What do other people do when the customer wants the text changed but is wrong? I sometimes suggest a possible alternative that is also correct, but it makes me angry. Why do they want a translator if they know better themselves? I just did a short urgent job, and there was a question later, via an agency. This was followed up by the information that the (end) customer doesn’t like my translation of ‘entsprechend § 5 des Vertrages’ as ‘under § 5 of the agreement’. I said, if he doesn’t like ‘under’, which is correct, he is bound to love ‘pursuant to’, because all Germans love ‘pursuant to’. I took my frustration out later on a little motorbike that shouldn’t have been parked in our entrance when I locked it in. Someone will find it takes longer to escape the building than expected.

Another time I can’t forget and may have mentioned before was the woman who wouldn’t accept Cluj for Klausenburg. Of course, I now realize I could have written ‘Cluj (German name: Klausenburg)’. At the time it didn’t occur to me, and she said the American embassy had rejected the word the last time.

Of course sometimes one understands what the customer doesn’t like. But many customers don’t concede one any expertise and know they could have done the translation themselves if they’d had the time. Maybe I should simply tell this agency that it’s their problem to suggest a different word when what I did was correct.

Today’s Independent has an article by Ruth Elkins on Ostalgie (Ostalgia):

bq. “Trabi Duft”, a tin of exhaust fumes from the ubiquitous East German car, is the latest in a seemingly unending line of “Ostalgie” products marketed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although many argue that the books, films, music, food and drink inspired by the defunct German Democratic Republic encourage a far too sentimental image of a regime which shot those who tried to escape it, the thirst for Ostalgie continues.

You can buy this and other ostalgia products at Osthits. I find myself taken to a site half-machine-translated. Unfortunately the site seems to be having problems, probably as a result of the recent publicity, so I will post some of their wonderful English another time.

Ein deutscher Artikel erschien in der Süddeutschen Zeitung am 13. Juli:

bq. Trabi-Duft aus Alu-Dosen
Ein Versand für Ostprodukte vertreibt Trabi-Abgase. Man will “auf originelle Art die Vergangenheit einfangen, konservieren, und damit zur deutsch-deutschen Verständigung beitragen”.

Spiegel online hat ein Interview mit Anthony Rowley:

bq. Ausgerechnet ein Engländer arbeitet seit 16 Jahren federführend am “Bayerischen Wörterbuch”: Anthony Rowley, 52, ist Sprachforscher aus Passion. Im Interview erklärt er, wieso Bairisch ihn fasziniert, der Dialekt als besonders erotisch gilt – und er zum Abschied nur selten “Servus” sagt. …

bq. Ich war also Fachmann in Sachen Dialektologie, als ich mich um den Posten bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften bewarb. Außerdem werden sie bei meiner Einstellung gedacht haben: “Hauptsach, es is koa Preiß.”

Er freut sich besonders auf B:

bq. In das “B” bauen wir nämlich alle “P”-Wörter mit ein. Die “Bl”- und “Br”-Begriffe werden die aufwendigsten sein. Abgeschlossen wird Band 2 übrigens erst, wenn wir hinter den Buchstaben “C” kommen, bis zu “Christ” oder “Chrysam”. Bis dahin brauchen wir noch rund sieben Jahre.

It’s hardly a secret in language weblog circles that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has refused to register Dykes on Bikes as a trademark.

bq. Twice, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected the Dykes’ application, on the grounds that “dyke” is vulgar, offensive and “scandalous.” Patent office attorneys even point to Webster’s dictionary, which says dyke is “often used disparagingly.”

bq. “The examining attorney found it to be offensive to a significant portion of the lesbian community,” said Jessie Roberts, a trademark administrator with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “And we’re also looking out for the sensitivities of the general public more than that of a specific applicant.”

This mystifying decision has led to an in-depth discussion on Language Log of an obscure American word for pliers.

bq. I was unsure how to spell dykes (or is it “dikes”?), and surprised to find that this everyday word is missing from dictionaries, or at least from the half-dozen dictionaries that I tried. (I’m talking about the common term for diagonal-cutting pliers, of course — I know how to spell the words for “embankment of earth and rock”, or “long mass of igneous rock that cuts across the structure of adjacent rock”, or “disparaging [ ?] term for a lesbian”).

Everyone seems unaware of the problem in legal English of knowing whether a dyke or dike is a wall or a ditch. The ditch meaning is surely not a secret? The OED says:

bq. c893 K. Ælfred Oros. ii. iv. §7 Ymbutan þone weall is se mæsta díc, on þæm is iernende se un¼efo¼lecesta stream. c1400 Destr. Troy 1566 With depe dikes and derke doubull of water. 1549 Compl. Scot. vi. 38 The fresche deu, quhilk of befor hed maid dikis and dailis verray donc. 1594 Plat Jewell-ho. ii. 60 Syr Edward Hobbie+hath stored certeine dikes in the Ile of Sheppey, with sundrie kindes of Sea-fish, into which dikes by sluces, he doth let in+change of sea-water. 1634–5 Brereton Trav. (1844) 43 An invention well deserving to be put in practice in England over all moats or dykes. a1687 C. Cotton Poet. Wks. (1765) 108 In Dike lie, Drown’d like a Puppy. 1693 Evelyn De la Quint. Compl. Gard. II. 184, I made+some little dikes or water-courses about a foot deep+to receive the mischievous waters. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. i. 441 Whole sheets descend of slucy Rain, The Dykes are fill’d. 1791 Cottingham Inclos. Act. 28 Division drains or dikes and ditches. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr. I. 99 Some rushy dyke to jump, or bank to climb. 1873 G. C. Davies Mount. & Mere vi. 49 A heron sailed majestically away from a dyke.

It’s also, by extension, slang for a WC or urinal.

Why does it mean both a wall and a ditch? Perhaps because one was created when the other was dug out. After all, there’s a presumption in English law that where a boundary runs along a ditch and hedge, it is presumed to be along the edge of the ditch furthest from the bank, because it’s assumed that the landowner will dig the ditch on the farther edge of his land and throw the earth on to his own land, to avoid trespassing on his neighbour’s land (see Trevor M. Aldrige, Boundaries, Walls and Fences).

Infolaw reported (nearly six weeks ago) on Richard Best’s Pharmablawg:

bq. PharmaBlawg is the work-in-progress blog of Richard Best, a dual qualified lawyer (England & Wales, New Zealand) who is also a Registered Foreign Lawyer in Frankfurt, Germany.

(He translates Impressum as regulatory information).

Best has also written a number of articles, one of which, A Comparison of Civil Liability for Defective Products in the United Kingdom and Germany, appeared in the German Law Journal. He also links to two corporate blogs.

Plain English can be useful if one has something to express. But, as an editorial by John Kay in The Financial Express (Bangladesh) points out, there are many situations where it’s necessary to make meaningless statements:

bq. But the worst abuses of the language now come from business people and management gurus. In the last 12 months, books by Don Watson, the Australian writer (Gobbledygook, Atlantic Books), Harry Frankfurt, the Princeton philosopher, (On Bullshit, Princeton University Press) and Lucy Kellaway, my colleague, (Martin Lukes: Who Moved My Blackberry?, Viking) have attempted to dissect this phenomenon.

bq. Lies and spin communicate, but what they communicate is false. The defining characteristic of bullshit is that it does not attempt to communicate at all. Bullshit has the vocabulary and syntax of ordinary language, but not the meaning. And, in fact, the metaphor is not apt. What we describe as bullshit is more like candy floss — when you bite into it, there is nothing there.

Via The Language Legend, where there are further links.