It’s Spiegel again, getting its knickers in a twist about ‘strange British laws’, a book by Nigel Cawthorne that’s actually been around for a while.

bq. Cawthorne ist Großbritanniens Experte, wenn es um die merkwürdigsten Gesetze des Landes geht. Im November vergangenen Jahres veröffentlichte er sein 266 Seiten starkes Werk “The Strange Laws of Old England”, in dem er auf süffisante Weise die Possen der britischen Gesetzgebung beschreibt.

Make that ‘September vorvergangenen Jahres’. And as for Cawthorne being an expert on Britain’s laws, he is also an expert on:
the world’s greatest serial killers
sex lives of Hollywood goddesses (whatever they are)
the curious cures of old England
sex lives of the kings and queens of England
sex lives of the great dictators
sex lives of the popes (watch out, Benedict)
history of pirates: blood and thunder on the high seas
and that probably isn’t all

For example, it’s presented as an exciting new find that people aren’t allowed to die in the Palace of Westminster.

bq. “Soweit ich weiß, ist dort bisher noch niemand gestorben, aber, wenn doch, wurde vielleicht der Fall auch gar nicht erfasst. Schließlich gibt es im Parlament theoretisch diesen Fall gar nicht.”

I think people most certainly have died there, and the street outside has been recorded as the place of death.

bq. In den vergangenen 40 Jahren wurden bereits 2000 Gesetze gestrichen, aber es gibt immer noch 4000 nationale, 11.000 lokale und 13.000 private Rechtsprechungen, die gültig sind.

Rechtsprechungen!

bq. Kevin Martin, Vorsitzender der britischen Rechtsgesellschaft, ärgert das schon lange. Er fordert, dass sich endlich etwas tut.

Die britische Rechtsgesellschaft? That sounds impressive. Could they mean the Law Society? If to be translated, perhaps another term might suggest itself, like Anwaltsverein (and yes, keen commenters, I am aware that barristers have their own).

Thanks to Herbert on an ITI list.

Only for UK residents, the London Goethe Institut has a competition – deadline April 10 – to translate part of Ronald Reng’s Gebrauchsanweisung für London (2004), which describes the author’s experience playing football for the FC Churchill in England, including a 2:3 loss to a Catalan team. Competition. Text.
Gebrauchsanweisung für London

You don’t have to be a translator – in fact, it’s better if you don’t earn your living from translation, because it’s a huge piece (some parts are marked as not to be translated, but the rest is quite a lot).

(Via Erik Dams)

The mysteriously uplifted Chartered Institute of Linguists (see earlier entries) has revamped its website but not its domain name (at ciol.org.uk something else can be found). The menu items are all preceded by >, but perhaps that is a mistake? There is a Discussion Forum there, on which legal translation questions are sometimes discussed (for instance by the mysterious Maurice), but it is offline due to technical problems at the moment.

Tina Vallès (Catalan) reports that the word translator was used as an insult for Mourinho of Chelsea – see this article (Portuguese LATER NOTE No! it’s Spanish…should have recognized that before being corrected by a lover of pedantry) – he used to help Robson at Barcelona press conferences:

bq. Un grupo reducido de aficionados del Barça, cerca de una veintena, le recibieron con gritos de “traductor, traductor”, en alusión a su época en el Barça, cuando llegó como asistente de Robson en las ruedas de prensa.

(Via Trevor)

A client would like me to send my invoice to a different address.

bq. Ihre Rechnung rückübersenden wir Ihnen zu Ihrer Verwendung.

Just a note that both Language Log and languagehat have entries about poor court interpreting and its effects for the defendant. Bill Poser in Language Log talks about people who can speak two languages but don’t know anything about interpreting, and the fact that they may abridge.

bq. Interpreters may be highly qualified, or they may be the bailiff’s sister who took a little Spanish in high school. No one really knows how often this leads to miscarriages of justice, in part because it is very difficult to appeal on these grounds because appellate courts normally consider only the written record of the trial, and the written record contains only the English translation of the testimony, not what was actually said.

Poser compares Canada and the US, but I fear there is nowhere in the world you could be guaranteed a good interpreter. In Germany, there are sworn interpreters, but not for all languages, and the judges don’t always call sworn interpreters (and, dare I whisper it, not even all sworn interpreters are perfect). The thing that worries me most is the inability of some judges and presumably of most people to understand what interpreting involves.

Steve at languagehat picks up the point about the difficulty of appeal:

bq. This strikes me as a serious problem, and it seems to me that trial records should include a taped record of foreign-language testimony so that if there is a complaint about the translation it can be checked. Otherwise, what’s to prevent an ignorant or malicious interpreter from completely distorting, or even inventing, testimony?

He asks what the situation is in other countries. Bill Poser says in all common-law countries appeals can be based only on the written record. I feel I should know the answer to this. I think the written record is only a big deal in the USA. However, I don’t know how far one can appeal against misinterpretation. Btw, don’t miss the comments at languagehat.

Some good descriptions of the interpreter’s position at the court interpreter weblog. A German interpreter, but with a broader weblog range, here at Plain English.