The Word Spy, the site that records new terms with their definitions, recorded ‘weblog’ on November 17th, so I’m probably the last to record it. A number of spellings and definitions are given (but not ‘blawg’).

Decisions of the Nuremberg-Fürth Oberlandesgericht (higher regional court of appeal) in March 1999 and the Nuremberg-Fürth Landgericht (regional court of first instance) in May 2000 held that it was against the ethics of advertising for German lawyers to have guestbooks on their websites. The reason was because the majority of entries tended to be positive and therefore this was unfair to other lawyers.

It now seems that Udo Vetter, of the weblog law blog, may be sued by a colleague because he runs a weblog with a comments function and the weblog is linked to his firm’s website. He has published some correspondence on his blog.

Another Düsseldorf lawyer, Ute Rossenhövel, has now faxed Udo twice and mailed him once on this topic.

Here’s the law blog entry (German), and here is my translation of some extracts from the correspondence to date:

bq. 1. UR fax, October 31st
Dear colleague,
… On a first assessment, we have some misgivings as to whether your web-blog [sic] is compatible with lawyers’ advertising law. …
Of course we are aware that the law relating to lawyers’ advertising has been very much relaxed. We ourselves are always interested in finding and trying out new possibilities. What is more, the undersigned herself has recently begun to use Blogger on her site to publish occasional information.
We should therefore be extremely grateful if you could remove our doubts as to the permissibility of your web-blog …

bq. 2. UR fax, November 25th
… Regrettably, we have not yet received a reply to our letter of 31 October …
We have put the matter in our tickler file to be considered again on 1 December 2003 …

bq. 3. UV email, November 26th
…You ask for an opinion …
At present I am not in a position to do this, because a) I am working to over 100% capacity at the present and 2) online law is not my speciality. But if you wish, I can instruct a colleague in my firm … to prepare a report. …
However, we should clarify the scope of the opinion and the fee in advance.
…

bq. 4. UR email, November 26th
… What an unfortunate misunderstanding!
We are not referring to instructions on a question in the field of online law, in which my colleagues and I have been working for many years.
On the contrary, we request you to give us … your opinion to remove our misgivings on questions of professional ethics and advertising; we could, albeit extremely reluctantly, certainly have these clarified by the bar association or a court of law …But in the first instance we prefer open dialogue between colleagues.
We continue to look forward to your opinion by 1 December 2003.
…

bq. 5. UV email, November 26th
… What an unfortunate misunderstanding!
You may speak plainly if you want to send me a letter before action.
I look forward with confidence to any legal proceedings and will win them. But even a judgment against me would be worth the cost of your fees, because then we would have another good example of how the legal profession stands in its own way when dealing with new and useful media.
I am sure that our dispute and in particular your progressive (?) view, which does not really seem appropriate for a self-appointed online lawyer, will provide plenty of material for discussions in the blogger community and beyond. …

BBC News reports:

bq. An American woman has been left with a British accent after having a stroke.
This is despite the fact that Tiffany Roberts, 61, has never been to Britain. Her accent is a mixture of English cockney and West Country.

Apparently the first case of this kind occurred in Norway in 1941, where a woman recovered from shrapnel injuries to the head with a German accent – not popular at the time.

From Desbladet
There’s an article at Oxford University with a before and after audio example of another case. It says:

bq. The kind of accent a patient develops is not dependent on any knowledge of a particular foreign language. It is rather the combination of certain changed features such as lengthening of syllables, altered pitch, or mispronouned sounds, which make a patient’s pronunciation sound similar to a particular foreign accent.

Another article is at the Science Blog, a rather interesting community effort.

I know someone else blogged this, and said: how did they know the accent was British? It must have been someone British and facetious (is that possible?) I will acknowledge it later if it comes back to me.
LATER NOTE: of course, it was Ciaran on CompuServe, followed by Wil and Paul. Thanks!

The Belgian version of Expatica reports this tale. The dead man’s family are suing the undertakers for negligence, if I understand it right. (Sources: Brian’s Culture Blog, via Samizdata.net, ultimately from Dave Barry.

Expatica is a series of papers based in various European countries, written in English, for expats (whatever they are). I sometimes look at the German one. It seems to have an American slant.

Jurawiki calls the clauses that are sometimes attached to emails Angstklauseln (anxiety clauses), and it appears the term is used by others too. They seem to be called disclaimers in English, although they aren’t just disclaimers – they sometimes tell you not to read them (rather like the test messages people send to mailing lists saying ‘Test – please do not read’.

There’s also a big collection here. Both links from AdvobLAWg via The New Joerg Times.

Jurawiki also links to another meaning of Angsklausel:

bq. Angstklausel lautet ein Vermerk, durch den der Aussteller des Wechsels seine Haftung für die Annahme und der Indossant (Aussteller eines Wechsels) seine Haftung für die Annahme und Zahlung ausschließen (so genannte sine obligo, Art.9 II WG, Art. 15 I WG).

Zahn calls this escape clause, non-liability clause, or clause permitting a party to avoid liability.

The Internet has more such collections. For instance, stupid email disclaimers, with links, including one to a site advocating the use of these disclaimers; The Register’s longest email disclaimer award. Here is more information in English.

And this is all to say nothing of fax disclaimers…

I’ve been translating an Austrian case which came with a summary in English. Here, Geschäftspartner is translated as business partner. I am using the other party. I asked myself yet again if I am being too fussy here. In English, a partner is someone you work together with, either in a partnership or on some kind of venture, whereas Geschäftspartner in this case means the other party to a contract. Of course, the other party is a more cumbersome expression than business partner, but at least it makes sense.

I had a brief look in Google, and I found support for my point of view. There was a partner on a Netherlands site, and some British sites given advice on partnership. I didn’t look very long.

I consulted some EU sources and found three hits for counterparty. That was new to me. But I discovered it has a specific meaning in business, in swap contracts.