German officialese/Amtsdeutsch

Udo recently posted a lovely piece of German correspondence:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
In der vorstehenden Sache erhalten Sie unter Bezugnahme auf Ihr Schreiben vom 2. April 2004 anliegend eine Ablichtung der in dieser Sache ergangenen Schlusskostenrechnung zur gefl. Kenntnisnahme übersandt.
Mit vorzüglicher Hochachtung
W. Justizamtsinspektor

(Dear Sir or Madam,
With reference to your letter of 2 April 2004 in the above matter, please find attached a photocopy of the final bill of costs in this matter for your esteemed attention.
Your humble servant
W. Justizamtsinspektor)

I occasionally have to translate this sort of thing. The biggest problem is understanding it. The comments are fun too. The entry is headed gepflegt, but I don’t think zur gefl. Kenntnisnahme means gepflegt. I thought it was geflissentlich, but some commenters think it is gefällig (in one case this is based on the strange claim that there is a P in geflissentlich). Nor do I think Udo thinks it means gepflegt – his title refers to a refined or cultured way of expressing oneself, and seems to be somewhat ironic. Some commenters didn’t even know the word Ablichtung for copy – it’s more common than they think!

Google doesn’t help much. The very large Duden großes Wörterbuch der dt. Sprache has often helped me with Amtsdeutsch. On geflissentlich it has

(Amtsdt. veraltet) freundlich, gefällig (bes. in der Fügung): zur gefälligen Kenntnisnahme

For gefällig it mentions the abbreviation gefl., though.

I see I’m repeating myself so refer to an earlier entry on Juristendeutsch and to an Amtsdeutsch site in Austria. A lot of it consists just of legal terms, but here for example:

hieramts
Der Begriff “hieramts” ist gleichbedeutend mit beim/im Amt.

The same site also has a copy of Thaddäus Troll’s Rotkäppchen auf Amtsdeutsch.

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