‘Comes now the plaintiff’ is an American expression – perhaps that’s why I find it so weird. There was a discussion on avoiding Latinisms in The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog (I link to Evan Schaeffer’s other blog, Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground (hmm, it used to be called Notes from…).

One of the commenters there writes:

For example, the phrase “Comes Now” at the start of a pleading. If the pleading was actually read in open court to the illiterate masses it makes sense. Otherwise, i’t’s just a really odd phrase. “Comes Now Mr. Brown, by and and through his attorney. . .” I routinely banish that from my pleadings if the secretary, used to other lawyers, includes it.

But the thing is, to me it wouldn’t even make sense if it was read in open court. It would have to be ‘Here comes the plaintiff’. Why not? I mean, even one of those American comedy shows had the punchline ‘Here come de judge’, didn’t it? Of course, that wouldn’t make it any easier to translate. In Romain I found ‘comes and defends: es erscheint (der Beklagte) und läßt sich wie folgt auf die Klage ein’.

To quote another comment:

Re: silly antiquated English pleading — I gained incredible respect for a (female) probate commissioner I met last summer, who said flatly, “no one is going to come or pray on any of my paperwork.”

The Spiegel column by Bastian Sick has turned to common translation errors.

I have complained about the trivialization of translation before. Sick, in an article on false friends, looks at the old chestnuts Silikon / Silizium, Billion and sensitiv, and a few other terms too. Well, for those who like this kind of thing, this is probably the kind of thing they like.

The column is called Zwiebelfisch, literally onion fish, a term meaning WF (wrong font) and similar to widow or orphan (both Schusterjunge – cobbler’s boy – in English, I believe – but what is Hurenkind?)

Bild vom 8. August, Stadtpark Fürth
(Click to enlarge)

I was checking up on the appearance of electronic anklets and came across this nice Chinese site.

bq. China national Jiangsu Province Jingjiang City Anhua Police Equipment Factory is specializing in producing police equipment. It’s main products of more than 30 varieties include handcuffs,fetters, plastic PE spontoons,spontoons, extension spontoons, electric spontoons, electric torches, traffic batons, rainproof, reflector coats, body armor,bayonet-proof coats, crash helmets,police belts, stop sign,police rope, portable road-blocks, peltate plates, test device for alcoholicity, tear-gas device, net-ejection device, hand metal locator, police rope and police whistle.

The test for alcoholicity seems worth preserving. Spontoons made it into Wikipedia too.

bq. A Spontoon is type or European lance that came into being after the pike-man craze, coming into play in the middle of the 17th century. Also called the European half pike, this very much resembled a pike that had a much shorter staff; usually no more than 7 feet long. The spontoon is remembered for being more of a signaling weapon than a polearm of war.