Heidi at HeiDeas collects linguistically relevant Simpsons jokes:

bq. Origins of English
Homer: English? Who needs that? I’m never going to England.

bq. Lisa tries to learn Italian. Milhouse, who has been covertly bilingual all this time, is her instructor.
Luigi comes up to Lisa and Milhouse in Little Italy.
Luigi: Mr. Milhouse — thanka gooddness! Could you trannzlate an helpa me my cheese for my lasagna
Lisa: But Luigi! Surely you speak Italian!
Luigi (sighs): No I don’t. I only speak ahh, how you say, um, fractured Englisha — that’s what my parents spoke at home.

Earlier HeiDeas Simpson post.

Thanks.

Times online: Law lords overturn school uniform ‘jilbab’ ruling

Unter den Umständen eine beruhigende Entscheidung. Die Schule hatte alles Mögliche gemacht, eine Kleiderpolitik einzuführen, die für alle Religionen annehmbar war.

Text of the decision (English)

From the summary of facts:

bq. In 1993 the school appointed a working party to re-examine its dress code. The governors consulted parents, students, staff and the Imams of the three local mosques. There was no objection to the shalwar kameeze, and no suggestion that it failed to satisfy Islamic requirements. The governors approved a garment specifically designed to ensure that it satisfied the requirement of modest dress for Muslim girls. Following the working party report the governors, in response to several requests, approved the wearing of head-scarves of a specified colour and quality.

bq. The respondent is Muslim. Her father died before she entered the school, and at the material times she lived with her mother (who did not speak English and has since died), a sister two years older, and a brother (Rahman), five years older, who is now her litigation friend. The family lived outside the school’s catchment area, but chose it for the respondent and her elder sister, and were told in clear terms of the school’s uniform policy. For two years before September 2002 the respondent wore the shalwar kameeze happily and without complaint. It was also worn by the respondent’s sister, who continued to wear it without objection throughout her time at the school.

bq. On 3 September 2002, the first day of the autumn term, the respondent (then aged nearly 14) went to the school with her brother and another young man. They asked to speak to the head teacher, who was not available, and they spoke to the assistant head teacher, Mr Moore. They insisted that the respondent be allowed to attend the school wearing the long garment she had on that day, which was a long coat-like garment known as a jilbab. They talked of human rights and legal proceedings. Mr Moore felt that their approach was unreasonable and he felt threatened.

Die Süddeutsche Zeitung (Wolfgang Koydl) hat Spaß im englischen Gericht. Dürfen ausländische Reporter übrhaupt englische Barrister als Beckmesser beschreiben?

Brown gegenüber stehen, gleichsam auf der europäischen Seite dieses Prozesses, kleinlich-penible Beckmesser, deren Äußeres freilich eher in einen Roman passen würden. Mit ihren Perücken und Roben scheinen Baldwin und Rayner James geradewegs einem Druck von Honoré Daumier entstiegen zu sein.

Richter Smith, der mit seinem kugeligen Kopf und dem Schnurrbart ein wenig an den Stummfilmkomiker Oliver Hardy erinnert, hat die Angewohnheit, seine Perücke vom Haar zu ziehen und sie ein paar Augenblicke lang hasserfüllt anzustarren, bevor er sie resigniert wieder auf das Haupt stülpt. Auch er, so scheint es, hat Momente, in denen ihn Zweifel an seinem Wirken in diesem Verfahren beschleichen.

Zur Beschreibung des Verfahrens:

Erahnen, aber nicht erkennen, denn die Situation im Gerichtssaal erinnert eher an eine Klausur in englischer Literatur denn an einen Megaprozess mit astronomisch hohen Einsätzen. Das mag daran liegen, dass britische Anwälte in Zivilverfahren geradezu aufreizend gesittet miteinander umgehen. Sie springen nicht theatralisch von den Bänken hoch und rufen „Einspruch, Einspruch Euer Ehren!“, wie man das aus Filmen kennt.

Ja, denn in den USA muss ein Einspruch im schriftlichen Transkript des Verfahrens stehen, sonst darf man den jeweiligen Punkt nicht im Rechtsmittelverfahren rügen.

Wenn John Baldwin, Browns Verteidiger, einen Einwand gegen eine Behauptung des Anklagevertreters Jonathan Rayner James vorzubringen hat, dann schraubt er sich eher widerwillig halb vom Sitz hoch und rückt dann befangen die Perücke zurecht, bevor er sich räuspernd mit einem schüchternen „Also eigentlich möchte ich sagen“ zu Wort meldet.

