Category Archives: law

German lawyers/Deutsche Juristen

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At Obiter Dictum, Christian Säfken recently dipped a few toes in the murky waters of terms for German lawyers:

Anwalt ist nicht gleich Anwalt

He discusses: Jurist, Stud. iur., Cand. iur., Wirtschaftsjurist, Rechtskundiger, geprüfter Rechtskandidat, Diplom-Jurist, Volljurist, Rechtsanwalt, Patentanwalt, Syndikus, Justiziar, Fachanwalt. Keen commenters wish to add Assessor, Probericht, Sozius.

We might add Notar and Anwaltsnotar, Staatsanwalt, Amtsanwalt, Rechtspfleger, Rechtsbeistand, Verteidiger.

We could add the Swiss Advokat, Fürsprecher and Fürsprech.

Plague of giant black squirrels/Schwarze Eichhörnchen vor den Toren

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It’s a curious fact about the red squirrel, quite common in Germany, that some of them are black. Here’s a Wikimedia picture:

They are sometimes much blacker than that, but the same size as the red squirrel and obviously similar.

Now recently it has come to the attention of Germans that the UK is overrun with immigrant US grey squirrels – sciurus carolinensis. This is not exactly news, but the Guardian did recommend them as the ultimate ethical meal.

Somehow the local paper has got it into its head that sciurus carolinensis is black, and it is quick to report – with photo – that not every black squirrel is bad:

Das rote Eichhörnchen ist uns vertraut und jedem schon einmal über den Weg gelaufen. Und jetzt sollen, so heißt es, seine Tage gezählt sein. Das ist glücklicherweise nur ein Gerücht. Im Süden Englands haben sich allerdings die ausgewilderten und fast doppelt so großen schwarzen Eichhörnchen stark vermehrt. Die typischen rotfarbenen europäischen Eichhörnchen wurden mittlerweile in den Norden Englands verdrängt. Nicht jedes schwarze Eichhörnchen ist aber ein Nachfahre der amerikanischen Tiere. Das hier abgebildete Exemplar aus dem Landkreis Fürth ist einfach nur eine Farbvariante des uns vertrauten fuchsfarbenen Eichhörnchens. Sein Vorkommen beschränkt sich jedoch auf den süddeutschen Raum und ist auch dort nicht so häufig anzutreffen wie seine roten Vettern.

I’m not too sure that the grey squirrel should be described as ‘ausgewildert’, as if it had been a mink that escaped from a mink farm. Anyway, here is one of the nasty creatures photographed by myself in the south of England:

They have rather nice silvery tails, but I suppose that won’t do them any good if they’re not integrated.

LATER NOTE: I have obviously missed out on the ‘mutant’ black squirrel, which is a variant of the grey.

It has already taken over in parts of England and appears to be spreading.
Its rise means the greys now have serious competition for the first time since they were introduced to Britain from America in the 1870s.
The black squirrel is also likely to make life even harder for our native red squirrels.
A study by Cambridge scientists shows that black squirrels now make up half the squirrel population in some parts of the UK.
The upstarts are genetic mutations of greys, but have a darker fur and higher levels of the male sex hormone testosterone – making them more aggressive and more successful.

Well, I’d give them some peanuts if I met them.

A translator’s day/Arbeit und Pausen

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I often wonder if I’m not too lazy to be a translator:

My typical day begins with a walk through the woods to school. Besides being a very serene start to the day not least for the dog, and especially if I have been at my desk since 5 am it has the additional benefit of allowing me to contra off any chocolate consumed during a sedentary days translation and also to mull over any headlines or anything else requiring quiet contemplation. I often use this time to give translations or editing a final read-through manic multi-tasker that I am.

A day in the life of a translator, from the site of thebigword

Doughnut/Berliner

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I was a jelly donut

This topic has frequently been mentioned here – for instance in this 2005 entry. But it refuses to die the death. It is really entrenched in the USA.

paperpools took it up recently, linking to the NYT book blog, and fortunately this led to a useful entry in the Bremer Sprachblog.

Paper Cuts talked to Michael Jennings, the chairman of the German department at Princeton University.

After you wrote to me, I did a bit of informal research myself — talking to lots of friends in Berlin. And their responses were all over the map. Certainly the most common and accepted way to say “I’m a resident of Berlin” is “Ich bin Berliner,” i.e. without the indefinite article. But, for many speakers, it is by no means incorrect or ungrammatical to say “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Some of my respondents in fact applauded Kennedy on his nuanced use of German, since for them the sentence without the indefinite article implies that the speaker is a native Berliner, while the sentence with “ein” suggests either more recent residence in Berlin or even solidarity with its inhabitants (which was clearly Kennedy / Sorenson’s intention).

Such toe is all right now/Nachahmung in der Rechtssprache

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Some Germans – lawyers or translators – can write really good legal English but tend to be more Catholic than the Pope (päpstlicher als der Papst) when doing so.

I’m reminded of this by the (new) legal writer’s quote in his latest entry:

“Much bad writing today comes not from the conventional sources of verbal dereliction—sloth, original sin, or native absence of mind—but from stylistic imitation. It is learned, an act of stylistic piety which imitates a single style, the bureaucratic style I have called The Official Style. This bureaucratic style dominates written discourse in our time, and beginning or harried or fearful writers adopt it as protective coloration.”

—Richard A. Lanham, Revising Prose vi (3d ed. 1992).

(This is quoted from Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day, which I don’t receive).

That refers to native English speakers writing English, who have less excuse, of course.

Particular features of this hyperlegalese:

use of said and aforesaid where it adds nothing

use of such instead of this/these

Here’s a site that objects to it too (Alabama Legislative Reference Service):

Rule 10. Use of “Such”
Do not use “such” as a substitute for “the,” “that,” “it,” “those,” “them,” or other similar words.
Example: “The (not ‘such’) application shall be in the form the court prescribes.” Use “such” to express “for example” or “of that kind.”

overuse of shall. I quote an example from Butt and Castle on Modern Legal Drafting:

If the Vendor shall within one month of the receipt of such notice give written notice (If the Vendor … gives would suffice)

Here is Todd Bruno of Louisiana State University, quoting Gerald Lebovits:

About said, as in aforesaid, Justice Smith asked whether one would say, “I can do with another piece of that pie, dear. Said pie is the best you’ve ever made.” About same, he asked whether one would say, “I’ve mislaid my car keys. Have you seen same?” About the illiterate such, he asked whether one would say, “Sharon Kay stubbed her toe this afternoon, but such toe is all right now.” About hereinafter called, he asked whether one would say, “You’ll get a kick out of what happened today to my secretary, hereinafter called Cuddles.” About inter alia, he asked, “Why not say, ‘Among other things?’ But, more important, in most instances inter alia is wholly unnecessary in that it supplies information needed only by fools …. So you not only insult your reader’s intelligence but go out of your way to do it in Latin yet!”

See also the Legalese Hall of Shame.