bq. Am Sonntag gehen Vater und Sohn regelmäßig in den Sprachzoo. Dort schauen sie sich vom Aussterben bedrohte grammatische Phänomene an. Am liebsten mögen sie den Konjunktiv. Gerne hülfen sie ihm, denn sie haben Angst, er stürbe aus.

Zwiebelfisch im Spiegel Online

bq. “Spräche jeder so wie du, lieber Henry, schwämmen mir als Kolumnisten die Felle davon”, erwidere ich augenzwinkernd. “Schwämmen oder schwömmen?”, fragt Henry, und schon stecken wir mitten im Sumpf der unregelmäßigen Verben. “Büke der Bäcker sein Brot mit mehr Gefühl, verdürbe es nicht so schnell”, sagt Henry. “Spönnest du weniger, so stürbe ich nicht gleich vor Lachen!”, entgegne ich. “Hübe jeder seinen Müll auf, gewönne die Stadt an Lebenswert”, kontert Henry. “Gnade!”, rufe ich, “das ist ja nicht mehr auszuhalten! Hübe heißt es ganz bestimmt nicht*!” – “Das ist veraltet”, sagt Henry, “aber was alt ist, muss nicht gleich falsch sein. Kennte ich noch mehr alte Konjunktive, so würfe ich sie liebend gerne ins Gespräch ein!”

Even more important is the use of the two different subjunctive forms in reported speech – every journalist has to know them well.

Subjunctive is pretty rare in English now, slightly less so in the USA than in Britain. There are formulaic expressions like ‘God save the Queen’ (Gott schütze…, not, surprisingly enough, Gott rette…!), ‘Be that as it may’, there’s the hypothetical ‘If I were you’, although ‘If I was you’ is not wrong, just a stylistic choice, there’s the concessive subclause such as ‘…though the price be high’, and there’s the mandative (common in US English) ‘It is necessary that every member inform himself or herself of these rules’.

(via Kaltmamsell)

Another subject people sometimes get hot under the collar about is that of names of foreign cities. Perhaps it would be worth learning some factoids for the purposes of small talk, in view of the energy wasted on anger about people who say Tbilisi for what was once Tiflis, Beijing for Peking, Mumbai for Bombay, and in language hat’s case, Kyiv for Kiev (he also discusses Torino / Turin, but that seems less controversial).

Robin Stocks has given a good summary of the FAZ article on translators that appeared recently. As he writes, there has been some heated discussion on pt (Yahoo) as to whether it’s fair or unfair to translators. The article is in German and appeared in the careers section and its emphasis is on technical translations for industry, either by in-house translators or by solo freelances, although the freelances interviewed appear to be running agencies, and the article does not distinguish the two.

Robin points out that the story of a mistranslation reported by one of the translators interviewed is reported the wrong way round. He also summarizes the reactions to the article on pt.

The BBC reports: Canny Scots create muckle archive.

It’s St. Andrew’s Day, of course.

‘The Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech (SCOTS) has been put together by the University of Glasgow and has taken three years to compile. Comprising 400 texts from Broad Scots to Scottish English, it is thought to be the largest work of its kind. Its creators want to use it to capture the country’s rich linguistic, historical and cultural background.’

Anonymous Lawyer is a wonderful read. I don’t know why I haven’t linked to it before. I have only read it sporadically too. Here’s some of the Thanksgiving post:

bq. I thought I would wish the people who read this a Happy Thanksgiving. I’m thankful that this year I finally don’t have to go to Anonymous Wife’s insipid relatives and give everyone at the table legal advice about their leaking implants, greedy creditors, or pending paternity suits. It takes all the fun out of the holiday. Instead, I’ll go to my brother’s house, tell everyone Anonymous Wife and Son are sick at home with the flu, and watch Aunt Fay eat an entire ham.

There’s a reference to a first-year associate who failed the Bar exams:

bq. She cried when she found out. Apparently she cried even more when she got called into a partner’s office (not me) and screamed at. People who fail the bar leave pretty quickly, even if they pass the second time. You don’t want to be known as the one who failed the bar. You need a fresh start. Of course, even with a fresh start, if you failed the bar, it’s not like you aren’t going to screw something else up eventually, so the fresh start doesn’t last very soon. And, pretty soon, you’re working for the government. Where everyone failed the bar.

This is, of course, semi-fictional, but the basis is quite real. Notes from the (Legal) Underground says Anonymous Lawyer wants to write a book but AL’s entry suggesting this was felt by his regular readers to be out of character. Well, I would read that book – I might even buy it.

Evan Schaeffer describes Anonymous Lawyer’s blog here.

The monthly LLRX update is out. There are three Powerpoint files: one on corporate blogging looks particularly useful, one on marketing and one on spam, phishing and Net fraud.
Day-to-day news appears in the right-hand column.

Anyone who’s new to LLRX should browse the resources on comparative, foreign and international law.