Das erinnert genau an eine Beschreibung in einem kurzen und kurzweiligen Buch zum Anwaltsverhalten in allen englischsprachigen Gerichten der Welt: The Language of Advocacy, von Keith Evans – ein Buch, das so gut ist, dass man es gleich nochmal kaufen möchte.

The Times has a law weblog. It looks as if it started on March 6. Writers are Edward Fennell, Gary Slapper, Mark Stephens and Alex Wade. Not many comments yet, but I haven’t checked if you have to register.

The most recent entry, by Gary Slapper, gives some support to the idea that Britain is not becoming more litigious, contrary to popular belief.

This is good. The Times online is usually very good at law (The Times has a law section every Tuesday), although one gathers it can’t always tell the difference between Germany and Belgium.

Neues österreichisches Verkehrszeichen

This is an additional sign Austria is attaching to 3,500 level crossings that have no protection other than a cross sign (Andreaskreuz – saltire), a stop sign and the whistle of the train. It tells them to listen out for the whistle. It’s not clear whether the sign can be understood by kangaroos.

Here’s someone who likes photographing these cross signs (in Germany).

The Highway Code on various types of level crossings.

bq. Open crossings
271: These have no gates, barriers, attendant or traffic lights but will have a ‘Give Way’ sign. You should look both ways, listen and make sure there is no train coming before you cross.

(via Michael Kadlicz but first reported by Ingmar Greil)

The company Lingo24 has three blogs online. I’ve added Christof’s blog to the blogroll.

Lamspringe: an English Abbey in Germany 1643-1803.
Edited by A. Cramer OSB, Saint Laurence Papers VII, Ampleforth 2004.
£24, direct from the Archivist, Ampleforth Abbey, York YO62 4EN: post free for sterling cheque with order. If you prefer to pay in Euros or US Dollars, please contact us by email.

I am not sure if this book is valuable to translators. It’s probably most interesting as part of the history of emigrés.

bq. The book is a solid work of scholarship, showing the learning traditional among the Benedictines, but not always able to surface.

I think I would have omitted that comma. The site of the village of Lamspringe mysteriously dates the Thirty Years’ War from 1618 to 1948, which gives a whole new meaning to Second World War.

bq. Der Dreißigjährige Krieg (1618-1948)
In den Wirren des 30jährigen Krieges hatten die Lamspringer viele Schrecknisse zu überstehen. Große Belastungen brachten häufige Einquartierungen. Nach der Schlacht bei Lutter am Barenberge 1626 besetzten versprengte Söldnergruppen den Ort, plünderten und brannten die Häuser nieder. Aus Furcht vor weiteren Überfällen versteckten sich die Ortsbewohner mit ihrer geringen Habe im Wald.

At all events, 21 monks and 12 boys and a monastery and school were ‘translated’ from Lamspringe to Ampleforth in 1803. (That site mentions coming from France in 1802, but no doubt this is lost in the mists of time). Before then, only English boys attended the Benedictine school in Germany.

Thanks to Ekkehard, who gave me this many years ago.

(Click picture to enlarge)

It was sunny yesterday – hard to imagine that now. Here is a self-portrait in the Stadtpark in early spring.

Not many people know this touching little monument donated by the local branch of the CSU, which is not old but has seen better days. In summer, it is surrounded by foliage.

According to the Boston Globe of March 18, the US government is putting Iraqi documents on the Web so the public can have a go at translating them.

bq. It’s the same ”open source” principle that drove the successful development of the Internet and of powerful free software like the Linux operating system. Instead of hiring a team of brilliant professionals to analyze Iraqi documents in secret, the open source systems will use hundreds of clever amateurs, who’ll publish their work for anyone to analyze and improve upon.

It sounds like Harry Potter fan translations but without the copyright problem.

bq. ”Workers control the means of production, but without all that tedious communism,” said Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and author of ”An Army of Davids,” a book that shows how the Internet encourages public activism.

Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Apparently ‘conservative bloggers’ are behind this initiative, as it would bolster the case for war against Iraq.

Here is the Foreign Military Studies Office portal with the goods.

There are a lot of comments on Slashdot. One of them enquires whether the Amish have open source barn raisings. Another says this is equivalent to a voluntary tax upon bilinguals. Or this:

bq. I think they are forgetting that (for some deranged part of our society), creating Linux was fun. Will translating orders for toilet paper for the Iraqi National Guard mess hall be fun too? Only if you can write your translation as a perl poem!

(From Slashdot)

It’s very frustrating when you’re translating a long text and you realize it has hundreds of references to timber framing and you don’t know enough to handle it fluently.

But things could be worse.

bq. “It’s frustrating if you’re a microbe that’s been wandering the Universe for a million years to then die striking the surface of Europa,” Dr Gladman mused.

(BBC News)