If you thought the World Cup was bad enough, consider what some Fürth inhabitants may be wearing soon:

(from Rottmann Hörakustik)

This is a bit of a translation problem, as Otoplastik means both the process of creating shapes to fit into the ear and the shapes themselves. Otoplasty, on the other hand, is surgery to tidy up cauliflower and other misshapen ears.

Perhaps these Fürth moulds are just to keep noise out. You could pop them in and then have a cup of Fürth jubilee coffee or fruit tea. Or you could save the 45 euros and just stick a cloverleaf in your ear.

You can get a 45-cent Fürth stamp from the post office – enough to send a postcard:

or from the PZD (this actually goes out on a standard letter, but only within part of Bavaria):

Bamberg did better – but Bamberg was founded in 902; only the diocese dates from 1007.

Seen on the Fürther Freiheit this morning:

I stuck to the Galla and Pinova (note the careful distinction made between Italy and Südtirol)

A fictitious letter from Edmund Stoiber to his wife.

bq. Wenn ich jetzt aber mit ihr spreche, dann kann niemand mehr etwas sagen, weil ich ja mit ihr gesprochen habe und dann kann ich sagen: Schauts her, wir haben gesprochen, und es ist überhaupt kein Problem mehr vorhanden weil es niemals eines gegeben hat. Aber so leicht will ich sie nicht davonkommen lassen, diese Person, und deshalb könntest Du vielleicht einmal im Getränkemarkt vorbeischauen, in der Nähe wo die wohnt und einmal nachfragen, weil ich bin immer noch davon überzeugt, dass die säuft.

These are usually amazing, aren’t they? (I thought the exclamation mark after ‘Liebe Kundin…’ went out thirty years ago):

bq. Liebe Kundin, lieber Kunde!
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I’m sorry, amazon, I’d love to, but I haven’t got time (or money, in this case). It’s true I once translated a book on paintings of roses, but that was a different matter.

Maybe the Polyglot Vegetarian‘s mileage may vary. (new blog – thanks to languagehat)

Geoffrey K. Pullum’s recent entry in Language Log repeated some dubious statistics. Working Languages presents a corrected version. The latter is taken into account in a final note under the Language Log entry, where it is described as ‘No Happy New Year from…’ (although it did start with a compliment to LL).

I suppose the same could apply to my comment at Working Languages. If such comments seem irritated, it is because running down the EU and perpetuating blatant inaccuracies about it is another snowclone. Now I don’t think LL is rude to snowcloners, but it probably doesn’t wish them a happy new year, and of course the functioning of the EU plays a different role in our lives than the Inuit vocabulary on snow. Still, I do hope Geoffrey Pullum has a happy new year, at least from now on.

Like snowclones, inaccuracies about Europe have acquired their own name: Euromyths, and here’s a list of euromyths. Nothing about translation there: it isn’t such a crowd puller in newspaper stories. But the entry on EU workers does suggest that EU translators are wrongly believed to be able to escape prosecution for traffic offences:

UKIP MEP Jeffrey Titford said: “Imagine if some young thug slings a brick through your window and the police arrest him. How would you feel if they had to let him go because daddy works for the EU?”

Mind you, I’m not sure if the author of Working Languages could pass as a ‘young thug’.