Walisische Radfahrer, die vom Rad vor einer Baustelle absteigen sollen, werden stattdessen informiert, dass eine Blasenkrankheit zurückgekehrt ist (icWales.co.uk):

The temporary sign, placed in front of the roadworks at Barons Court roundabout between Penarth and Cardiff, correctly says ‘cyclists dismount’ in English, but says ‘llid y bledren dymchwelyd’ in Welsh.
Owain Sgiv, an officer for the Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, explained: ‘Roughly translated, llid y bledren dymchwelyd means bladder disease has returned.

Apparently road signs are often mistranslated, because people use online translators. Does that mean there is an online Welsh translation program somewhere?

Cyclists dismount is an awkward sentence to translate as there is no Welsh word for dismount,’ he added.

‘But the correct translation would be something like dim beicio, which means literally no cycling, or man disgyn i feicwyr, which means fall-off area for cyclists.

There are a lot of bolshie cyclists in Germany who would love a language with no word for ‘dismount’. I wonder what Morfablog would make of this – I wish I could understand what they are saying.

A bit of googling (wash my mouth out with soap and water) shows that there is a flickr pool of pictures of bad translations into Welsh, according to a Live Journal diary:

So there’s a flickr pool called Scymraeg, for bad translations into Welsh. And most of what’s in there are roadsigns. BBC News today has a story about one such sign today, which tells English speakers to look right and Welsh speakers to look left.

Sounds like a plan to exterminate the Welsh. Unfortunately most of the pictures aren’t explained in English, but I suppose that’s understandable.

(Thanks to Joe)

1. John Wells, professor (or ex-professor) of phonetics and author of my favourite pronunciation dictionary, has a blog (via Mark Liberman at Language Log).
The discussion there on the mispronunciation of Blaenau Gwent reminds me we were right in the family always to refer to Bluenose Ffestiniog – no-one could believe we thought it was correct (which it isn’t).
Among other things, Wells links to sound clips of Judge Judy.

2. Some time ago, Arrogant Polyglot considered the origin of the middle finger gesture. I was surprised to see that Wikipedia offers exactly the same story for the middle finger as for the British two fingers (V, but not victory V) gesture (scroll down for V sign as an insult). Both entries have links to German Wikipedia entries.

bq. “The finger” is traceable to Roman times [citation needed], but may be unrelated in origin, as the insulting V sign is largely restricted to the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Spain, where it is popular among taxi drivers in Madrid. The insulting V sign is not widely recognized in other countries.

3. The BBC has pictures of Boy George doing community service in New York

4. Julio Juncal’s Transnotes is a wiki of Translation Notes – more information here. (via Carlos Ferrero Martín at Las palabras son pistolas cargadas)

In April I posted a photo of an egg-shaped building going up near Fröttmaning in Munich. I couldn’t find out what it was.

In July I photographed a later stage of development. I also established on a Munich online map that there were a Klärwerk (sewage plant) and Biologische Versuchsanstalt marked there. In view of the local wind power plant, I didn’t think the biological experiments were recreating Frankenstein’s monster, but even Googling got me no further.

But now Brian has written to tell me (see comment under Döner Kebab Killer entry) the following:

bq. The domed buildings are being erected above the city’s water treatment plant to trap gasses that rise from the huge ponds where waste water is rotated to aerate it and mix in the algae.
The gas is then used as a source of energy. The technology is fairly new, so expect to see towers like that everywhere eventually.

I may even need to know this one day (I have been translating contracts about wood chip power plants and green electricity, where the energy and the greenness are sold separately).

Henriettes Inselbote is a German weblog written either by Henriette or her granddaughter, on the subject of living in Great Britain.

I can see at once that Henriette and I are both in the wrong country when I read that she actually misses white asparagus.

