BILD-Gegendarstellung von 22. September.
BILD am 25. August: “EU schafft Deutsch ab”

Siehe BILDblog hier

bq. EU schafft Deutsch ab. Die EU-Kommission hat die Übersetzung ins Deutsche gestoppt. Grund: Dolmetscher seien durch die Ostereweiterung der EU überlastet. Die EU-Vorlagen und Ausschreibungen gibt es jetzt nur noch in englischer Sprache.

bq. EU removes German. The EU Commission has stopped translations into German. The reason: it says that interpreters [sic] are overburdened as a result of the enlargement of the EU eastwards. The EU documents and tenders are only available in English now.

und hier. Und am 15. September:

bq. Selbst als die EU-Kommission am 25. August eine einstweilige Verfügung erwirkte, die “Bild” zum Abdruck der Gegendarstellung verpflichtete, gab die Zeitung noch nicht auf und legte Widerspruch ein. Heute nun hat das Landgericht Berlin diesen Widerspruch abgewiesen.

bq. In der “F.A.Z.” sagte “Bild”-Chefredakteur Kai Diekmann, er drucke absurde Gegendarstellungen gerne, “weil sie zeigen, wie hier das Recht der Gegendarstellung im Kern mißbraucht wird.” Wir lernen: Weniger absurde Gegendarstellungen druckt er offenbar nicht so gerne.

Wobei es nicht nur bei BILD beliebt ist, Lügengeschichten über die EU zu verbreiten.

I’m very fond of these flat peaches that taste just like other white peaches.
Apparently in the USA they are called Saturn or Jupiter or doughnut (donut) peaches. What are they called in Germany?

The Washington State Fruit Commission says:

bq. Saturn™/flat peaches are a variety of white peach that were originally developed in Asia. Low in acid and high in soluble solids, this tender peach is perfect for consumers who appreciate a sweet finish to their tree fruit. Likewise, this peach gets its name because it is much flatter in height than traditional peaches, very similar to a donut…but much healthier!

There is absolutely no need to knock doughnuts. And how come Saturn is trademarked?

It has been pointed out to me by Anon. of Frankfurt am Main that, as with ‘curry’, German newscasters have difficulty pronouncing ‘Hurrikan’ or ‘hurricane’. Some pronounce it in an acceptable English way, but others produce a weird U sound as already commented on.

I see I am not the first on this terrain. Rocko, at the end of August, heard a presenter saying it in English and an expert saying it in German, and the presenter gradually adapted her pronunciation to his during the interview:

bq. Während die Moderatorin das Wort Hurrikan die ganze Zeit englisch aussprach (“Härrikäin” mit weichem R), sagte der Experte, der immerhin Professor war, nur immer Hurrikan. Mit “Hu” und “Kahn” und nicht mit “Hä” und “Käin”. Es war deutlich festzustellen, dass die Moderatorin im Laufe des Interviews ihre eigene Aussprechweise des Wortes an die des Experten anglich. Zuerst fing es damit an, dass sie das weiche “R” gegen ein härteres eintauschte. Es folgte ein “Härrikähn” ohne ein das Wort aufblähendes “i”. Dann, nach einem Videobeitrag, hat sie die Aussprechmöglichkeit des Meteorologen komplett übernommen. “Hurrikahn”.

The recommended pronunciation there is ‘Wirbelsturm’. Here is 2wei.net:

bq. Harriken? Hörriken? Harrikäin? — Es gibt erschreckend viele Möglichkeiten, die Bezeichnung für die amerikanischen Wirbelstürme auszusprechen. Der Name∞ entstammt übrigens einer Sprache amerikanischer Ureinwohner. Die erstgenannte ist wohl die mehr oder weniger offizielle Aussprache des Wortes “Hurrikan” im Deutschen (so mein Oxford-Duden-Wörterbuch). Im Englischen hingegen gibt es mindestens zwei Möglichkeiten …

LATER NOTE: No, it is an intermediate variant, where the vowel sounds more like an ö. Here is the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (first edition):

The standard American pronunciation comes after the double pipe ||. I admit the vowel looks weird (I am not an expert on phonetics). The asterisk is ‘a warning that the British and American pronunciations are different in an important and unpredictable way’. As you can see, there are at least two British pronunciations, of which I use the first. But I think, as with ‘curry’, that it’s the thought of the English R that causes the newsreader to produce a new sound.

The opera was great. It’s just as well I went, as I might have been the only Fürth blogger not to blog it (see zonebattler, with not only a good photo of something I only saw from the side, but he even knew where we were:

bq. Sei es vor dem Maschinenhaus, zwischen den Schwelöfen oder gar im riesigen Sortierbunker, die glücklose Fürther Müllschwelanlage gab dem zauberhaften Spektakel einen surreal-aberwitzigen Rahmen…

First act outside – what the pictures don’t bring out is that the singers were in the middle of the audience much of the time):

Act 2 inside:

Going up many stairs to act 3:

Act 4: 2 singers seen from below through a mesh floor. Some of the action also took place below us, seen through the same kind of mesh floor.

Encore:

Pocket Opera Company (DE/EN)
Purcell: The Fairy Queen / Bussotti: La Passion Selon Sade
CD
3 sets of Impressionen at left show good photos of the event

LOWERING THE BAR
Lawyer jokes and legal culture
Marc Galanter 430pp. | University of Wisconsin Press. $45; distributed in the UK by Eurospan. £32.95. | 0 299 21350 1

It’s obvious that many U.S. lawyer jokes aren’t specifically about the law, and Galanter apparently sets about researching their origins. Details from an article in the TLS:

bq. A certain sharpening in the jokes about lawyers came about when the profession
introduced hourly billing, from the 1960s onwards. Many of us will remember a billing joke, more than a century old, about the lawyer who demanded a fee “For waking up in the night and thinking about your case, $5”, later capped by the tale of a rival who charged “For crossing the street to talk to you, then discovering it wasn’t you at all, $125”. Galanter says that “Billing for thinking about the client while showering or engaging in other grooming activities is encouraged by many firms”.

