Number 1 threw me.

You got 11 right!

Saint Paul could hardly have done better

Letztes Jahr ging der Oxford Weidenfeld Übersetzungspreis an Denis Jackson, der nach und nach die Werke von Theodor Storm übersetzt.
Suchen Sie eine Übersetzung von Storm für Ihre englischsprachige Freunde – hier ist sie.

The winner of the Oxford Weidenfeld Prize for translation has just been announced: Magda Szabo, The Door translated by Len Rix. Here’s the shortlist.

Ali Smith (I’ve just read a novel of hers, The Accidental), who was one of the judges, writes on translation in the Times Online today.

bq. Of all the books published in the UK, only 3 to 4 per cent are translations. What’s the matter with us? Don’t we like to look at anything but ourselves? Are we so vain? Do we simply not care, not want to know what’s happening in the literatures of the rest of the world? It’s embarrassing. It’s like a terrible leftover of imperialism. Thank God for the publishers who take chances. Thank God for prizes like The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize, an award for translations into English from any living European language, which “aims to honour the craft of translation and to recognise its cultural importance”. It’s a prize that also sets out to consider, in parallel, the heft of the original writing and the quality and importance of its translation into English.

The Times doesn’t say much about the winning novel, so here’s a review. It’s apparently somewhat autobiographical, about the relationship between a woman writer and her cleaner:

bq. Writing The Door after Emerence’s death (for which she irrationally blames herself), Szabó states: “I know now, what I didn’t then, that affection can’t always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else.” There is much in this story that will bewilder and perplex (perhaps something of the mercurial Hungarian mindset is lost in translation), but The Door is a valuable document of a vital relationship.

(Thanks to Luxus Linguae)

Evan Schaeffer links to a download site for a law review article (make that ‘not a law review article’) by Christopher M. Fairman on the legal contexts of a word that bots would love to find on my site.
He also sets out the table of contents of the article.

Download the article

(Originally via Boing Boing)

Not everyone was concerned with the World Cup in Fürth this afternoon, as this fully decorated Christmas tree shows:

But many were:

I wonder if that fly is to scale.

Note the decoration on the Dreiherrenbrunnen in the background.

Rock paper scissors (as the Americans like to call Scissors paper stone) is what Judge Gregory Presnell in Florida ordered as a new form of alternative dispute resolution (from Southern District of Florida Blog).

bq. If counsel cannot agree on a neutral site, they shall meet on the front steps of the Sam M. Gibbons U.S. Courthouse, 801 North Florida Ave., Tampa, Florida 33602. Each lawyer shall be entitled to be accompanied by one paralegal who shall act as an attendant and witness. At that time and location, counsel shall engage in one (1) game of “rock, paper, scissors.”

Perhaps they might consider the more elaborate form RPS 25 (via Boing Boing). Unfortunately there are too many outcomes, but learning the 25 hand gestures might be good for the brain.

Wikipedia deutsch
Play live on weebls
World RPS Society

I was just wondering how to translate Haushaltsbegleitgesetz and seeing if Google helped.

Full title: Gesetz über Maßnahmen zur Entlastung der öffentliche Haushalte sowie über strukturelle Anpassungen in dem in Artikel 3 des Einigungsvertrages genannten Gebiet
Short title: Haushaltsbegleitgesetz
Abbreviation: HBeglG

Wikipedia (German), which seems reliable, says it’s an Act that is passed every year together with the budget and the Budget Act (Haushaltsgesetz), and that it makes amendments to other statutes affected by the budget (this is an oversimplification but will do for here). The HBeglG is there an Artikelgesetz (Romain: Amending Act (act amending specified articles). There is a separate Act because the Budget Act only applies to one year, whereas the amendments remain in force until altered.

Now I know that many law firms will have translated this term in their newsletters, but the easiest way to see some suggestions is Google.

Google: Haushaltsbegleitgesetz English

Ghits: concomitant budget law

Google: Haushaltsbegleitgesetz act
Ghits: Budget Companion Act, Budget Supplement Act, Budget Supplementary Act, accompanying budget law, Budget Support Act, Budget Supplementary Law, Budget Accompanying Act, collateral budget act

Plenty to choose from there! Many people believe Gesetz should be translated as Law, but there’s no need for that here. Still, a Google search on ‘Haushaltsbegleitgesetz law’ might produce more alternatives (it didn’t). Act should always be capitalized, by the way, and IMO the other main words in the title too.

I think I will go for Budget Supplement Act. I see the thought behind Budget Supplementary Act, because the Supplement sounds as if it were a statute approving a supplement to the budget, but the relationship between Budget and Supplementary is a bit iffy too.

After that I discovered a translation of the whole thing in my vocabulary database, done by me in 2003.