picked up by language hat and Trevor / kaleboel, and emailed to me by Tim Slater.

Northern English accents are online now.

I wasn’t aware that a new edition of what I know as the Kleiner Muret-Sanders, at least the DE>EN volume, had appeared. It’s dated November 2003 (the EN>DE volume came out in 2001).

Sample pages can be seen here. It appears that the old one (1984) is still listed, but at least the dust jacket is different. Does anyone think this is worth having? I use the old one quite a lot.

It says it has about 100 pages of appendices, for the first time including lists of famous works of world literature, classical music, ballet and opera (these things I would have expected in the Großer Muret-Sanders, aka Enzyklopädisches Wörterbuch).