Scarcely has the World Youth Day ended than we are confronted with this:

bq. ‘Piano Man’ turns out to be Bavarian farm boy

bq. BERLIN – The mysterious Piano Man who fooled doctors in Britain for months by pretending to be mentally ill was back in his native Germany Monday after admitting to having staged an elaborate hoax.

Pretending to be mentally ill and pretending to play the piano, apparently:

bq. The patient was nicknamed Piano Man after reports that he entertained hospital staff with a remarkable talent for classical recitals. When medics gave him a pen and paper, he drew detailed pictures of a grand piano.

bq. However, the report said he could only tap one key continuously on the piano in the hospital chapel and that he only drew a picture of a piano because that was the first thing that came into his head.

It sounds as if quite a few people were pretending to be mentally ill.

Thanks again to Abnu of Wordlab for this Internet exclusive. Doesn’t seem to have hit the British press yet (and apparently the NHS Trust is ashamed).

LATER NOTE: Rainer Langenhan links to a German version of the story.

The Budapest Business Journal presents a little rant about the Hungarian National Office for Translations and Attestations (OFFI):

bq. Everyone has a tale to tell about the creaking grasp of certain languages too often displayed by those who translate for this creaking institution, founded way back in 1869. If you’re a native English speaker, for one, a glance at OFFI’s website will provide plenty of chuckles, where the text appears in places to have been written in some 19th century form of Hunglish.

bq. The trouble is, of course, is that if a translation has the OFFI seal and jolly little ribbon attached, then for all intents and purposes in the eyes of the law, the pope is Jewish if the OFFI version has it so.

Here is the English OFFI site. There is indeed a contrast in style here:

bq. OFFI Rt.’s operation is supported by modern background technology developed and upgraded over the years while responding to stringent requirements. The core of the IT support is a computer network which not only offers word processing software to support the core business but also handles business administration and provides electronic contacting facilities.

Breitenbach are selling Wahlschlappen in a choice of four colours.

This is not easy to translate as Wahlschlappe means a bad election result – a party is said to have suffered a Wahlschlappe (heavy losses), whereas Schlappen are slippers.

I see they have the domain name too, surely not a popular one. Some legislation is on the cards in Britain to prevent people from making money on Olympics 2012-type language. I doubt something like this would have been caught.

bq. Existing legislation already prevents non-official sponsors from using distinctive “Olympic marks” like the Olympic rings.
But the new bill will make it illegal to combine words like “games”, “medals”, “gold”, “2012”, “sponsor” or “summer” in any form of advertising.

LATER NOTE: One has to be careful in translating political colours. For example, we wouldn’t say in English that the Bavarian electorate is largely black.

(Via Peter Müller)

I happened on the Wikipedia entry on legal translation:

bq. Only professional translators specialising in legal translation should translate legal documents and scholarly writings. The mistranslation of a passage in a contract, for example, could lead to lawsuits and loss of money.

Well, loss of money for some, gain of money for others.

bq. Translators of legal texts often consult law dictionaries, especially bilingual law dictionaries. Care should be taken, as some bilingual law dictionaries are of poor quality and their use may lead to mistranslation.

I’m not knocking the entries on legal translation and law dictionary. Just wondering why all the books they recommend are written by the same person.

Wayne Leman’s Better Bibles Blog is about Bible translations and how to improve them. There are links to various resources and other blogs. It lists 22 versions of the Bible and readers can post their specific comments under each version. There are also some polls on language use. I haven’t seen this blog before, but it appears it started in April 2005.

Incidentally, while it’s still Sunday, Abnu points out that about 1000 people a day were getting SMSs about the Pope in the last few days – limited to 160 characters.

bq. Hurra! Du hast Dich zum SMS-Gottesdienst angemeldet.

Deutsch Welle reports.

I know there’s a furniture war on, but I also realise that Möbel Neubert won’t be trying to sell me a double commode (note: false friend). The penny only dropped a couple of hours later.

This is posted for Tony of Germersheim, at his suggestion. I don’t know if he wants to lower the tone of this weblog even further or raise it. The Chinese appears to mean something like ‘Good taste little restaurant’ – possibly some would disagree.

The yellow handle in the foreground probably explains itself. In the background is a further clue to the first picture above.