An article at euobserver.com is entitled Linguists call for more diversity at EU level (what is the ‘EU level’, exactly?).

Some call for a Slavic language alongside English, French and German, some call for English only (and for the UK to subsidize English language learning in Europe – what about Ireland, I say? – I suppose Ireland is to subsidize Irish language learning).

bq. The Commission is already finding it tough to keep up with its translation commitments – particularly for complicated legal texts.

I know just how the Commission feels.

(Via kalebeul)

Man kennt den Schimmel und den Schimmelreiter; jetzt gibt es den Schimmelhund (US mold dog). Es wäre wahrscheinlich nichts für Schiller gewesen.

bq. You’ve heard of Bomb dogs? Drug dogs? Arson dogs? Now, Man’s Best Friend is the latest weapon in the war on mold.
Traditional mold detection methods can be costly and drag on for weeks. Certified Mold Dogs generate quicker and more accurate results, which leads to lower remediation costs for homeowners and insurers.

LATER NOTE: They are indeed called Schimmelhunde or Schimmel-Spürhunde in Germany. 3-Sat, biomess:

bq. Die Schimmelsuche mit einem Spürhund (sog. Schimmelhund) wird von uns nur in seltenen Ausnahmefällen eingesetzt. Derartige Hunde sind zwar publikumswirksam, aber teuer im Einsatz. Die Erfahrung zeigt außerdem, daß relativ häufig Fehlbefunde auftreten, da dem Hund Luftströmungen durch Konvektion oder Zug zugetragen werden können und er dann die falschen Stellen markiert. Außerdem ist der Einsatz eines Hundes auf Orte von etwa 40 – 80 cm oberhalb Nasenhöhe begrenzt, so daß er Befallstellen an den oberen Raumteilen nicht genau bzw. gar nicht ermitteln kann. Gerade dort sind aber häufig sog. Wärmebrücken (auch Kältebrücken genannt) zu finden, die zu Schimmelbesatz neigen.

From Insurance Defense Blog, via Notes from the (Legal) Underground.

Still life with dead umbrellas.

World Wide Words discusses the word perverb (or portmanteau proverb), meaning a perverse proverb, such as ‘Don’t count your chickens before you can walk’; and portmantreau proverbs, meaning those with one letter added, such as ‘Fine swords butter no parsnips’.

This would be something like ‘Die dümmsten Bauern haben kurze Beine’.

This doesn’t seem to cover the type ‘Geteiltes Leid ist doppeltes Leid’ (‘A sorrow shared is a sorrow doubled’). I think I got that from the amusing Erlangen publication ‘Was lefft’.

Meanwhile, you can test your German proverbs with the Goethe Institut, whose pictures are extremely mystifying.

And Udos Lexikon adds to Feld-, Wald- und Wiesenanwalt Feld-, Wald- und Wiesenübersetzer.

I’m just experimenting with Flickr (thanks, Isabella!)

I am using Flickr because a friend of mine wants to put some pages online about birds and plants in Fürth.

The Apotheke is one of the temples of German shopping life.

Language Log (Geoff Pullum) berichtet, in Kansas wird schon wieder unterrichtet, dass die englische Sprache vor 500 Jahren von Gott erschaffen wurde (er hat sich wohl einiges von Deutsch und Französisch abgeguckt). Die Theorie heißt “intelligentes Design“. Allerdings sind keine Linguistik-Experten bereit, als Zeugen aufzutreten:

bq. Six years ago, when conservatives previously held a majority of seats on the Kansas board of education, they established guidelines encouraging schools to give equal time to the theory of linguistic creationism, which claims that English was created directly by God five hundred years ago at the start of the Great Vowel Shift so that the King James Bible could be translated into it. But this triggered a backlash, and they lost control of the board, which repealed the guidelines. Now that conservatives are back in a majority position, they are instead promoting the teaching of the intelligent design theory. But linguists are not willing to appear at their scheduled hearings on the subject.

Many of my students of English would have disagreed that the English language was the result of intelligent design.

Meanwhile, in a parallel development, recent events have cast doubt on the suggestion from Texas that Tony Blair is the result of intelligent design.

Spätere Anmerkung / Later note:
Apparently this story is not true, but was invented by Geoff Pullum as a joke (see comments on TEFL Smiler). It just proves that not only do many Americans have strange ideas about Britain and Germany, but I have strange ideas about the USA.