Are there any German lawyer jokes? I think not. Lawyers are respected (although Galanter says the large number of jokes about lawyers also indicate a kind of respect). The topic is touched on in relation to the Netherlands:

bq. If this book is right, there are no lawyer jokes in Holland. “In civil law countries”, the author explains, “with their smaller number of lawyers and larger contingents of judges, lawyers do not seem to play an important part in the public imagination.” In the Netherlands they lack social influence. A Dutch sociologist is quoted as saying, “No need for jokes. The Dutch couldn’t care less”.

(Thanks very much to Isabella)

Email:

bq. Sehr geehrte Frau Kollegin, sehr geehrter Herr Kollege,
ich bin ebenfalls als Dolmetscher und Übersetzer (staatl. gepr. und vereidigt PL/RUS) tätig.
Auf diesem Wege bitte ich Sie um ein Kollegenangebot für die Übersetzung von gerichtlichen Unterlagen (Haftbefehl, Gesetzestexte) aus dem Deutschen ins Englische.
Der Umfang der deutschen Texte beträgt 7 Seiten (ca. 216 Normzeilen á 55 Zeichen).
Die betreffenden Unterlagen liegen im Original vor und werden als PDF-Datei per Email an Sie gesandt. Die Übersetzung soll als Word-Datei und als zwei beglaubigte Ausdrucke geliefert werden.
Ich bitte um ein umgehendes Angebot per Email unter Angabe:
1) des Preises in EUR pro Normzeile (55 Zeichen),
2) der Bearbeitungszeit,
3) der eigenen Referenzen (Information über Ihre Fachausbildung, Vereidigung etc. und über bearbeitete Übersetzungen vergleichbarer Texte),
Mit kollegialem Gruß

Die Trennung von Kirche und Staat ist nicht so deutlich in Deutschland. Vor der Weimarer Republik waren sie nicht so richtig getrennt, und seitdem gab es keinen absoluten Bruch.

Kommers, in The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany:

bq. In practice, however, the established churches have continued to enjoy a preferred position in society as past institutional arrangements persist into the present. The church tax is such an arrangement, as is the provision of the Weimar Constitution (Article 137 [5]) carried over into the Basic Law, which treats the main churches as corporate bodies under public law.

(Is the choice of ‘corporate bodies’ rather than ‘corporations’ for Körperschaften an American thing?)

Recorded for my own information: Internationaler Bund der Konfessionslosen und Atheisten e.V. on Privileges of the Churches: English Deutsch
IBKA site (International League of Non-Religious and Atheists … (non-religious what?))

bq. The German judiciary displays ecclesiastical-clerical influences. The Concordat of the German Reich from 1933 and the state concordats (Länderkonkordate) define the relationship between state and church in Germany. They are contradictory to the principle of the separation of church and state. As rehards the Catholic sphere, areas they were entered into on the basis of canon law, the Corpus Iuris Canonici (CIC). Quite evidently, some court judgements were made according to ancient ecclesiastical law. This includes judgements in connection with the “blasphemy clause” (Section 166, German Penal Code), the abortion clause (Section 218, German Penal Code), judgements regarding school prayer and church tax as well as judgements of industrial tribunals under the so-called Right of Tendency clause [Tendenzschutzparagraph; Tendenzschutz means that in media, and in other companies, which besides their economic interests (primarily) pursue intellectual or philosophical objectives (= Tendenz), the rights of the works councils are restricted. The lawmaker justifies this restriction with the supposedly necessary protection of the civil rights and liberties (i.e. freedom of the press) of those, who pursue the intellectual and philosophical objectives of the company; the translator].

bq. In der bundesdeutschen Rechtsprechung sind kirchlich-klerikale Einflüsse nachzuweisen. Das Reichskonkordat von 1933 sowie Länderkonkordate bestimmen das Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche in Deutschland. Sie widersprechen dem Trennungsgrundsatz. Für den katholischen Bereich sind sie auf der Grundlage des kanonischen Rechts, des Corpus Iuris Canonici (CIC) abgeschlossen worden. Es gibt Gerichtsurteile, bei denen ganz offensichtlich nach altem Kirchenrecht verfahren wurde. Zu erwähnen sind Urteile im Zusammenhang mit dem “Gotteslästerungs-Paragraphen” (§ 166 StGB), dem Abtreibungs-Paragraphen (§ 218 StGB), Urteile zu Schulgebet und Kirchensteuer, und Arbeitsgerichtsurteile nach dem so genannten Tendenzschutzparagraphen.

Russians from Tomsk visited the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds (near-ish Boston) to see how it’s done, reports the Daily News Transcript.

bq. Yelena Boltanova, a Tomsk State University law professor who was on the visit to Dedham, said her region didn’t open a land court until 1998.
Speaking to a reporter through a translator, she said the visit will help her professionally, so she can describe what she learned of the American system to her students. She said the visit will also help her region improve its still young land court system.
“This will help our experts in real estate draft new laws,” she said.

They spotted some weaknesses in the system at once:

bq. In explaining the local system, Norfolk County Land Court attorney Glen Buscher said in many of the older records, a property border was detailed by a scrivener, listing what bordered the property from each direction, such as a line of trees to the west or another property to the east.
“What happens if you cut down the trees?” asked one of the Russian visitors.

Here’s an article with some excellent illustrations explaining why digitizing the Index Map in the UK does not mean creating a cadastre. (Kataster in German Wikipedia)

CommonLII joins AUSTLII, BAILII et al.

(Via Delia Venables)