Miscellaneous notes of a retired legal translator

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A few notes, just in case I don’t stop blogging

1. Bernstein

Richard K. Bernstein died on 15 April 2025, the 22nd anniversary of my blog. Obituaries are available. He was 90, so he made it longer than Pope Francis.

Richard Bernstein’s diabetes book tells a fascinating story: at 12, in 1946, diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Pumped full of insulin. In his early thirties, alive but with health problems. An engineer. The first diabetic to test his own blood sugar at home. Not allowed to buy a testing device, but his wife was a doctor. It weighed 8 kilos, I think (this is all from memory. Tested several times a day and developed a strict low-carbohydrate diet, his health problems vanished and he lived a normalish life.

As a non-physician he was not able to publish his findings. He therefore qualified as a doctor himself and was able to publish, and set up a diabetes practice himself.

I accidentally stumbled on his death notice when I was thinking about diabetes as I had decided to try an NHS prediabetes course. My eldest brother was diagnosed in his 50s. I am not so insulin resistant and have been prediabetic on and off for years. The course is run by something called “Thrive Tribe”. Enough said.

2. Upminster

Diamond Geezer on Upminster as the Easternmost part of London, for Easter!

He has done all the anoraky stuff on establishing which shopping parade is the easternmost in London – it’s in Cranham. He has the easternmost Caffé Nero – for some reason he overlooked Costa, but the local man has a reputation for not letting his staff have tips etc. so that’s OK.

3. Die überraschenden Funde aus Wallensteins riesigem Heerlager

Die Welt, 18 April 2025

Building for a new housing area in Stein uncovered the centre of Wallenstein’s camp in 1632, which was over 16 km long. 13,000 trees had to be felled for it. There were three gallows and a wheel with the body parts of someone who had been quartered.

Wallenstein residierte im Süden des Lagers in einem zerlegbaren Holzhaus. Aus Böhmen war seine silberne Badewanne mitgebracht worden. Golo Mann vermerkt, dass der Generalissimus Kräuterbäder nahm, gerne Rebhühner aß und Weizenbier trank. Vermutlich auch Erdbeeren genoss, es war ja Erdbeerzeit.

Gustav Adolf was established in Nuremberg and Wallenstein aimed to starve his army out.

 

 

Feast of the tabernacles/football

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Two photos from Fürth.

In the Jewish Museum there is one room whose roof can be removed and replaced by branches, where the family who lived there could stay during the Feast of Tabernacles (Laubhüttenfest/Sukkot). This is a shot of it:

 

This is a balcony in Friedrichstraße – according to the famous FürthWiki this is a tabernacle, built in 1907: “Balkonanbau, vermutlich Sukka, von Adam Egerer, 1907″:

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Germany refuses to extradite man to UK

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Germany refuses to extradite man to UK over concerns about British jail conditions

I know things are bad in this country – I know courts have been closed (even without containing RAAC), I know legal aid has been cut, I know prisons are overcrowded (while the government calls for more and harsher sentences) – but this still doesn’t sit very well with me.

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Perpetrators (pool of)

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(Excuse the lack of spaces between sections – I don’t understand the latest edition of WordPress)

 

On the platform formerly known as Twitter, Mary Aspinall-Miles (followed by 27 people I follow) wrote:

May I ask a question about criminal justice language: When did the word “perpetrators/perp” start getting wide-scale use in the UK generally?
I understand the reply from FaithfulDefenceAdvocate:
After the pandemic when we all started watching too many US cop shows on Netflix?
But that may not be the context in which the term has been used so much.
Reply from Inspector Morose:
Has it though? I don’t hear this at work: it’s suspect / offender / nominal / defendant; and very occasionally accused / subject / target / person of interest. I think it may be more common in victim support services, maybe ?
In a court context, the defendant has not yet been convicted, and after conviction becomes the prisoner/prisoner at th
I gather it has become common to refer to “domestic abuse perpetrators”. Was this not always the case? It sounds a bit US but I suppose there are few alternatives. ‘”Domestic abuser” is a possibility.
As one commenter mentions, the term “pool of perpetrators” is used:
In the light of concerns about the Ben Butler case in June 2016, this post by Sarah Phillimore attempts to explain the law that will apply in the family courts when a child has been hurt and there are a number of adults who could have done it – the so called ‘pool of perpetrators’.
Here’s a 2022 case, Re A (Children) (Pool of Perpetrators) with more information on the term.
In Re B (Children: Uncertain Perpetrator) [2019] EWCA Civ 575, [2019] 2 FLR 211 (“Re B: 2019″), Peter Jackson LJ clarified the proper approach in respect of uncertain perpetrator cases and the concept of a pool of perpetrators.
I have traced the term “pool of perpetrators” to a case as early as 2003 and I think it is probably a term that was introduced and taken up in case law.
The Oxford English Dictionary was not likely to solve this one. But here is part of the entry:
A person who perpetrates something, esp. a crime or evil deed.
  1. 1570

    Estemed as menquellers and perpetratours of most wicked factes.

    J. Foxe, Actes & Monumentes (revised edition) vol. I. 110/2
…

The actor or absolute perpetrator of the crime.

W. Blackstone, Commentaries on Laws of England vol. IV. iii. 34
1796
…

What is often said..of other crimes..if the perpetrator be sufficiently illustrious, it becomes a virtue.

J. H. Burton, Book-hunter (1863) 183
1951

Harington was the Queen’s godson—clever,..naughty, a light~weight, perpetrator of puns and practical jokes.

A. L. Rowse, English Past 24
1995

He wanted the perpetrators captured and executed.

T. Clancy, Op-center xx. 100

Lawyers using dictionaries: a guide

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Terrence R. Carney, of the University of South Africa, has published Linguistics for Legal Translation (thanks to Juliette Scott in her From Words to Deeds blog). The book can be downloaded free of charge as a PDF.

The book is intended not for scholars of linguistics but for legal practitioners.

The focus is statutory interpretation, though constitutional interpreters and interpreters of contracts might also gain from this text. Furthermore, I wrote the book specifically for those who must clarify lexical semantic and pragmatic meaning contested in case law, but who have no official training in linguistics or language studies. More precisely, the book aims at providing a resource for those who attempt forensic lexicological investigations in order to resolve legal disputes.

The book has a particular interest in the use of dicionaries and legal corpora. It is rather strange to read case reports where judges alight on a particular dictionary – whether monolingual or bilingual – and treat it as gospel. So one may hope that some of them come across this book and have time to read it.

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