This is the last post in this accursed meme. I think the book I’ve most often given is Dr. Seuss You’re only old once, although it may not always have been appreciated much.

I’m afraid I shall miss it this year. I missed it in previous years too, but the ducks were less interesting then. I hope it isn’t too hard on the real ducks.

I read the headers of a large number of blogs in a feed reader, so I couldn’t help noticing that a number of translators’ blogs had taken up the idea of posting their favourite language blogs. The ball was started rolling by A ♥ for Language Blogs by Judy and Dagmar Jenner, who were thinking of #followfriday on Twitter (something I am not a fan of because there’s not enough space to say why you should follow these people). It’s been taken up by several others, including Michael Wahlster at Translate This!. Michael even found a plagiarism of his own entry where everything had been renamed.

I liked Michael’s idea of only mentioning the blogs he likes that no one else has mentioned. That’s what I’m going to do too. One he mentioned was completely new to me: BIK Terminology, by Barbara Inge Karsch. I’ve put that on my list.

On top of this, I don’t read a lot of translation blogs in detail. There are lots out there directed at people who want to make their business grow, whereas I sometimes want my business to go away.

My favourites include

love german books by Katy Derbyshire. I recently gave her a plug on the ITI GerNet journal Netzblatt. Katy appears to tell it like it is about the world of translation and publishing in Berlin. Mind you, I can’t remember her ever running down an actual book. I read her because I like to read German books too.

I’m also a reader of the possibly obscure Desbladet. Des has succeeded in escaping the UK and is now living in the Netherlands with his wife and his two children whose real names are probably not Boris and Egberdina.

Not so much a language blog is German Joys by Andrew Hammel, who teaches U:S. law at Düsseldorf University. I find myself clicking through to read his full posts and comments almost more than with any other blog.

Michael mentions Sprachblog, by Ines Balcik, but for some reason I found myself dissatisfied with her entries and no longer follow. I prefer Sprachblog by Anatol Stefanowitsch.

I read Trevor too, although it is often too difficult for my brain to get round. anythingarian rambles & rants from the land of the fretting nun

LATER NOTE: and Sentence first by Stan Carey hasn’t been mentioned by anyone yet.

EVEN LATER NOTE: and I also forgot MA Translation Studies News, An informal blog for translation students and graduates of the University of Portsmouth at home and abroad, which is more interesting to non-Portsmouthers than that sounds.

I have been getting spam comments every five minutes whenever I permit them. They come from fake addresses and multiple IP addresses and their content is meaningless (it always contains a spelling mistake). I know they are probably testing the site, but I see no choice but to occasionally ban comments. The alternative is to keep deleting them individually from my comment filter page.
This has been going on for a few days now.

Yet more dubious stories. A Tory MP has been taking his Jack Russell to work in the House of Commons, but now he has been caught and the dog is banned. This is apparently a catastrophe for him and he is invoking the Human Rights Act. Commons dog ban breaches my human rights, says MP … and no, he’s not the member for Barking (Mail on Sunday):

‘I told the Whip I would invoke the Human Rights Act – not for Max but for me.

‘Whatever people might think of the human rights rules, and I have my doubts about them, they are part of British law.’

I love the way he casts aspersions on human rights while invoking them.

But it gets stranger:

The provision Mr Offord plans to invoke – Article 8, which governs ‘the right to a private or family life’ – was successfully used by a Bolivian immigrant in 2009 to escape deportation on the grounds that he had to stay to look after his cat.

It seems odd that one Bolivian could get away with this without it becoming a precedent.

But further investigation via Google shows that the cat did not need a carer (unlike Mr Offord’s dog). The Bolivian and his girlfriend (nationality not mentioned) had got themselves a cat, and this was one of several indications that they intended to stay together as a family. See the Independent.

Here is a press release of Saarbrücken University which I feel I ought to report. It appeared in the FAZ recently too.

