When I first started reading Bryan Garner on legal English, little did I know he would one day write a book on American English usage. This is a book that has a recommendation on the cover by William Safire and came out in its third edition in August. Here it is at amazon.com. You can read his defence of his prescriptivism in the preface there.

I hope this doesn’t keep him away from legal usage. But perhaps, having written on that subject and revised Black’s Law Dictionary, he has had enough of it.

At all events, Bryan Garner has sent out a call for his readers to buy one or more copies of the new third edition at www.amazon.com or www.bn.com

This is because the main U.S. bookstore chains are not stocking the book and they have told OUP that they consider usage guides a “defunct category”.

It might be even better for Americans to go to their bookstore and order it.

Or why not order the Chicago Style Guide, or, for Britain, New Hart’s Rules, or Judith Butcher on copyediting? Here’s a Wikipedia list.

I’m not sure what the situation of British bookshop chains is, but I suppose even if Germany is being Thalia-ized, the Duden is safe.

Here’s the rest of Garner’s email, which someone sent to me:

If you’re curious to see what effect you’re having, watch the rankings on Amazon.com or Bn.com in coming days and weeks. We’ll be alerting the major chains to those numbers, and we want to get as close to the top 50 as we can. If you’re trying to order and see that the book is labeled “out of stock,” order anyway: the effort is also to ensure that the online booksellers keep adequate stocks.

In return for this favor – it’s a grassroots effort – I’ll be happy to inscribe copies that you send to LawProse for that purpose, if you (1) include a filled-out FedEx airbill for returning them to you, and (2) suggest an appropriate inscription.

Thank you for whatever help you can provide in this endeavor to show booksellers that the concern for good English is alive and well.

Bryan A. Garner

Bryan A. Garner
LawProse, Inc.
14180 Dallas Parkway
Suite 280
Dallas, TX 75254
(214) 691-8588

In DDR Pulps, John Brownlee doesn’t give a shit about the difference between East and West Germany (see comments):

I was a tad vague, and used a bad example to start the series. Also, ultimately, I don’t give a shit. Still, this one may very well have been from East Germany, considering it was published in 1993. The Deutschemark was being used even in East Germany then.

Apart from anything else, one wonders if the artwork on ‘Rückkehr der Saurier’ was done in Germany at all.

(Via Boing Boing – more comments there)

One thing pointed out by the BDÜ representatives at the Book Fair was this video from the Berlin BDÜ conference, where Jutta Witzel interviews Chris Durban. Chris Durban has certain opinions about how to get and keep good clients, which I am sure are excellent for her particular area of financial translation for big companies. As with the Buchmesse talk on how to find a special area, I think translators cover a very wide field and not all tactics work for all.

My negative comment for the day is: why is the video described in German on YouTube when the interview is in English?

I went to the Buchmesse yesterday. I hadn’t been for three years. I spoke to two publishers, briefly. But mainly I go to look at the books, not to chat up publishers.

Via Mobile:

It seemed less fun than last time. I was also quite disoriented. Last time, I remember taking little buses everywhere. They must have gone to the main entrances. On foot (the Via Mobile doesn’t go everywhere), it can be very wearing to walk all over a hall looking for the right exit. This is despite looking at the map online the night before.

Reklam:

This is probably a translator in action:

Previously, I made a longer list of publishers beforehand. I would go and see small presses like Ten Speed Press or various international law publishers – as a reader and book buyer, not as a translator. Now, I suspect many presses weren’t even there, and although I took quite a few catalogues, there was nothing like the superabundance of yore. Probably the financial crisis has had its effect.

I had been reading Chinese novels and thinking of brushing up my Chinese, but I did not see any English-language publishers with Chinese books (there may have been some). There were some German translations around. The tent features mainly Chinese minorities, doing calligraphy, painting, embroidery, making puppets and so on – all a bit demonstratively non-political.

For the Book Fair, translators means literary translators. The translators’ centre, which I saw when it began, have become a firm fixture. I heard Norma Kessler and Babette Schrooten talking on the topic of Wie kommt man als Übersetzer zu einem Spezialgebiet? – How does a translator find a special subject? They were talking about their position after training as translators. Babette had worked in a medical occupation for fourteen years and had done a lot of horse riding, and Norma (after failing to get a translation from Diogenes – I get the impression universities give their translation students the idea they can make a living as literary translators – and they haven’t even studied literature – rant off) went into architecture, her husband being an architect. It is always interesting to me to hear other translators talking about their lives. It also indicates that translation students (of both sexes) should consider well who they get married too.

At the BDÜ I was glad to meet – if briefly – another translation blogger, Fabio Said of fidus interpres. He was only there for the day too and had travelled as long as I had, but got up earlier.

Translators’ centre: translators who have won prizes:

Margaret Atwood on the blue sofa (irritating interviewer):

LATER NOTE: Fabio has blogged the Buchmesse now, and he also has a video giving an impression of his day there.

And here’s another impression of mine – hot dogs being warmed up at the left.

I was pleased but surprised that Herta Müller got the Nobel Prize for Literature.

I read a few of her stories and two novels while she was still in Romania (till 1987) and have meant to come back to them. What she writes is rightly described as poetic, but it’s easier going than Elfriede Jelinek and I should think quite translatable.

In particular I remember a story called Das Schwäbische Bad, about a whole family one after the other using the same bathwater. Apparently this story was not well received by a number of Banat Swabians.

Extract in English from Everything I Own I Carry With Me (Atemschaukel), tranlated by Donal McLaughlin.

The war was still on in January 1945. Shocked that, in the depths of winter, I was to be taken who-knows-where by the Russians, everyone wanted to give me something that would be useful, maybe, even if it didn’t help. Because nothing on earth could help. It was irrevocable: I was on the Russians’ list, so everyone gave me something – and drew their own conclusions as they did. I took the things and, at the age of seventeen, drew my own conclusion: the timing was right for going away. I could have done without the list being the reason, but if things didn’t turn out too badly, it would even be good for me. I wanted away from this thimble of a town, where all the stones had eyes. I wasn’t so much afraid as secretly impatient. And I had a bad conscience because the list that caused my relatives such anguish was, for me, tolerable. They feared that in another country something might happen to me. I wanted to go to a place that did not know me.

In Romania, there are two big groups of Germans: the Transylvanian Saxons (Siebenbürger Sachsen) and the Banat Swabians (Banater Schwaben). Herta Müller is one of the latter. Previously the most famous was Johnny Weissmüller. This map is from Wikimedia Commons and relates to the year 1945. Some Romanian Germans succeeded in avoiding deportation by emigrating at that time:

For most of WWII, Romania was on the German side, but in 1944 it joined the Allies. As far as I know, the Romanian Germans stayed loyal to Hitler. From 1945 on, all men between 17 and 45 and women between 18 and 30, with a few exceptions, were sent to labour camps in the Soviet Union for years.

The deportation order applied to all men between the ages of 17 and 45 and women between 18 and 30. Only pregnant women, women with children less than a year old and persons unable to work were excluded.

Here’s an English page with a lot of links (the Literary Saloon, via The Elegant Variation)

Extracts from The Land of Green Plums, translated by Michael Hofmann (original title: Herztier).

Expulsion of Germans from Romania after World War II

If you can’t get Herta Müller books at the moment, you can read her husband, Richard Wagner, in German.