By the way, here’s another little idea for what to do with it:

Someone seems to have been telling her very strange stories about English law, however. They told her there are no statutes and no delegated legislation, only case law. And they didn’t fill her in on any similarity to German law, in particular under the EU.

bq. Wenn also z. B. ein Sisalteppichverleger (nennen wir ihn Fred….) den Sisalteppich falsch verlegt, i. e. in various bits and pieces (besonders on the staircase), die sich jetzt schon auflösen, statt in einem Stück, wie in Auftrag gegeben – jemand (nennen wir sie mal H.) daher nicht einsieht, den vollen Preis für diese Glanzleistung zu zahlen, und selbst nach dem Hinzuziehen dreier alternativer Sisalteppichleger völlig evident ist, that Fred Mist gebaut hat, dann kann sich H. nicht auf irgendwelche gesetzlichen Grundlagen beziehen. Fred kann erstmal so lange auf vollständige Bezahlung pochen und herumnölen, bis ein Anwalt in alten Rechtsfällen den Fall eines Sisalteppichverlegers herausgefiltert hat, der zwischen dem Beginn der Zeitrechnung und Juli 2006 mal einen Sisalteppich falsch verlegt hat. Dann erst gäbe es erste hints bezüglich der Antwort auf die Frage: muss Fred eine reduction seiner Rechnung akzeptieren, oder gar den Sisal neu verlegen (worst case scenario kann ich nur sagen), oder……?!

I wonder what would happen in Germany?

(Via Obiter Dictum)

Mr and Mrs Haine had already had a suspended sentence for failing to ensure their daughter attended school, reports the Independent. She attended for ‘the equivalent of six days over seven months’.

What really caught my attention was the fact that Chris and Deborah Haine can call their children Shlaine Haine and Caine Haine.

Their defence lawyer was Tristan Clappe.

Juristisches und Sonstiges (Wolfgang Auer diesmal) hat sich die ganze Woche mit Sprache befasst. Unter anderem ging es darum, dass es die Servitut, nicht das Servitut heißt. Der OGH führte aus (Geschäftszeichen 3Ob125/05m):

bq. Die irrige Auffassung, „Servitut” sei grammatikalisch sächlichen Geschlechts, kann wohl nur auf schwindende Lateinkenntnisse einerseits und die leider auch bei Verfassern von Wörterbüchern bestehende Unkenntnis der österreichischen Rechtssprache, andererseits zurückgeführt werden.

Siehe Filip-Fröschl und Mader, Latein in der Rechtssprache, Wien 1993, ISBN 3 7003 0991 0, eine 1999-Ausgabe gibt es auch:

bq. Servituten oder Dienstbarkeiten (servitus, -utis f.; Verbum: servio 4: dienen, belastet sein). Inhalte des Rechtes: der Eigentümer der belasteten Sache (meist Grundstück) muß eine bestimmte Einwirkung des Berechtigten dulden oder eine bestimmte eigene Einwirkung unterlassen. Die Belastung liegt auf der Sache, ein Eigentümerwechsel ändert an der Rechtstellung des Berechtigten nichts.

But why are servitudes (civil law) so often translated as servitudes and not as easements (common law)? What is the difference?

Here is a diagram of an easement from Barron’s Dictionary of Real Estate Terms:

Here we have a dominant tenement (herrschendes Grundstück) and a servient tenement (dienendes Grundstück), an easement (Grunddienstbarkeit) which is a right of way (Wegerecht) over the servient tenement – all common-law vocabulary similar to the Latin. The easement runs with the land (wirkt dinglich / folgt dem Grundstückseigentum).

(I agree with Francis Davey that the Wikipedia article, though not bad, is a bit confusing)

I can’t offhand find anything explaining why the common-law easement is not close enough to render the civil-law servitude. Horn, Kötz and Leser use servitude. The only thing I can think of is that the wider ramifications of each term vary – there are variant types in both cases, and these differ.

Incidentally, this week I used wayleave to refer to a right for electricity pipes and conduits (Durchleitungsrecht). But I only used it as an alternative in brackets. That’s another term I need to pin down.

LATER NOTE: I forgot to Google. This definition from answers.com looks good:

bq. The term servitude is also used in property law. In this context, servitude is used with the term easement, a right of some benefit or beneficial use out of, in, or over the land of another. Although the terms servitude and easement are sometimes used as synonyms, the two concepts differ. A servitude relates to the servient estate or the burdened land, whereas an easement refers to the dominant estate, which is the land benefited by the right. Not all servitudes are easements because they are not all attached to other land as appurtenances (an appurtenance is an appendage or that which belongs to something else).