(Readers please ignore – this is not an entry)
Monthly Archives: December 2008
Act of God/Naturereignis
Christmas quiz for lawyers/Weihnachtsrätsel für Anwälte
Transblawg is not really here, just posting a few Christmas messages. No time to make a Christmas quiz, but here are two for comparison.
German lawyers’ Christmas quiz from beck-blog:
1. Frage
Innerhalb welcher Frist darf der Vermieter bei unverschuldetem Ablauf der Abrechnungsfrist eine korrigierte Abrechnung vorlegen?
The rest is here.
British Christmas quiz from RollOnFriday:
1. JANUARY: Whose Christmas party involved “half a bottle of Jacob’s Creek and an extensive cash bar”?
DWF
Tarlo Lyons
CMS Cameron McKenna
Rest here.
No prizes for spotting cultural differences.
Putting things into German/Ins Deutsche
1. Some people would appreciate sending their MacBook Air in for repair and getting it back with a German keyboard. I use a German keyboard all the time, because I can write German or English on it.
MacMacken: Amerikanische MacBook Air-Reparatur mit Umlauten
2. Some astronomers (simplex by name) do not believe that specialist translators know about their subjects:
Und: gibts wirklich z.B. ausgebildete Übersetzer, die genügend Ahnung von Astronomie haben um mit den ganzen Fachbegriffen klarzukommen? Das war nämlich auch ein Argument gegen einen Übersetzer…
Comment by author under Lost in Translation at Astrodictum simplex
Via Gabi, who writes:
Da meint wieder einmal jemand, einen Fachübersetzer nicht nötig zu haben und ohnehin alles viel, ja unendlich viel besser zu wissen als ein Mensch, der sich sein Leben lang mit der Übersetzung genau dieses Fachgebietes befaßt hat. Also will er seine Software selbst übersetzen. Das Ergebnis kennen wir alle: eine Software, bei der sich der Anwender fragt, welcher Vollidiot die geschrieben hat … welcher größenwahnsinnige Trottel sich an die Übersetzung einer Software wagt, obwohl er nicht einmal so simple Fachbegriffe wie »pan« und »crossmatch« übersetzen kann.
Mother Goose
Mother Goose at the Hackney Empire:
A very good traditional pantomime.
Those who requested a review may be pleased with the Youtube clip.
Set in Dalstonia in Hackneytopia. But I think the one I saw in 1980 was full of local policitical references. This wasn’t.
Typical dialogue (not 100% guaranteed):
Baron Bonkers, in a dark wood: We’ve got to get away from the ghosties and ghoulies.
Frightening Freda: I don’t want to be caught by the ghosties.
Baron Bonkers: And I don’t want to be caught by surprise.
Superb singing and dancing.
The first act was a trifle too long. The second act wasn’t.
We didn’t have to stand up and flap our wings much.
Do all pantomimes use a wild variety of costumes, possibly from other productions?
We particularly liked the little boy with bear ears. Did he go home early, or did he reappear as one of the rubber-masked wizened old dancing men? or the dancing geese?
Was the troll-like giant created for this panto, or did they take the body of previous giants and add a new head?
And here’s another review and video clip by Eros Vlahos (13) in the Guardian.
Europe without Germany/Europa ohne Deutschland
This is wonderful. Oh no, I mustn’t say that. But after seeing the Großes Volksatlas of 1941 with no Poland, it only makes sense.
Europe without Germany (from Strange Maps – and see their earlier entry)
Thanks to Trevor – for some reason this didn’t appear in my RSS feed.
Break/Pause
Transblawg is taking a bit of a break and wishes everyone happy holidays (hoping that doesn’t infuriate too many) and a great new year.
Pigeons/Tauben
It says on this tablet that Nuremberg is the city of peace and human rights. We won’t discuss why that is. This is a sculpture by Hermann Pitz commemorating forced labourers, with some symbols of peace sitting on it.
Federal Constitutional Court press releases in English/Bundesverfassungsgericht Pressemitteilungen auf Englisch
The German Federal Constitutional Court decided yesterday that changes to tax status of travel between home and work were unconstitutional.
Today, I get an English version of the press release in my RSS feed.
(The key word Pendlerpauschale is rendered as “commuter tax allowance” (in inverts))
Sun Open Translation Website
Sun Developer Network Open Translation website. Lots of goodies.
(Thanks to Elm on the pt list)