Google operator AROUND

Lifehacker sets out how to use the undocumented Google search operator AROUND.

Just on a cursory examination, I did three searches:

state AROUND (1) witness
state witness
“state witness”

The second two both had examples of state’s witness, but the first didn’t. However, changing the (1) to (2) did.

A Lifehacker commenter gave a link to a Google page on various other operators.

Google translating patents

I mentioned this topic last week under Google and the EPO. The IPKAT (Jeremy) has now taken the topic up in Gained in translation: Google comes to help the EPO (with a nice image).

Quoting the press release and commenting in brackets:

The collaboration aims to offer faster and cheaper fit-for-purpose [this begs the question: “which purpose?” It seems to the IPKat that patents are read for more than one reason] translations of patents for companies, inventors and scientists in Europe. Today, anyone wishing to register a patent must do so in one of the EPO’s official languages – English, French and German. They then need to arrange for translation of the patent – at their own cost – into the languages of all countries in which they wish the patent to apply. This complexity means that many European patents are not available in all national languages or legally binding in all the EPO’s member states. Similarly, anyone searching for information in patents published in foreign languages finds it difficult to retrieve data relevant to their research projects.

A final remark:

Merpel says, when are they going to invent a device that translates English-language patent documents into English too?

The decline of the English language

Following a Daily Mail article about adults dumbing down the English language, there is a nice piss-take by Martin Robbins in the Guardian, The sinister threat to our language and brains.

Since all change in society is by its very nature sinister, evil, and evidence of spiraling decline, Mrs Clair sensibly believes that it may be too late to “turn the tide on our declining English”.

“Their language is deteriorating. They are lowering the bar. Our language is flying off at all tangents, without the anchor of a solid foundation,” she warned. In the past, that foundation was comprised of a solid blend of Greek, Latin, Arabic, Celtic, Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, French and Romance influences, giving English the famed consistency and simplicity of structure that helped it to become a global language. But now, two thousand years of careful development looks set to be wiped out in a generation as young English people irresponsibly try to meddle with it themselves.

A couple of the commenters were not too sure whether the article was serious or not.

Peter Harvey also commented on Ms Clair in his blog last week, under the heading Spelling and dunces.

There’s been a discussion of the (Mexican) Spanish term fojas utiles. Two points came up here: firstly, these may be ‘sheets with valid text’ – at least, the other sheets are either blank or crossed out (inutilizadas). Short lines may be used to fill up a ‘blank’ page so nothing can be entered there. I thought this was interesting because I can remember some German birth certificates contain a line with the words ‘eine Zeile’ (a line), which I suppose is the same thing. I’ve never found a source for information on the procedure for documents. I doubt there is one online – this kind of thing would be in materials for court office staff and that kind of thing.

The second question relates to the term sheets – would not pages be better? A sheet (the term was new to me) means a leaf of paper with a front (recto) and a back (verso). Actually, I know the term folio rather than sheet for this. One always wonders whether to use it when the German reference to a big register says Blatt.

OED:

folio: 1. A leaf of paper, parchment, etc. (either loose as one of a series, or in a bound volume) which is numbered only on the front. … recto/verson
2. In Bookkeeping, The two opposite pages of a ledger or other account-book in which these are used concurrently …

One commenter said that in archival speak, the term is leaf, which can have a front and back. Although people do talk about the fronts and backs of pages, this isn’t correct.

The Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed., 1.1), for the USA:

The trimmed sheets of paper that make up a book are often referred to as leaves. A page is one side of a leaf. The front of the leaf, the side that lies to the right in an open book, is called the recto page (or simply recot). The back of the leaf, the side that lies to the left when the leaf is turned, is called the verso. Rectos are odd-numbered pages; versos are even-numbered.

New Hart’s Rules, for the UK, confirms this use of leaf, recto and verso, and also introduces the term spread or opening.

But when it comes to folio, things get more confusing. Folio can mean a page number, which is not relevant here. Or it can mean a sheet of a typescript, which should be printed on one side of the paper only.

My conclusion is that the correct term for Blatt is leaf, but the terms sheet and folio are more generally used. Page is not correct.

All clear as mud.

I remember making fun of Lidl’s British Week in Germany, but can’t remember actually making a recommendation. Still, I seem to have put someone’s back up:

HATERWORDS*SALT AND VINEGRE STICKS*EX LIDL

Englaender sind ja bekannt, dass diese weder kochen koennen , noch von kueche etwas
verstehen. Alles fuer den SCHWEINETROG

Haette ich wissen muessen, als ich mir diesen Dreck bei Lidl gekauft habe.

Schde um die 2 eur….was fuer ein schweinedreck. igitt und ab in die muelltonne
adios

It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. Could it have been a lawyer? The first word of the header is a variation on Hatherwoods.

Actually, I do think crisps already impregnated with vinegar taste very strange. In my youth we used to get the little bag of salt in blue paper to put on them, but nowadays all the flavourings are added in advance.

1914-1918 war memorial, Stadtpark

The name of the rose – rose garden, Stadtpark

Unfortunately I had no bird food with me

Please don’t touch

Currywurst is not really a Franconian thing, but you can get Nürnberger here too. Snowing too much to take many pictures. The town hall now has energy-saving light bulbs.

This is ridiculous. I already said some books I could read again, so the rest are the ones I won’t read again.

The most likely category are potboiler crime novels, which I have read a lot of but not recently. And I don’t have too many of them left on my shelves. I have been known to read Ruth Rendell, and I liked the Barbara Vine novels, at least those I read. I have read P.D. James but liked it less. Also Ian Rankin, Sue Grafton, Sarah Paretsky. And whoever wrote Bella Block, before Bella Block became Hannelore Hoger. I have found one of the spook Minni Mann series by Helmut Zenker, Die Mann ist tot und lässt Sie grüßen, which has a touch of Müllers Büro about it. Maybe I could read that again. But these are mostly page turners, and when I know the story I won’t enjoy the book on a second reading.