On November 6, the Jerusalem Post reported on what sounds like a major diplomatic incident arising from a machine-translated email. A group of Israeli journalists were invited by the Dutch foreign minister to visit the Netherlands, and the only journalist who did not speak English sent five questions by email, using Babelfish to translate Hebrew into English.

“Helloh bud, Enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian, and on relational Israel Holland,” began the e-mail. It continued with five nearly incomprehensible questions, and several other mentions of “mother.” …

As for the references to the foreign minister’s “mother” – the Babelfish Web site had translated the Hebrew word for “if” (ha’im) as the similar word for mother (ha’ima). Other mistakes included “bandages of the knitted domes” instead of “Dome of the Rock” and one question that read: “Why we did not heard on mutual visits of main the states of Israel and Holland, this is in the country of this.”

Was this reported in the Dutch press? It seems to have caused more problems than I would have expected:

The Dutch Foreign Ministry is considering canceling the entire trip and filling a formal complaint over the incident. The journalists, meanwhile, said that they were currently too embarrassed to continue with the planned visit.

(Via Vivendo y Traduzindo and itnews)

View from the office window on Friday: two people garrotting the recently installed tree with Christmas lights:

From The Times online:

But a spokesman for the Solicitors Regulation Authority said: “…while clients can sack solicitors at any time and for any reason, solicitors can only cease acting for a client with good reason, and usually with notice.”

One such reason, she said, would be if the client had evidently lost confidence in her lawyers, and continually defied their advice or broke legal instructions or agreements.

“Clients are free to say, ‘I don’t accept your advice.’ That alone is not sufficient to dump a client. But if a client has clearly lost faith in that he or she continually acts in a way that is contrary to what they believe is in her best interests, and particularly in breach of any agreements, then they could decline to act any more.”

This after Mishcon de Reya announced they are no longer acting for Heather Mills. They did not state why, but it seems she agreed not to make public comments about her marriage or her daughter. A transcript of a GMTV interview appeared on October 31.

See also an entry by John Bolch at Family Law. Quotes from the rules for solicitors and barristers in the extended entry. Continue reading →

The Financial Times has a long article on Global English, Whose English?, by Michael Skapinker, with particular reference to David Graddol (see earlier entry and comments).

One concern of the article is how and when English will change. David Crystal is quoted:

Mr Crystal has written: “On several occasions, I have encountered English-as-a-first-language politicians, diplomats and civil servants working in Brussels commenting on how they have felt their own English being pulled in the direction of these foreignlanguage patterns . . . These people are not ‘talking down’ to their colleagues or consciously adopting simpler expressions, for the English of their interlocutors may be as fluent as their own. It is a natural process of accommodation, which in due course could lead to new standardised forms.”

It’s claimed that written academic English has to stay closer to the grammatical rules ‘followed by the native English-speaking elites’. I see quite a few books and articles on German law in non-native English that has not been seen by an editor, or by an editor who realized what was ‘wrong’ with it. But true, that doesn’t mean there is a proliferation of such articles or a development of a legal Denglish.

Barbara Seidlhofer, professor of English and applied linguistics at the University of Vienna, says relief at the absence of native speakers is common. “When we talk to people (often professionals) about international communication, this observation is made very often indeed. We haven’t conducted a systematic study of this yet, so what I say is anecdotal for the moment, but there seems to be very widespread agreement about it,” she says. She quotes an Austrian banker as saying: “I always find it easier to do business [in English] with partners from Greece or Russia or Denmark. But when the Irish call, it gets complicated and taxing.”

Professor Seidlhofer has published on English as a ‘lingua franca’. She believes that a new international English is developing. For that to be the case, the communication between the Austrian banker and the Greeks, Russians and Danes would have to be better than between him and the Irish. And there must be more to it than ‘the patient feels’ changing to ‘the patient feel’, which is nothing more than a development typical of English.

(Thanks to Robin Bonthrone)

Ventolin state ‘This website is available in other languages also’.

Ventolin Inhalator:

Den Kanister vor jedem Spray gut rütteln. Das Mundstück des Ventolin Inhalators die Mütze abnehmen und heraus völlig atmen. Das Mundstück in deine öffnung setzen und deine Lippen schließen, die den Inhalator bedecken. Dich schließen Augen, um das Sprühen von Medizin in deine Augen zu verhindern. Innen langsam atmen, beim auf den Kanister runterdrücken und deinen Atem für 10 Sekunden halten, dann heraus langsam atmen.

It’s difficult to get back to the English site from the German, albeit vital for understanding. It might be worth showing this to people who want to translate their websites automatically. Here is some more important information:

Es ermöglicht Patienten, ohne einschränkende atmenprobleme normalerweise zu atmen. Die Effekte dieses Medikationwillen dauern zwischen vier und sechs Stunden lang. Es ist für Gebrauch als Dringlichkeitshelfer bestimmt und wird durch das meiste neue tägliche Zealanders verwendet.

(Thanks to Iris on the pt mailing list at Yahoogroups)

MügaBlog is the weblog of a bookshop in Münstergasse in Bern.

Today it reports on problems with the word vergriffen. Some customers think that means the book is temporarily sold out. Or:

Gleiche Situation, bei uns im Laden bei meiner Arbeitskollegin:

«Das Buch ist leider vergriffen.»

Voller Überzeugung meinte die Kundin: «Ich nehme es trotzdem!»