For translation see below.
Von/from Kant für Anfänger. Die Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Eine Lese-Einführung von/by Ralf Ludwig, dtv 1995, ISBN 3-423-31035-x

|4.55|Wecken durch den Diener Lampe mit den Worten: “Es ist Zeit!”|
|5.00|Aufstehen. Frühstück: keines, nur zwei Tassen schwacher Tee und eine Pfeife Tabak zur Anregung des Darmes. Erstes Arbeiten in Schlafrock, Pantoffeln und Nachtmütze, wahrscheinlich für die folgende Vorlesungstätigkeit.|
|7 – 9|Vorlesungstätigkeit, inzwischen in vollständiger Garderobe.|
|9-12.45|Hauptarbeitszeit für die Abfassung seiner Bücher, wieder im Hausmantel.|
|12.45|Umkleiden, Empfang der Tischgäste im Arbeitszimmer, wieder in vollständiger Garderobe.|
|13-16|Ausgedehntes Mittagessen im Speisezimmer mit geladenen Freunden, die einzige Mahlzeit am Tag. Lieblingsspeise: Kabeljau, stets eine Flasche Rotwein “Medoc”, manchmal auch Weißwein. Die Tafel wird eröffnet mit dem stereotypen “Nun, meine Herren!”|
|16|Kant geht spazieren, immer allein. Er nimmt, von einer Änderung abgesehen, immer den gleichen Weg. Die Königsberger Bürger, so wird gerne erzählt, stellen die Uhr nach ihm.|
|Abends|Lesetätigkeit, “leichte” Lektüre, bevorzugt Reisebeschreibungen.|
|22|Strengste Bettruhe.|

|4.55|Woken by his servant, Lampe, with the words ‘It’s time!’|
|5.00|Gets up. No breakfast apart from two cups of weak tea and a pipeful of tobacco to stimulate the bowels. Starts work in nightdress, slippers and nightcap, probably preparing lectures for later. |
|7 – 9|Lectures at the university, now fully dressed.|
|9-12.45|Main period for writing books, in dressing-gown again.|
|12.45|Changes his clothes, receives his dinner guests in his study, again fully dressed.|
|13-16|Extended lunch/dinner in the dining room with invited guests, Kant’s only meal of the day. Favourite food: cod; always with a bottle of Médoc red wine, sometimes white wine as well. The meal begins with the stereotypical formula, ‘Now, gentlemen!’|
|16|Kant goes for a walk, always alone. With the exception of one change, he always follows the same route. The citizens of Königsberg, it is often reported, set their clocks by him. |
|Abends|Reading, ‘light’ reading matter, preferably travel reports. |
|22|Bed; strictest rest.|

Desbladet has temporarily abandoned K for Knudella for K for Kant (does Knudella mean anything? It sounds like ‘knuddelig’, but she doesn’t look very cuddly).

You could also read Professor Sharon Byrd on Kant, when you’ve finished reading her on Anglo-American law and language.

Corp Law Blog discusses the design of contract clauses. The trigger was an entry in Professor Bainbridge’s blog. This is the kind of thing discussed:

bq. The real lesson is, of course, to:
a) think,
b) draft and
c) speak
in clearly identified clauses.

Incidentally, my German students had difficulty understanding something slightly different, which Germans don’t do: parallel structures after either/or etc. (I add the divisions only as an aid to understanding – there should be no ‘(a)’ and so on).

We will go either on a) Friday,
b) Saturday, or
c) Sunday.

We will either a) go on Friday,
b) go on Saturday, or
c) go on Sunday.

That’s to say, the structure after the either/or is like the bits in the brackets in algebra.

Meanwhile, a number of books have hit the German market on how to draft contracts. And the latest edition of the German law students’ periodical justament has an article on Vertragsgestaltung (drafting contracts). Here’s a review of Wolfgang Däubler’s recent Verhandeln und Gestalten.

