Seen on the way to Radio 4:

Well, I suppose Google isn’t going to do it.

The general feeling in Fürth this morning, as in the German press, supports a grand coalition after the September 18 elections (apparently without the Green party).

Technorati has a Blog Finder (via muepe.de). Here you can search for blogs by keyword. I tried translation.

Patrick Hall’s infundibulum is building up to something with languages and the web. I haven’t pursued its blogroll, except to have a quick look at a (not only) Langue d’Oc blog by Jo (whether a native speaker or not I don’t know).

Not all the blogs you find through Blog Finder are useful for all translators.

My links to German law blogs are absolutely out of date. But they are very well served by Rainer Langenhan’s regularly updated OPML feed and JuraBlogs (JuraBlogs blog list).

Meanwhile, numerous translation blogs have simply stopped, or in one case stopped being a translator’s blog: Eric Volk has stopped being a freelance translator and become an employee in electronics.

EU Law Web Log is ‘A blog on European Union law for practitioners, students, academics and everyone else who may be curious about it.’

A German Eu law blog Euro Law

There’s also a ComparativeLawBlog by Jacco Bomhoff in the Netherlands.

Law and Justice, by Edwin Jacobs, also from the Netherlands:

bq. Law and justice in the broad sense. In Dutch and/or English. Focus on Flanders, Wallonia, Belgium, the European Union, member states. – personal opinion and news related to law and justice, also related politics – legal columns – texts about legal subject

Translationfound has a photograph of a sign for the Austrian place name we English find so funny.

shiokadelicious! was a great site but it has gone private as far as I can tell. Renee published a book, jointly with other food bloggers, and I suppose if I want to see the recipes and photos again I will have to buy the book, since her postings largely dried up after the publication. I won’t give the link because you will only get a request to sign in.

Ein englischer Richter in einem langen Betrugsprozess wusste nicht, was eine Schlafcouch ist.

bq. Despite having the concept described to him the judge failed to grasp the basics, asking again “But how can a bed be turned into a sofa?”.

Judge Sneddon Cripps (Sneddon ist wohl der Vorname) ist nicht der erste, der nicht alles versteht. Andere von anderen Richtern nicht verstandene Sachen: Linford Christies “lunchbox”, B & Q und Gazza. Definitionen u.a. hier:

bq. It’s all British stuff.
B&Q sells stuff for home improvement, Gazza is Paul Gascoigne (footballer) and Linford Christie’s lunchbox refers to the 1992 100m Olympic champion’s genitals.

Another summary:

bq. Mr Justice Harman probably set the gold standard for magisterial aloofness in 1990, when he appeared to have no idea who Paul Gascoigne was.
Gazza, then at the height of his post Italia ’90 fame, was suing Penguin Books for publishing an “unauthorised biography”.
Comic timing
The footballer’s lawyer Michael Silverleaf began his submission by saying: “Mr Gascoigne is a very well-known footballer.”
“Rugby or Association?” asked the judge, with impeccable comic timing.
Later, during evidence, Justice Harman again interrupted: “Isn’t there an operetta called La Gazza Ladra?”
“I could not say, my lord,” replied Mr Silverleaf.

Von RollOnFriday

The Jurastudentin finds Kühl on Strafrecht heavy going:

bq. Ich befürchte langsam, es liegt an den vielen Substantiven (1), die nicht sein müssten, würde man seinen Satz (2) flüssig aufbauen. Oder auch anders gesagt: Die Ursache (a) der langsamen Entstehung (b) von Furcht (c) könnte der hohe Anteil (d) von Substantiven (e), welcher bei aller Unnötigkeit (f) zu Unflüssigkeit (g) von Sätzen (h) führt, sein.

She can be glad she doesn’t translate the stuff into English. Mind you, legal English also often suffers from nominalization. It’s just different nominalization. To quote Butt and Castle on Modern Legal Drafting:

bq. This convention is not peculiar to legal writing; it infects all bureaucratic and official language. But it is endemic in legal documents. For example, parties to legal documents don’t ‘decide’ to do something; instead, they ‘make a decision’. They don’t resolve, but ‘pass a resolution’. They don’t ‘sever’ a joint tenancy, but ‘effect a severance’. This practice of nominalization might be thought to achieve a certain formality of tone, but it is at the expense of effective communication.

Still, I think I too would talk about an AGM passing a resolution rather than resolving.

I did find an article online, by Professor Maximilian Herberger, on ‘Unverständlichkeit des Rechts’. I’m sure it’s good, but the heading ‘Die Verständlichkeitsdebatte vor Inkrafttreten des Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuchs’ rather threw me.

While Googling for information on medieval city rights in Germany, I found this useful holiday information:

bq. The Pope’s Bavaria – Map and Information for Following in the Pope’s Footsteps

bq. Although Pope Benedict XVI didn’t have anything directly to do with the goings-on in Altotting, the town hosts one of Germany’s most celebrated shrines, the Chapel of Mercy. Altotting is Germany’s Lourdes, with the Chapel’s 13th century statue of the Blessed Virgin credited with numerous miracles. Altotting has been a place of pilgrimage in Germany for over 500 years.