N24 quotes FAS (via vowe.net):
bq. Reporter: Mr. Lucas, könnten Sie bitte noch einmal den entscheidenden Satz wiederholen?
George Lucas: May the force be with you.
Simultanübersetzer [sic]: Am 4. Mai werden wir bei dir sein.
Wortfeld, usually a German-language blog, has an entry in English describing the background to Schröder’s announcement of autumn elections. There are a large number of links.
As Alexander rightly says, the coverage of German matters in the English-language press is often not very good (and vice versa of course).
bq. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and SPD chairman Franz Müntefering have announced their intention to hold early elections. However, German constitutional law doesnt make that as easy as in many other countries. Article 68 of Germanys Basic Laws allows the (otherwise relatively powerless) President to dissolve the Bundestag if the Chancellor loses a vote of confidence. However, Schröders coalition holds 306 of currently 603 seats, so Schröders troops would have to lose deliberately. Helmut Kohl did that in 1982, with early elections in early 1983 instead of late 1984. The Constitutional Court wasnt too happy with this creative approach (full decision in German), but ultimately didnt stop it (and will not do so this time), since all Bundestag parties agreed.
The Mail on Sunday reports that a French woman received a kidney of Princess Diana’s in Toulouse in 1997 and is now peppering her conversation with fragments of English. There are a number of suspicious elements to the story, however.
bq. “I found myself speaking English to my friends, something I don’t normally do because I have no reason to,” she says. “I cannot explain why I did this.”
bq. Is this evidence of a fanciful nature, or an indication she had indeed received an organ from an English-speaker? Improbable though it sounds, there are many documented accounts of organ recipients taking on characteristics of their donors. …
bq. Scientists have termed this phenomenon ‘cellular memory’. Professor Candice Pert, a molecular biologist, believes every cell has its own mind and, if transplanted, the cells of the first body carry messages into the second body.
I think Stephen King must have done something on this.
taz: ‘Peer und Er – Der Untergang’.
The Observer: ‘Well, Sith happens …’ (on Star Wars III)
Here it is in German, with links to all other languages.
We don’t talk of translation here – all versions of the EU directives are original legal texts. But this is odd:
in Erwägung nachstehender Gründe:
(1) Spargel ist in Anhang I der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 2200/96 als eines der Erzeugnisse aufgeführt, für die Normen festzulegen sind.Whereas:
(1) asparagus are among the products listed in Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 for which standards must be adopted.
And again later:
The condition of the asparagus must be such as to enable them:
Asparagus is treated as a plural! But what about this?
Asparagus is graded into three classes defined below:
In fact, plural and singular use are mixed. This means that a number of lawyers drafting legislation for the EU are capable of writing a text without being consistent as to whether the main term is singular or plural. Why am I not surprised?
The OED has no illustrations of this, although others seem to want to count.
I see asparagus as a mass noun/uncountable. German has Spargel, but counts as Spargelstangen and Spargelköpfe.
And here’s some of the important bit:
Die Spargelstangen werden nach ihrer Färbung in vier Gruppen eingeteilt:
1. weißer Spargel;
2. violetter Spargel: der Spargelkopf muß eine rosa bis violettpurpurne und ein Teil der Spargelstange muß eine weiße Färbung aufweisen;
3. violett-grüner Spargel: Spargel mit teilweise violetter und grüner Färbung;
4. Grünspargel: der Spargelkopf und der größte Teil der Spargelstange müssen eine grüne Färbung aufweisen.
Diese Norm gilt nicht für Grünspargel und violett-grünen Spargel mit einem Durchmesser von weniger als 3 mm und für weißen und violetten Spargel mit einem Durchmesser von weniger als 8 mm, der in einheitlichen Bündeln oder Packstücken abgepackt ist.Asparagus shoots are classified into four groups according to colour:
1. white asparagus;
2. violet asparagus, having tips of a colour between pink and violet or purple and a part of the shoot white;
3. violet/green asparagus, part of which is of violet and green colouring;
4. green asparagus having tips and most of the shoot green.
This standard does not apply to green and violet/green asparagus of less than 3 mm diameter and white and violet asparagus of less than 8 mm diameter, packed in uniform bundles or unit packages.
Sometimes, in bookshops in Erlangen and Nuremberg, I’ve seen CD-ROMs with a German-English economics dictionary by one Winfried Honig, who calls himself Mr Honey. He can be found by Google and investigated further.
One of his dictionaries is online as part of Project Gutenberg: Mr Honey’s First Business Dictionary (2001, 2002). Apparently his work has been fed into LEO too, so maybe this is superfluous. Apparently he taught at the Fachhochschule Nürnberg for 25 years.
In the 1970s Winfried Honig, known as Mr Honey, started compiling and
computerizing English/German dictionaries, partly to provide his
colleagues and students with samples of the language of business,
partly to collect convincing material for his State Department of
Education to illustrate the need for special dictionaries covering
the special language used in different branches of the industry.In 1997 Mr Honey began to feed his wordlists into the LEO Online
Dictionary http://dict.leo.org of the Technische Universität München,
and in 2000 into the DicData Online Dictionary http://www.dicdata.deWhile more than 500.000 daily visitors use the online versions,
CD-ROM versions are available, see: http://www.leo.org/dict/cd_en.html
http://www.dicdata.de http://mrhoney.purespace.de/latest.htm
Mr. Honey would be pleased to answer questions sent to
winfried.honig@online.de.
Permission granted to use the word-lists, on condition that links to
the sites of LEO, DICDATA and MR HONEY are maintained.
Mr Honey’s services are non-commercial to promote the language of
business both in English and in German.
Here’s a sample:
gezeichnetes Kapital subscribed capital
gezogene auf die eröffnende Bank drawn on the issuing bank
gilt als is deemed to be
girieren endorse
Girogläubiger creditor by endorsement
Girokonto (US) checking account
Girosystem cheque system
Gläubiger creditor
Gläubigerausschuss board of creditors
Gläubigerausschuss committee of creditors
gleich equal
gleichartig similar
gleiches Akkreditiv similar credit
gleichlautend in conformity
gleichlautende Abschrift true copy
Gliederung der Ausgaben classification of expenditures
Glücksspiel gambling
Glücksspiel game of chance
GmbH