Can anyone tell me why I can’t write a c between two brackets/parentheses without it being converted into a copyright sign (c)? I will just have to leave one bracket away. I know how to switch that off in Microsoft Word, but is this html or Movable Type?
LATER NOTE: have removed one bracket as the MT-Textile plugin was converting my c’s to (c)’s.

I have uploaded a file: an article by Justice Richard Chesterman that originally appeared in the Queensland Bar News. Justice Chesterman gave me permission to upload the file (it’s a PDF file). This permission was forwarded by Ian Hanger QC, the original McKenzie friend.

Download file

A McKenzie friend is someone, who may or may not be a lawyer, who assists an unrepresented litigant in court.

I made earlier entries on the topic, on June 3rd, June 8th and November 6th 2003, and was very excited when the true McKenzie friend wrote a comment!

There are two recent comments under the November 6th entry from Australians asking questions I can’t answer.

I have other files to upload, and I will eventually put a link in the margin.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that a lawyer in Düsseldorf, Frank-Georg Pfeifer, has produced a leaflet called ‘Augen auf beim Hauskauf’ (Keep your eyes open when you buy a house).

bq. „Augen auf beim Hauskauf“ von Rechtsanwalt Frank-Georg Pfeifer, 2,50 Euro, Haus & Grund Deutschland – Verlag und Service GmbH, Mohrenstraße 33, 10117 Berlin, Telefon: (030) 2 02 16-0, Fax: (030) 2 02 16-580, E-Mail: verlag@haus-und-grund.net.

The problems are similar to those in English. Pfeifer says you should pay less attention to what ads say and more to what they don’t say. Here are some translations of his:

|Landhausbauweise| Ausgebauter Geräteschuppen |
|(country house building style| a shed with extensions)|
| Seriöses Umfeld | Bankenviertel, abends tote Gegend |
|(respectable surroundings| banking district, dead at night)|
| idyllische Hanglage | Feuchtigkeit gratis |
|(idyllic site on a slope| damp at no extra charge)|
| Traumhafter Blick über Pferdekoppeln und Weideland |Von Straßen keine Rede; glücklich der Erwerber, der über einen Geländewagen verfügt. |
|(Fantastic view over horse paddocks and pastureland|no roads mentioned – count yourself lucky if you have a Land Rover)|

The BBC offers the equivalent for Britain: Estate agent speak: a dictionary.

bq. Benefits From: Contains a feature you may expect to be the bare minimum for the extraordinary price you are paying.
Example: “Benefits from roof, floors, walls”.

bq. Bijou: Would suit contortionist with growth hormone deficiency.

bq. Borders: Loose term signifying that a property is sufficiently close to a desirable area to ensure the burglars who live next door to you will travel to work.
Example: “Fidel Castro’s house is situated in the highly desirable Bahamas Borders area”.

On the pt Yahoo translators group (German), once again the question has been asked: ‘What does SS mean?’ I want to summarize the problem here so I have a summary for next time.

Bedeutung der U.S.-amerikanischen Abkürzung SS in Rechtstexten – oft wird danach gefragt, ganz sicher weiß es niemand. Ich will das Problem hier schildern, damit ich das nächste Mal auf diesen Eintrag verweisen kann.

1. My latest belief is what Bryan Garner says in Dictionary of Modern
Legal Usage: that it was entered once in error and then copied
again and again over the centuries. Garner, in his , says it comes from a flourish in the Year Books (unofficial law reports from 1282 to 1537). Example from Garner:

District of Columbia, ss.:
John Rand, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he has read the foregoing bill by him subscribed and knows the contents…

(John Rand, nachdem er beeidigt wurde, gibt eidlich zu Protokoll, dass er das vorhergehende Schriftstück, das von ihm unterschrieben ist, gelesen hat und dessen Inhalt kennt…)

1. Neuerdings glaube ich Garner, in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. Er sagt, Anwälte in den USA haben sich lange gefragt, was es bedeutet. Es erscheint oft auf der ersten Seite einer eidlichen Erklärung (affidavit). Eigentlich ist es ein Schnörkel, ähnlich dem Absatzzeichen ¶. Ein Gerichtsberichterstatter hat es in einem Sammelband benutzt und andere habe es kopiert.

