I am merging two topics into one here, as I have no good ideas. I assume the meme was written by a person who prefers film to books, or would rather see books in film form. So many questions on film!

All that occurs to me is: some years ago I missed Chaucer – Canterbury Tales – in Middle English, I believe, on TV. I never succeeded in seeing or finding it. Even better would be Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is much harder to understand (not so much French). We did lots of Chaucer at school and university, and Sir Gawain only at university. I never did any Old English, so have a gap for Beowulf, although I have done some Old Norse (Bandamanna Saga).

The subsidiary English course had just been remodelled when I went to King’s in 1965, and one classmate and I turned up for medieval studies in the English department, where a lecturer had no idea what to do, but then asked us to translate orally the most vulgar part of the Pardoner’s Tale into modern English. This was slightly before the women’s movement took off. But we were well aware that for a male lecturer to ask two new women students to translate vulgarities was offensive. I think I volunteered – in any case, the text was familiar – maybe he thought it wasn’t. At all events, the old man wandering the earth and wanting to die, being mocked by young men (recalling current beatings in tube stations), would have been the obvious choice of text, not this:

“Nay, nay,” quod he, “thanne have I Cristes curs!
Lat be,” quod he, “it shal nat be, so theech,
Thou woldest make me kisse thyn olde breech,
And swere it were a relyk of a seint,
Though it were with thy fundement depeint.
But by the croys which that Seint Eleyne fond,
I wolde I hadde thy coillons in myn hond
In stide of relikes or of seintuarie.
Lat kutte hem of, I wol thee helpe hem carie;
They shul be shryned in an hogges toord.”

So much for women and university.

Anyway, that doesn’t answer these two questions except to suggest that another film of Chaucer might be made.

As for films one regrets, I recently watched Andrew Davies’ Doctor Zhivago, and although the cast seemed promising, it lacked the drive and of course the music of the David Lean version. It was difficult to see why Zhivago would prefer Keira Knightley to Alexandra Maria Lara (not to knock Geraldine Chaplin, but the contrast was better there while leaving both women characters uncriticized). I still haven’t read the novel, so can’t comment on the omission of the Rita Tushingham and Alec Guinness characters (the daughter and the Communist half-brother).

Actually, there are a lot of sites on the internet where people answer these two questions. Clicking around, I remembered that Smilla’s Sense of Snow was a dreadful film if you had read the book. I’ve forgotten most of the details now, but I think for a start the main character was not supposed to be attractive in any conventional sense.

I can’t follow everything that happens here, but it seems that last year, on October 30 (the day before Reformationstag), at least one unfortunate anglicism was used in Fürth – Luther-Activity:

Aktive spielerische Auseinandersetzung mit Luther und seinen die Reformation einläutenden Thesen war im benachbarten Jugendhaus und im Gemeindehaus angesagt. Sei es beim Postkartenbasteln mit unbekannten Luther-Zitaten, einem Luther-Quiz oder Luther-Activity, bei dem Teams gemeinsam bestimmte Begriffe erraten mussten. Live-Bands, ein Improtheater und eine Kontaktbörse komplettierten „die gute Nacht“, zu der rund 200 Mädchen und Jungen gekommen waren.

This seems to have been an alternative name for a quiz about Luther, a bit like a pub quiz but without a pub. I suppose the temptation for churches is just as great as it is for Deutsche Bahn to sound whatever they consider trendy.

I only found out about this because it sneaked into a collection of anglicisms falsely attributed to Nikolaus Schneider, the successor to Margot Käßmann as head of the Evangelical (sic) Church in Germany by the Verein Deutsche Sprache. Thence it reached Sprachlog, where Anatol Stefanowitsch had already commented on the nominations for Sprachpanscher des Jahres (something like Language Adulterator of the Year), where one of the nominated organizations had announced some errors by the VDS.

Here is an interesting list of famous VDS members, including Nina Ruge, Erika Steinbach, Bastian Sick, Hape Kerkeling and Werner Kieser).

Unfortunately it seems the EKD was slow to reply to queries from the press as to how accurate the VDS had been. Sprachlog concludes:

Aus meiner Sicht kann die evangelische Kirche ihren Ruf ohnehin nicht mehr stärker beschädigen, als 500 Jahre kirchliches Tagesgeschäft das getan haben. Der Verein Deutsche Sprache allerdings zeigt mit dieser auf frei erfundenen Behauptungen begründeten Nominierung, dass bei den Sprachnörglern nach unten immer noch Luft ist.

Law and Magic Blog (always worth a read and originally recommended by kalebeul):

I try to do my holiday shopping early, which is why I am on the prowl now.

recommends the Unemployed Philosophers Guild, although I was less taken by the Houdini mug (Houdini disappears if you fill it with coffee) than by some of the post-it notes, such as those featuring Cézanne and Freud, and a Van Gogh birthday card (not so good for Christmas, of course).