Bei der Lektüre von Geschäftsberichten deutscher Unternehmen trifft man auf viele englische Begriffe. Damit verstoßen die Firmen vermutlich gegen das Aktien- und Handelsgesetz, wie Wissenschaftler am Institut für Wirtschaftsprüfung an der Universität des Saarlandes herausgefunden haben. In einer empirischen Studie untersuchten sie die Geschäftsberichte der „DAX 30“-Unternehmen aus dem Jahr 2009 und schauten, wie häufig darin englische Begriffe vorkommen. Laut deutschem Handelsgesetz müssen Geschäftsberichte in deutscher Sprache abgefasst sein. Der DAX 30 umfasst die wichtigsten deutschen Unternehmen aus klassischen Industriezweigen und der Technologie-Branche.

Im Paragraph 244 des Handelsgesetzbuches steht, dass der Jahresabschluss in deutscher Sprache und in Euro aufzustellen ist. Außerdem wird im Aktiengesetz (Paragraph 400 Abs. 1 Nr. 1) unter Strafe gestellt, wenn eine Aktiengesellschaft „Darstellungen oder Übersichten über den Vermögensstand, in Vorträgen oder Auskünften in der Hauptversammlung unrichtig wiedergibt oder verschleiert“. Professor Michael Olbrich, der das Institut für Wirtschaftsprüfung an der Universität des Saarlandes leitet, ist der Auffassung, dass alle von ihm untersuchten Geschäftsberichte der DAX-30-Unternehmen gegen diese Gesetzesartikel verstoßen. Die Studie wurde kürzlich in der Zeitschrift „Die Aktiengesellschaft“ (AG 2011, S. 326-331) veröffentlicht.

The report relates to a study of the “DAX 30” companies conducted by Professor Michael Olbrich, which I have not seen. The Commercial Code requires that annual reports should be written in German (section 244). In addition, the Aktiengesetz (usually translated as Stock Corporation Act) section 400 (1) no. 1 makes it a criminal offence if a public company ‘misrepresents or conceals the condition of the company, including its relations with affiliated enterprises, in presentations on the financial condition of the company, statements or information provided at the shareholders’ meeting’ (translation by Schneider and Heidenhain). Professor Olbrich allegedly finds all the annual reports of the year 2009 which he studied violated these provisions.

This is not my field, but I find it hard to believe that the use of anglicisms would amount to a criminal offence.

There’s no doubt that German financial and business texts are full of English and ‘English’, and it is sometimes hard to translate ‘English’ into English, but in most cases one understands what they mean – they just wanted to put a bit of icing on it.

Here’s an article in the Saarbruecker Zeitung with more information.

Besonders viele englische Begriffe verwenden Dax-Unternehmen, die den Namen “Deutsche” in ihrem Firmentitel tragen – wie Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Börse, Deutsche Telekom oder Deutsche Post. Die Deutschbanker rangieren laut dieser Studie in der Liste der Englisch-Sünder ganz oben. In deren Geschäftsbericht liegt der Anteil der englischen Begriffe bei 5,65 Prozent aller benutzten Vokabeln. Die Gesamtzahl der englischen Wörter addiert sich auf 8724. Wer den Bericht der Deutschen Bank verstehen will, “muss insgesamt 391 englische Vokabeln beherrschen”. An zweiter Stelle liegt der Traditionskonzern Siemens. Die wenigsten englischen Begriffe werden im Geschäftsbericht des Düngemittel- und Salzkonzerns K+S (Kali + Salz) verwendet. Hier finden sich pro Seite nur 1,77 englische Vokabeln und insgesamt lediglich 1651 englischsprachige Wörter. Sparsam bei der Verwendung der englischen Sprache sind auch der Sportartikel-Hersteller Adidas und der Stahlkonzern Salzgitter. Den Vogel schoss die Volkswagen AG ab.

“In ihrem Geschäftsbericht findet sich jeweils im Anhang des Einzel- und im Anhang des Konzernabschlusses eine vollständig auf Englisch verfasste Verlautbarung”, erläutert Olbrich. Eine deutsche Übersetzung suche man vergebens.