At wortpatenschaft.de you can adopt a German word that is threatened by extinction:

bq. Werden Sie Wortpate! Beschützen Sie ein deutsches Wort und übernehmen Sie dafür die Verantwortung: Entwickeln Sie das Wort weiter, pflegen Sie es, hüten Sie es vor Mißbrauch oder Verdrängung! Schreiben Sie Gedichte mit Ihrem Wort, tauschen Sie sich aus mit anderen Wortpaten und schaffen Sie Wörterbiotope oder -museen, ertüfteln Sie Wortspielereien. Und helfen Sie gleichzeitig mit einer kleinen Spende dem gemeinnützigen Verein Deutsche Sprache. Ihr Einsatz für die Gemeinschaft!

Die Auswahl an Wörtern ist sehr breit, weil offensichtlich niemand sich die Mühe machen wollte, bedrohte Wörter auszusuchen.

Just a minute – is that the Verein Deutsche Sprache I’ve encountered before? The one that often criticizes words for no comprehensible reason? Ah well – no wonder they have such a comprehensive list of words.

I did get some mockery last year for using the term Aufboden instead of Dachboden. Maybe I should adopt that. The term is normal in the dialect of the person I learnt it from, but no-one else had ever heard of it. However, the site isn’t offering that.

(Via Astrid Paprotta)

This is me after coming down the Sinwell Tower at Nuremberg Castle the second and, I hope, last time. I still don’t understand the wooden construction in the platform, but at least I photographed it this time.

Laser Monks finden Tintenpatronen “sündhaft teuer”:

bq. All I wanted was a little bit of black dust for one of our monastery printers. In my search for a toner cartridge, I was suddenly struck with how incredibly expensive this black dust and a few squirts of ink were. “There must be a better way,” I said to myself.And so began my foray into the world of imaging supplies. What I discovered was a revelation. Simply stated, the mark-up on ink supplies is sinfully high, reaching in some instances into the 1,000-2,000 % levels. I also discovered that there were many companies that manufactured either new compatible cartridges or remanufactured cartridges at a fraction of the cost of the big name brands. My thoughts starting racing. Imagine the money we could save schools, churches, and other organizations if we could negotiate some deals with the manufacturers directly and cut out the middlemen.

Aus diesem Grund verkaufen sie für gute Zwecke unter anderem wiedergefüllte Tintenpatronen.

The Cistercians have a 900-year tradition of customer care and outreach, we learn.

(Via Boing Boing)

Use your Welsh:

Use Catalan:

Speak Plattdeutsch:

The East Frisia site has a lot of resources, including audio clips of people speaking it on the phone.

Following the exclusion of translations from the Golden ‘Duncan Lawrie’ Dagger Award (see earlier entry), three British publishing companies have arranged Bloody Foreigners: Crime FictionTranslation Tour.

(From Translation Exchange)

This week, Focus Online had an article headed Briten Blamieren Sich. It referred to an article in The Times about the Hesse would-be-citizen questions. The Times article is available online only in part – it had a graphics page which is the main cause for concern, shown in the Focus article.

Focus:

bq. Die britische „Times“ versucht sich am hessischen Einbürgerungstest und macht peinliche Fehler.
Die Diskussion um einen deutschen Einbürgerungstest können sich die britischen Medien nicht entgehen lassen. Für die „Times“ ist es eine fabelhafte Gelegenheit, endlich wieder einmal ein Foto von Hitler zu drucken, mit hochgerecktem Arm und in Uniform.

bq. The London Times tries the Hessen naturalization test and makes embarrassing mistakes.
The British media could not bring themselves to pass up the opportunity to discuss a German citizenship test. This is a wonderful opportunity for The Times at long last to print another picture of Hitler, with his arm raised and in uniform.

The errors are 1) the flag shown is the Belgian flag (I wonder if the Belgian press have picked this one up?) and 2) the reference to the German national anthem as Deutschland über Alles.

I sometimes get very angry about this kind of nationality-bashing, which is a mistake, because it’s just a way to sell newspapers. In this case, however, quickly passing over the flag error, I don’t think it’s part of British general knowledge that the text of the German national anthem has been edited. Nevertheless Focus goes on about it for three paragraphs.

Another thing: when such a ridiculous set of questions is to be taken seriously, it’s fair game for any newspaper.

I wonder if there were any other mistakes in the Times article? Focus had an easy time here, because it published only after the Times Letters Page printed readers’ corrections on the very two points Focus builds its article on. That’s a good tip for online journalists: watch out for the readers’ letters the following day, and then sell the story abroad.

I do think the picture of Hitler might have been smaller. After all, British football fans travelling to Germany have been told by the Home Secretary particularly not to mention the war, which will probably have the opposite effect to that intended, along the lines of ‘So that’s how we can really annoy them’.

bq. The English team’s travelling support is fond of drinking lots of beer, humming the themes of war films, and singing songs such as Two World Wars and one World Cup or Ten German Bombers.

(Via Handakte WebLAWg)