If that doesn’t suit, it’s now possible to buy your bust of Karl Marx online, thus saving me a trip to Trier to the Karl Marx Museum.

At the Carbolic Smoke Ball Co., you can download a PDF file of Christmas cards (mysteriously entitled ChristmasCards2006.pdf). The figure of Justice with a robin in one scale is nice, but there’s really time to make one’s own now.

LegalAndrew recommends chopsticks for Chinese-food-loving attorneys.

I have been known to order Christmas cards from the UK or USA, but you have to be careful to check the local postage for the size. Museum shops are always good. One colleague used to send me a Bodleian Library card with a book motif I was very fond of. You can see the 2010 one here called Festive Library:

A lead story on the Sunday edition of the Daily Star is headed PIPPA PERVS: Sick Germans target royal sister.

It takes one to spot one, of course.

Here is the BILD story in German.

Unfortunately, the Star mistook a Google Translate version of the story for BILD’s English website:

The briefs encounter – proudly dubbed the “Panties Blitzer” by the newspaper – shows Pippa revealing all as she gets into a car in London last week.
“When the 27-year-old beauty on Wednesday in London rose in her car, she accidentally granted a glimpse of her panties,” leers the paper in its English language version.
And the mangled caption continues: “With their unwanted Panties Blitzer, Pippa to its reputation as ‘Her Royal Hotness’ fair – not only the British are very excited about her sexy appearance.”

(Via Tabloid Watch – the UK equivalent of BILDblog – the latter is more concerned about allegedly killer cucumbers at present)

Under the heading Air passengers in ‘Lord of the Flies’ mutiny after seven-hour delay, the Evening Standard reported on 27 May:

One witness likened the scene on the Middle East Airlines service to “something from Lord Of The Flies” as passengers raided the galley for meal trays and a Lebanese woman suffered heart palpitations. The flight to Beirut was one of 80 delayed for an average of two hours or cancelled as thunderstorms and winds of up to 40mph battered the country. City worker Jordan Lancaster was among the 250 people who boarded the flight at 1pm. It then missed its departure slot.

Ms Lancaster, a 45-year-old legal translator travelling to an archaological dig, called the Evening Standard at 7pm and said: “It is like something from Lord Of The Flies, people are hysterical. There are at least four babies and lots of elderly people on board.

“The crew have given up trying to explain the situation to people, and it has ended up in fisticuffs. Several men are also arguing with the captain. This guy in his fifties is so worked up he is being given oxygen.”

As Ms Lancaster was talking, a male cabin crew member could be heard over the intercom saying: “If any of our crew have been rude to you, we apologise for that.

Jordan Lancaster runs squaremilelanguages in London. In an interview (interview) she quotes ‘per ardua ad astra’ as her motto, but it took a long time to work on this occasion.

Next time I’m stuck on a plane on the tarmac – it happened at Christmas in Nuremberg, with a pilot from Augsburg Airways who wanted us to be towed into the air – must remember my mobile phone and a journalistic hook like ‘Lord of the Flies’.

(Thanks to Andrew of ITI for the tip-off)

Eversheds have a number of interesting-looking publications on their website. I was drawn there by a tweet by David Turnbullrecommending A European Dictionary of Selected Legal Terms (PDF).

The Dictionary looks like this:

life insurance • assurance-vie • Lebensversicherung • assicurazione sulla vita • seguro de vida

limitation of actions • prescription • gesetzliche Verjährungsfristen • prescrizione • prescripción

liquidated claim (sum) • dette (créance) certaine • ziffernmässig bestimmte Forderung • credito liquido ed esigibile • reclamación de una cantidad precisa
…
loophole (in the law) • lacune (juridique) • Gesetzeslücke, Hintertürchen • scappatoia, via d’uscita (per eludere la legge) • laguna legal

But much more interesting is the PDF on Legal drafting in English. This is actually, unlike what it sounds like, a ragbag of useful observations on legal English.

For instance, there’s a list of legal English terms that have entered other languages, notes on Scottish, Australian, Canadian, Indian and Irish legal English, and criminal law terms with their approximate equivalents in UK, US, Canada and Australia (I missed the term perp walk – but I suppose it’s uniquely US). Particularly useful are hints on what British English won’t work in the USA (I do dislike whilst):

A word about “whilst” and “as”. In standard British English, “whilst” is often used to mean “during the time that”. This usage is very rare in the USA (Americans would use “while”). “Whilst” and “while” can also mean “although”, “despite the fact that”. When you have those meanings in mind, use “although” or “despite the fact that”. The conjunction “as” is often used in British English to mean “because”: Example: “As no other student seemed to know the answer, Mary spoke up and had the correct information.” The meaning will be clearer to more people if you use “because”, or “since”, rather than “as”.

And there are some references to other language too. There is a glossary of false friends and a bibliography. Well worth a look.

(In drafting advice from past masters, I wonder why they give Confucius in Chinese as K’ung Ch’iu – OK, that was his name, but it’s not that usual and not very pinyin either).