Internet directories/Internet-Firmendatenbanken

I have just phoned Kelly in London, since they ignore my emails and I don’t want to get a ‘personal login’. Now they may understand that I don’t sell curtains or tables. The woman promised me that my address will be removed – it was added as a freebie for me. I can’t help thinking it’s just to increase web traffic for them, but one of my visitors was referred by that site and may have been looking for ‘Curtain accessories / Tables / Tables, Coffee / Tables, Dining’. My business name was ‘Margaret Marks legal and other translations and legal translation weblog’. The woman seemed most convinced by my statement, ‘If the worst comes to the worst, I will just have to live with it and simply refuse to sell anyone any tables’. The removal of my address will ‘go live in the next ten to fourteen days’.

Kellysearch listete mich vor ein paar Jahren als Verkäuferin von Vorhangzubehör und Tischen. Zwei E-Mails haben nicht geholfen, aber vielleicht ein Telefonat heute.

Integration

verb_051117w.jpg

Germany’s new government, like the old one, emphasizes that foreigners should be integrated. This picture shows two successfully integrated foreigners from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. They both have to wear local dress and the German national beard. It looks a bit like a Manfred Deix, but it can’t be, because he’s Austrian.

“Underneath Their Robes” covers up/US Blawg verschwindet

Sadly, Underneath Their Robes has gone under cover (I’ve quoted it a couple of times and if I’d got round to tidying up my blogroll, it would have stayed).

The New York Times persuaded the author to out himself:

bq. Soon after The New Yorker magazine disclosed on Monday that its author was not, as the blog claimed, a female lawyer at a big firm with a taste for gossip and luxury goods, but rather a male federal prosecutor in Newark, the site disappeared behind a password-protected virtual wall.
Judges and their law clerks made up much of the site’s readership, and several said yesterday that they had found its mixture of judicial celebrity sightings and over-the-top commentary irresistible.

This has been widely commented elsewhere, as Google reveals. Good information at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground.

Now we’ll have to rely on The Anonymous Lawyer for humour with a touch of reality. Since he’s long since been outed, it must be safe.

(Via Law, My Life and More)

Books for translators / Englische Bücher für Übersetzer

Multilingual Matters publish books and journals for translators and interpreters. They have addresses in Britain and the USA, or you can order from their website at a 20% discount.

I wasn’t aware of them before, but they have some authors I’ve heard of.

There is now a fourth revised edition, for instance, of Geoffrey Samuelsson-Brown’s A Practical Guide for Translators, which is good (have only seen earlier editions).

I would be tempted by Josef F. Buenker’s The Interpreter’s Guide to the Vehicular Accident Lawsuit, but since I am unlikely to have anything to do with a U.S. case of this kind, I will give it a miss. There is also a book on translation into Scots (Frae Ither Tongues, edited by Bill Findlay), a couple of Newmarks – some of these authors have been taken over from other publishers.

I got this information from a flyer in the ITI Bulletin. The website is full of a wider range of books, and if you click on Topics in Translation or Translating Europe, you don’t see these books. To find the books of interest to translators and interpreters, you need to click on Subject – Translation or Subject – Interpretation or you will never find the book for the 20% online discount!

Don’t forget St. Jerome Publishing, though. They will have to be very good to compete with them. Any opinions on the potential of Contemporary Translation Theories, by Edwin Gentzler of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, at Multilingual Matters? This is a revised 2nd edition, so it must be known. But St. Jerome Publishing has a series of books on theory too.

Multi-urn patent/Familienbegräbnis

In Berlin Blawg, Dennis Sevriens shows part of a patent application for an urn with four compartments (including the diagram).

In this way, the cry ‘Mit ihm ist ein guter Anwalt gestorben’ could be replaced by ‘Mit ihm sind drei gute Anwälte gestorben’, although perhaps only following a big law firm’s works outing.

The patent application was made by Hannelore Krug, Sascha Krug and Tanja Krug, so there should be room for one more.

Confessions of a Kudoz points grabber/Ein KudoZ-Held stellt sich seinen Kritikern

This is fun – Mats Wiman, total points at www.proz.com 16,013, writes Confessions of a ‘Kudoz point grabber’.

bq. If one is at all curious and if one wants to learn it is almost impossible to withstand the challenge put on one’s table by a person in need. It is impossible because there is always that chain of thoughts:
“Of course the answer must be….! On reflection, one could also say…., or is it possible to use….?
Let’s check it! Hm, that’s funny! Let’s check what YYY says. Hm, that’s interesting! Let’s see what Google says! Hm, maybe XXX is right after all. I think I’ll call my friend at SKF. That’s it. I knew it was something special. etc. etc.”

I must admit to being a KudoZ addict myself, although what goes into the glossary is not always good. But answering the questions is more addictive than doing a crossword puzzle.

New Spanish translation blogs/Neue spanische Übersetzungsblogs

Carlos Ferrero Martín links to new(ish) translation blogs:

365 traducciones: José Luis Justes Amador, in Mexico, publishes a poem a day, with its translation into Spanish.

Internet: un nuevo mundo
: Gloria Fiorani, a student of translation in Italy (Italian and Spanish)

Traduciendo el mundo: Jelen, a student of translation in Madrid

Versión Original: Eva Ruiz, a translator and interpreter who specializes in subtitles, voice-overs and dubbing)

TraduBits is in Catalan: Josep Tarrés has been blogging for a bit longer.

(Thanks to Trevor on the Night of the Tarantula)