An interview with Marc Prior, who has been advocating the use of Linux for translators for as long as I’ve known him, cam be found at Open Source Update. He answers questions on how he got started with Linux, what his current working environment is, some of his favourite Linux programs, and more.
Here is Marc’s Linux for Translators website (website also available in Dutch, Portuguese, Slovenian, Albanian and probably Serbian in Latin script), for more information on Omega T, the (free of charge) Linux translation memory tool.
(Tip-off from an ITI mailing list)
LATER NOTE: I see Linux is featured in Dilbert today.
(via PapaScott)
I use claimant for an Eng. & Wales or an Irish + Brit. Comm audience, except for Canada where I’d still use Plaintiff. Knowing Scots lawyers hate Eng. legal expressions like equity & probate, I add Pursuer and Defender if I know the trans. agency/end-users are in Scotland.
If it’s an action launched by petition in Eng. & Wales, like a divorce or bankruptcy, then I gravitate towards petitioner vs. respondent.
I take particular care with actions that start off as interlocutory and emergency applications in chambers e.g. ‘claims’ for freezing etc. injunctions etc. where the parties in the London or a District High Court would still be called applicant vs. respondent who then turn into claimant vs. defendant, but only on full-blown proceedings (writ) being issued.
I’d agree, though, that these fine distinctions are parochially Eng. and that e.g. the ECJ’s or ECHR’s own idioysyncratic terms need to be followed where either of those 2 institutions are involved.
A DPSI EN/SP translator on another list claims the parties to Equity/Chancery cases are applicant vs. defendant – which mixes metaphors. But I agree that, as an injunction is an ‘equitable’ remedy granted at the court’s discretion, then applicant is right at an early stage of a case. There are also non-contentious Chancery procedures, like a document construction summons, where applicant would also be right.
Just to muddy the waters, I will leave you with a quote from the ICSL – Inns of Court (London Bar)School of Law Drafting Manual that Margaret seems to dislike. The parties to a draft order for an injunction in the Mayor’s & City of London County Court are a co. labelled Claimants/Applicants (yes, plural) and a priv. individ. called Defendant/Respondent. This may be down to the uncertain status of the parties at this stage of the procedure.
I can see the sense in changing the likes of ‘Anton Piller order’ but plaintiff was hardly an obscure term and claimant has little to recommend it.
Not sure why AMM would use claimant for “an Irish + Brit. Comm audience”. The term used in Ireland – in both jurisdictions – is plaintiff. As in Australia, NZ etc. etc.
Plaintiff is surely less likely to mislead an English/Welsh audience than claimant is to mislead the rest of Anglophonia.
Plaintiff point taken cm. I assume both jurisdictions means Northern Ireland and the Republic of Eire, rather than civ. & crim. where Prosecutor and Defendant/Accused would be used.
I’ve been using Claimant because my Irish Rep. agency clients tell me to use Eng. & Wales terminology as I actually don’t know where the final destination of the trans. will be – but speculatively re-exported at economic rates back into England. Would you use Plaintiff for a trans. going out of Ireland and into England for lawyers and the courts who/which have been told to switch to Claimant?
I also try to flag my Anglo-concentric or -eccentric slant to a readership in Oz, N.Z., Gibraltar and the Caribbean etc. which also use Plaintiff whereas, again, I wouldn’t with a canny Scots readership. Also, as you will know, those countries keep a close watch on English legal precedent. OK, so does Canada, but the Plaintiff pull from the US is irresistible.
If for ECJ into Eng. consumption, I use – as directed – the mixed metaphor Applicant vs. Defendant.
Re the ECJ:
I have had it confirmed to me by the head of the English translation unit that they accept claimant
This is a good summary. The argument that it is accepted practice to choose a term not specifically accepted with a particular jurisdiction is not one I’ve been aware of before, but it helps with my preference not to use these new English terms – I’m thinking also of whatever they say now for custody and access (parental responsibility and contact, I believe).
But my argument for not using ‘solicitor’ for Rechtsanwalt, for instance, would be not that it’s a specifically English term, but that the concept overlap is not sufficient, in view of the fact that the word ‘lawyer’ exists, as does ‘attorney’ (which some would find too un-English).
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