Garner cites Lord Hardwicke: ‘The word ss., I verily believe, was not originally meant to the county [sic], but only a denotation of each section of paragraph in the record. ‘ An early formbook writer incorporated it into his forms, and ever since it has been mindlessly perpetuated by one generation after another.

Andere mögliche Bedeutungen/other possible meanings:
2. supra scriptum (vorhergehend – steht neben der Unterschrift) / written above – this stands beside the signature.
3. scilicet: “nämlich” (normalerweise als scil. oder sc. abgekürzt – aber viele Abkürzungen, die man als Übersetzer antrifft, sind “falsch” / ‘namely, to wit’, usually abbreviated as scil. or sc..
4. “signum sigilli” (Zeichen des Siegels)/ sign of the seal
[Ich kenne locus sigilli, Ort des Siegels, und das scheint ausreichend / Locus sigilli, place of the seal, definitely exists).
5. “signed and sealed” (passt aber nicht im Kopf des Schriftsatzes)/ Seals are not that common in the USA, and the tradition British equivalent was ‘signed, sealed and delivered’, although the seal is now no longer required.

Someone referred to this thread.

Wenn 1 oder 3 stimmt, dann kann das SS. in der deutschen Übersetzung weggelassen werden.

If answer 1 or 3 is correct (or seems to work!), the SS. can be left out in the German translation.

Bei ProZ wurde das Problem auf Russisch diskutiert, was mir nicht weiterhilft.

ProZ has a discussion of it in Russian, but I can’t understand Vladimir’s winning reply.

LATER NOTE: I am copying here the comment made by Mark on language hat’s site, where a discussion has developed:

According to my father, a law professor, “It’s the preamble to an affidavit, which is a sworn statement made under penalties of perjury before a notary or an officer of the court of that state. The party signing the document has Stated and Sworn in said county whatever is written in the document.”

I don’t think there’s any dispute as to what an affidavit is (I think ‘sworn’ and ‘under penalty of perjury’ mean the same thing). But ‘stated and sworn in X county’ does make sense. It depends on the context. I don’t think it’s always affidavits it’s on.

I regularly use the JIPS portal (Juristisches Internetprojekt Saarbrücken) for German law at Saarbrücken, and I’d seen press releases translating summaries of court decisions, but I didn’t realize there was an English entrance page.

In fact if you enter via the JIPS portal, there are a number of language options to click on at the top of the screen, and the English one takes you to the English page, all translated by hand, whereas I’d assumed it was just a set of Babelfish-type machine translation options.

Here’s the introduction to the English page:

bq. Welcome to the English Section of the Law Web
“Law Web Saarbrücken” is a project coordinated by the the Institute of Law and Informatics (Institut für Rechtsinformatik) and is based at Saarland University (Universität des Saarlandes). From this page, English-speaking users are able to navigate around the project and take advantage of this comprehensive portal into contemporary legal affairs from Germany and around the world. The focus of the project is the application of computer technology in law, as well as the legal implications of information technology in society. The site also offers a broad overview of interesting articles or websites, making it an essential starting point for anyone with an interest in the law.

bq. Of particular interest to English speakers are Link of the Week and News. Both items deal with current occurrences in the legal world that are selected by our Editorial team. Matthew Francis (University of Warwick) is responsible for the English translation of these items. Similarly, a selection of interesting German Press Releases have been translated by other members of the department. Any queries, comments or suggestions that are specific to the English Department of the Law Web are welcomed. Please do not hesitate to use our e-mail: jips-en@jura.uni-sb.de.