An article by Jan Keuchel in Handelsblatt, Frau Thiemes Gespür für Sprache, describes the role of Stephanie Thieme, a lawyer who has also studied German at university level, in making German statutes easier to understand (I see from her firm’s website that she has also worked as a publisher’s editor).

Seit 2002 arbeitet die Anwältin und Germanistin im Redaktionsstab der Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache beim Bundestag – und prüft die „sprachliche Richtigkeit und Verständlichkeit“ von Gesetzentwürfen. „Ich bin eigentlich der Stab“, sagt die zierliche Frau. Es gibt nur ihre eine Stelle.

Frau Thieme’s first degree was in German, but she studied law at the age of 37, and indeed, you probably need a German law degree for German lawyers to take you seriously (haven’t tried this).

Wer sich wie Frau Thieme mit 37 und zwei Kindern noch ans Jurastudium gewagt hat, ist aber sowieso nicht so leicht abzuschütteln. Unangenehm findet sie es allerdings, auf ihre Juristenausbildung zu verweisen, wenn sie mal wieder von einem arroganten Beamten abgebügelt wird. „Aber das hilft.“ Der Juristenrepublik, in der Juristen meist nur Juristen akzeptieren, sei Dank.

Apparently there have been 15 linguists doing this in Switzerland for 30 years now (Nießbrauch has been renamed Nutznießung, for example, although I haven’t checked the date), in contrast to one person in Germany for five years (she doesn’t directly deny that she is a ‘figleaf’).

(Via Handakte WebLAWg)

Time for another picture of the local wildlife.

This Canada goose thinks I have designs on its young, which are going through the ugly duckling stage.

I recently quoted a review of Ted Hughes’ ‘translations’ of poems from languages he did not speak.

In the latest TLS, parts of which are online but I don’t know for how long, since I receive my non-virtual copy with a few days’ delay, Robin Fulton, a Scots poet and translator of poetry from Scandinavian languages, has a letter to the editor quoting precisely the bits that irritate me. He finds questions raised about ‘how we use the word “translation”‘.

Sir, – Clive Wilmer’s review of Ted Hughes’s Selected Translations (June 1) is perceptive on many points but prompts larger questions about how we use the word “translation”. Of Pound he tells us that “In writing Cathay –- at a time when, incidentally, he knew no Chinese -– Pound discovered a mysterious process . . .”. People who translate from languages they can’’t read certainly move in mysterious ways, yet “’incidentally’” is an odd word to use here: surely it was of the essence of Pound’’s text that at that time he was unable to convey anything at all from a first-hand knowledge of Chinese?

…Of Ovid, Wilmer suggests that a “limitation in Hughes’’s art and outlook” helped him to imitate the Metamorphoses, “eliding the principle of order that unifies the poem and its vision”. It might be argued that “’eliding’” here means something more like “ignoring” or even “vandalizing” –- be that as it may, we are left wondering if the alleged limitation is a vice or a virtue in Hughes as a “translator” of Ovid.

Fulton concludes that it might be useful to use the title ‘poems inspired by other poems’ rather than ‘translations’. ‘Then we could take them or leave them and even admire them without imagining we have gained access, mysteriously or otherwise, to the worlds of the original authors.’

The Independent (and surely other papers too) has an obituary of Michael Hamburger, another poet and translator, who died on June 7. And by clicking around on the TLS site, you can find all the poems to be voted on for the current poetry competition, and an interesting article on French bread, but unfortunately not Hugo Williams’ commentary on changes in colloquial language.

Today is Prince Philip’s 86th birthday. In parts of Vanuatu he is worshipped as a god. He is the pale ancestral spirit who left to marry a powerful woman. BBC News is right that we should not make fun of these people for adapting their traditional myths to come to terms with becoming a British colony, now independent since 1980. It is unlikely they have heard of the remarks Prince Philip sometimes makes about foreigners.

A similar phenomenon is the worship of Rosamunde Pilcher in Germany. Her name has been fully Germanized: her first name is given four syllables, as in the German version of Roll out the Barrel, and her second name has acquired a non-English ch sound. This suits the regular TV dramatizations of her novels with a German cast. There’s one on tonight, but not to celebrate Prince Philip’s birthday.

LATER NOTE: the Phonetik blog has commented succinctly on this:

In den bildungsbürgerlichen Kreisen, durch deren linguistisches Interesse sich in der Regel die korrekte Lautung fremdsprachlicher Namen verbreitet, ist es verpönt, Pilcher-Bücher oder deren Verfilmungen zu kennen.

Piggy Bankrupt blogs about how he became bankrupt and how you can survive bankruptcy. You can even ask him questions, although he may not be thinking of the questions of EN>DE translators.

Bankruptcy happened to me in early 2006 and in an effort to share my experience I’ve since decided to write this blog. You will read what I experienced throughout the bankruptcy process and how credit cards, student loans and a business landed me with almost half a million pounds of debt.

LATER NOTE:

Piggy does not give bankruptcy advice and suggests you seek professional advice if considering bankruptcy.

(via Delia Venables)

On June 7th, the South China Morning Post had an article by Polly Hui headed Chief justice laments rise of greedy lawyers and beginning ‘Mercenary considerations had assumed greater prominence than ethical standards in the legal profession, the chief justice said yesterday….’ The rest is not available without registration, so I quote Roll On Friday:

Mr Justice Li cited the case of a client who asked his lawyer for a breakdown of his bill. The itemised account included a charge for “recognising you in the street and crossing the busy road to talk to you to discuss your affairs, and recrossing the road after discovering it was not you”.

I suspect Mr Li was using an old chestnut to illustrate the ridiculous details in invoices. But I suppose you never know.

LATER NOTE: Yes, this does seem apocryphal: I have now found the same story was told by Mr Li at LAWASIA in 2003.

The story is told of the lawyer who rendered a bill to a client which contained a charge for an item which read “To recognizing you in the street and crossing the busy road to talk to you to discuss your affairs and recrossing the road after discovering it was not you”.

I had forgotten all those solicitors’ invoices using ‘to’ instead of ‘for’.