Alan Johnson, who runs a tighter geological ship on Geotransblog than I do a legal one here, reported not there but on the pt group at Yahoo on an article in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung.

Die 48-Jährige spricht drei Sprachen und hatte sich für die Besucherregistrierung der Hannover Messe beworben: „Zu alt“, hieß es. Nun fordert sie 19 000 Euro Schadensersatz.

This is the case of a university graduate translator, Martina Schaefer, who was rejected for the Hannover Trade Fair (English site) because she is 48.

She wanted 9.05 euros an hour as an interpreter, not 7.78 euros an hour outside the turnstiles. Her complaint was accepted as far as the pay and job was concerned, but the 19,000 euro damages claim is going to court.

Für die Anwältin Sabine Kiemstedt ist dies ein klarer Fall von Altersdiskriminierung und damit ein Verstoß gegen das Allgemeine Gleichbehandlungsgesetz. Sie fordert für ihre Mandantin als immateriellen Schadensersatz knapp 19 000 Euro. „Diese Summe hat auch eine Genugtuungsfunktion, schließlich ist es doch eine Art Schmähung, wenn einem so einfach ins Gesicht gesagt wird ,Du bist mit 48 zu alt für den Job vor der Schranke‘“, sagt Kiemstedt.

It is traditional for the Erlangen translation students to get jobs like this at the Nuremberg Toy Fair – I don’t know what they’re paid, but they are glad of the practice. They are glorified stall assistants and are sometimes expected to spend the evening with British clients who believe the point of going to the Continent is to get drunk. But I quite agree that it is ageist to turn down a 48-year-old woman if she wants the 9.05 euros.

More G8-related translation problems: today’s Independent has an article by Tony Paterson about the wives of the heads of state together with a lone man, Professor Joachim Sauer, Angela Merkel’s husband.

He is further handicapped by a surname which literally means “sour” and has fuelled rumours that he is a humourless academic. Although the German media described him, somewhat bafflingly yesterday, as a “cock in a basket”, Professor Sauer was clearly doing his best to entertain the G8 wives. Wearing a casual shirt, he kissed his guests on both cheeks in a gesture that brought the warm appreciation of Cherie Blair. For the record, the only ones to copy Professor Sauer’s look and wear trousers were Laura Bush and Ake Abe, the Japanese leader’s wife.

As Pat says on the ITI GerNet mailing list, is the Independent really incapable of recognizing and translating an idiom? But of course, that’s the thing about foreign – it is baffling, isn’t it? And I haven’t heard too much criticism of Professor Sauer or any comment on his not uncommon name.

This does rather take us back to the World Cup WAGs, who have apparently entered the new edition of the Collins English Dictionary.

(Hahn im Korb is translated by Muret-Sanders and Collins as cock of the walk, although Collins does add ‘Mann unter Frauen’ – I think the two expressions have drifted slightly apart).

I admit the expression used to make me wonder in the 1960s, when one of the highlights of the ENO performance of the Ring was chicken in a basket in the interval, which I think was deep-fried chicken and chips.

Unter der Überschrift Einblick in US-Beweisrecht empfiehlt German American Law Journal Blog eine kurze Einführung ins amerikanische Beweisrecht von Lothar Lieske.

Das amerikanische Beweisrecht, immerhin ein Sechstel der amerikanischen Anwaltsprüfung, ist von erheblicher Bedeutung für den Ausgang eines Prozesses und unabhängig von der einzelstaatlichen Ausgestaltung äußerst kompliziert. Grundlegend unterscheidet es zwischen Zeugen (auch Sachverständige), Urkunden und Dokumenten, sogenannten echten Beweismitteln und zu Demonstrationszwecken herangezogenen Beweismitteln. Als primäres Beweismittel gilt die Zeugenaussage, auf deren Grundlage für gewöhnlich alle weiteren Beweismittel eingeführt werden.

At German-American Law Journal Blog, Lothar Lieske gives an introduction in German to the tip of the iceberg of the U.S. law of evidence.

English-to-German legal translators might well take note of this: long transcripts of trials are prepared in the USA, sometimes have to be translated and then often give rise to enquiries on mailing lists, I have noticed. You don’t have to know the whole law of evidence in advance, but a few basic points could save a lot of time researching a knotty problem.

For more information, Thomas A. Mauet, Trial Techniques is a wonderfully readable book on trial advocacy, full of examples (that was a tip from Professor Sharon Byrd a couple of years ago). You can look inside the book here. It has the Federal Rules of Evidence in the back, but they can also be found online.

Spiegel Online reports on the German engineer Jürgen Perthold, who is living in Anderson, South Carolina, and has created a small camera to hang round his cat’s neck so he can follow where the cat has been. Mr. Lee CatCam

Auf Deutsch: Übersetzer-Blog von Dirk Nolte. Ein Hauptthema ist: wie machen Übersetzer im Internet auf ihr Angebot aufmerksam?

Stefan Niggemaier is famous in Germany as the founder of BILDblog, which follows up the extravagant reports in Bild and gives the real lowdown (now with assistance from co-bloggers). He’s not only a blogger, but also an experienced graduate journalist.

In his other blog, which I didn’t know, under the heading Chronologie einer Falschmeldung (Chronology of a false report), Niggemeier reports (thanks to Matthias for the tip-off) how the news agency dpa issued a false report about a speech in English in Rostock and falsely corrected it.

Here’s the original problem: at the demonstration in Rostock on Saturday June 2, Walden Bello, a sociology professor and opponent of globalization from the Philippines, said, referring to the war in Iraq:

Two years ago they said: Do not bring the war into the discussions. Just focus on poverty reduction. Well, we say: We have to bring the war right into this meeting. Because without peace there can be no justice.

This was correctly translated into German by an interpreter (I assume that’s what Niggemeier means by Übersetzer):

Vor zwei Jahren hat es geheißen: Wir sollen den Krieg nicht in die Diskussion mit reinbringen. Wir sollen uns nur auf Armutsbekämpfung konzentrieren. Aber ich sage: Wir müssen den Krieg hier mit reinbringen. Denn ohne Frieden kann es auch keine Armutsbekämpfung geben.

About half an hour later, these words could be heard on MyVideo.

At 18.41 on Saturday, dpa reported this as follows:

Um 17.30 Uhr werden die ersten Autos angezündet, während unweit vom Tatort auf der Kundgebungsbühne ein Redner die militante Szene noch mit klaren Worten aufstachelt: “Wir müssen den Krieg in diese Demonstration reintragen. Mit friedlichen Mitteln erreichen wir nichts.”

(a speaker from the militant scene stirred up [the crowd] in plain words: “We must bring the war into this demonstration. We will get nowhere with peaceful means.”)

The dpa text was published promptly by Bild and by Spiegel Online. Not long afterwards, Der Spiegelfechter, the blog that does for Der Spiegel what BILDblog does for Bild, gave a correction.

dpa reported that there had been a translation mistake, but it wrongly stated that this consisted in not linking the words ‘We will get nowhere with peaceful means’ to the Iraq war rather than the Rostock demonstration. In fact the words were never said, and it was not until Tuesday afternoon that dpa published a proper correction and apology.

To summarize the couple of days between Saturday and Tuesday: the false report was quoted, sometimes with embellishment, by sources including B.Z, various Swiss newspapers, the Stuttgarter Nachrichten, the Westdeusche Allgemeine Zeitung and the Kölnische Rundschau.