There was an amazing query on Proz.com recently, headed Mücke zum Elefanten.

The situation was a speech balloon in a cartoon about making mammoths from their DNA. A fly is sitting on a scientist’s desk and saying: maybe you can’t turn me into an elephant, but I might make a mammoth. (A play on words from the meaning ‘to make a mountain out of a mole hill’).

This was to be translated into English.

The solution wasn’t bad (Andrew Swift:”OK, maybe my DNA isn’t up to cloning an elephant but I’m sure I’’d make a pretty good mammoth.”). I wonder what the payment was?

In this connection, there’s an excellent article (in German) by Nina-Sattler-Hovdar in today’s ADÜ-Nord Infoblatt (click on Publikationen, then Infoblatt, and select Infoblatt 1/2007/), based on her talk for the ATA last year, suggesting what to do if a client requests what is effectively copywriting. She also explains how one might go about charging and doing this kind of work if one wants to, and pleads for a category of copywriting (Texten) in translator directories.

LATER NOTE: Here’s another coot that crossed my path last week.

Here’s a list of German names for places where Germany is not the official language. German has a particularly large number of those (Mailand for Milano, Hermannstadt for Sibiu, Löwen for Leuven). The list is the second edition, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations. It is not exhaustive, but the exonyms in it are in current use.

Ausgewählte Exonyme der deutschen Sprache Deutsche Namen und ihre phonetische Umschriftung
für geographische Objekte in Ländern oder Gebieten ohne deutsche Amtssprache
2. Ausgabe
Selected German Language Exonyms
German names and their phonetic transcription
designating geographical objects
of countries or regions where German is not an official language
Second Edition
Ständiger Ausschuss für geographische Namen (StAGN)
Frankfurt am Main 2002

See also a German article in the BDÜ Info for North-Rhine Westphalia (as it is not officially punctuated): Geographische Namen in der Übersetzung.

This is a 2004 story, but you can still see a picture of the famous Escondido Library Cat (L.C.) there.

VISTA – Jurors found Friday that a disabled man’s civil rights were not violated when his assistance dog was attacked by the Escondido library’s pet cat. The jury refused to award him damages.

More links to that cat (which died in 2003).

This is a true story. Often, ridiculous untrue law stories circulate (see earlier entry).

The Urban Legends Reference Pages at snopes.com defuse some such stories, and further down on the page are summaries of a few true legal stories that are just as ridiculous (including the story of the 12 lb. LC attacking the 50 lb. dog).

This is fun: BOOK9.nl, a site where anyone can post translations into English of Dutch decisions on intellectual property law.

Book9.nl is part of the Dutch IP-website Boek9.nl and contains mainly informal and often uncorrected English translations of (summaries of) recent Dutch case law on intellectual property. Book9.nl does not pretend to be complete or to offer a selection of all relevant cases, but merely provides the possibility to share translations of Dutch case law, e.g. translations made for foreign clients, with (foreign) colleagues and researchers. Everyone is invited to send in translations of Dutch IP case law, preferably accompanied by a very short summary by way of introduction, to: editor@book9.nl.

Sponsors can pay 100 euros to have their logos displayed for a year.

(Via IPKat)

Not for the first time, RA-Blog quotes from the Aachen police log:

Das voran beschriebene Körperteil, das hinsichtlich einer weiteren Art der Verwendung offenbar eine Renaissance erfährt, wurde verdutzten Polizeibeamten am Elisenbrunnen entgegengestreckt.

The ‘voran beschriebene Körperteil’ is a neat link to a previous unconnected story.

I wonder if the gifted writer of the Aachener Polizeibericht (there are others) has read the Arcata Eye police log?

Since I last quoted it, it has moved here. I suppose a blogger like me could learn something from the elegant and concise way facts are reported (use of verbs like originating from and accessorized):

6:29 p.m. An egg originating from an old Oldsmobile struck a girl near 11th and K streets.
…11:02 a.m. An argument erupted on Foster Avenue between someone releasing trash from the back of a truck and someone who objected to this. An officer becalmed the disputants and made the slob pick up the trash.
12:15 p.m. Arcata’s bearded-guy randomly yelling craze is now firmly established in Valley West…• Sunday, December 10 12:59 a.m. A man with a cut upper lip refused to disclose details.
11:51 a.m. A citizen reported an approach by a crack cocaine salesman in a Uniontown parking lot. The freelance pharmacist, distinguished by abundant facial hair, drove up in a battered gray Olds accented with duct tape and accessorized with a woman and an infant child.