Luxus linguae blogs an interview in Spiegel Online (English version) with Peter Torry, the British ambassador to Germany. It’s partly about the German stereotypes of the British.

I’m sorry to be so petty, but I couldn’t help seeing the first line quoted:

bq. SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your German colleague in Great Britain, Ambassador Matussek, put it very differently over the weekend.

‘Your German colleague in Great Britain’ indeed! When will they get native speakers to go over this kind of thing?

The best message for me is probably not to mourn the death of the English language, but to take an interest in it as a curiosity.

English version
Deutsche Version

In der deutschen Ausgabe des German American Law Journal Blogs wird ein Fall in den USA auf Deutsch zusammengefasst, in dem die Beendigung eines Vertrags “for cause” (etwa “für einen wichtigen Grund”) besprochen wurde. Es ging um den Gebrauch eines Wörterbuchs zur Definition von “cause”.

(via University of Texas)

In the case of Lynn A. Joy v. Hay Group, Inc., (a diversity case), Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a dictionary could be admitted to define the word ’cause’.

bq. HGI argues that the contractual term “cause” is unambiguous and that the testimony of Lacey and Bassick is ineligible to create an ambiguity because it is not “objective” evidence. The district court agreed and added that the word
“cause” clearly covered the ground on which Joy was fired because one of the dictionary definitions of the word is “a reason, motive, or ground for some action.” That reasoning is untenable; HGI doesn’t even try to defend it. The contract itself contrasts “reasons” and “cause.” Reasons other than cause are explicitly not a ground for denial of severance pay.

bq. The judge’s interpretation implies that if HGI had fired Joy because she was a woman, she would have been fired for cause and thus entitled to no severance pay, because there would have been a reason for firing her—her sex. The judge’s error was to pick from among the several meanings of “cause” one that was inapplicable. Dictionaries give a range of linguistic possibilities; rarely do they help a court decide which one the drafter of the contract or statute in question intended; here, the contract actually excluded the judge’s choice.

(Bold by MM)

This is well observed and very important and is precisely the problem about using dictionaries in court. As translators know, people often use words in a different way than the dictionary records them. The context usually makes it clear what was intended.

I once had something to do with a German case involving a translation in which the judge said that a particular word ‘staff’, was correct because he had seen it himself used in England in the right context (‘staff toilet’). The point may have been correct, but the evidence, from a judge whose English was rudimentary, was not. So beware of judges discussing language and translation.

This case is particularly interesting because it refers to the distinction between ‘reasons’ and ’cause’. Cause means something like ‘good reason’, whereas ‘reason’ means any reason. Only recently, a query to the Yahoo group juristische-uebersetzer asked whether the following sentence:

bq. This agreement may be canceled at any time by either party with or
without cause and for any or no reason.

should be translated in full or abbreviated. Immediately there came a reply to the list that this was the typical English-language belt-and-braces approach and ’cause’ was obviously identical in meaning to ‘reason’. Well, sometimes that’s true of pairs of words, but not here.

Since the beginning of May, the Austrian Supreme Court of Justice has an English version of its website online. It looks good.

The site provides information inter alia on the history, function and personnel of the court and the Procurator General’s Office (Generalprokuratur) and access to judgments (which are in German).

Thanks for the information to Dr. Herbert Hopf, who is a judge at the court and also did the photos on the site.

Biztechdictionary.com is a new site within Wordorigins:

bq. Biztechdictionary.com is a site aimed at collecting and publishing reference citations of slang and jargon used in high tech industries.

bq. The site is very much in “alpha” (to use a good high-tech word) form. There are currently only a handful of entries in the dictionary and the other content is also under development. The look and feel of the site will also probably change in coming months as I improve upon it.

bq. Please check it out and let me know what you think. Suggestions are welcome. And even more welcome would be submissions of citations of high-tech jargon and slang.

David Gow of the Guardian describes the advocate-general’s opinion on the feta case, in which Germany and Denmark seek a ruling that feta can be made not only in Greece, but in Germany and Denmark too.

bq. Homer described how to make feta in the Odyssey. Aristotle delighted in its briny, crumbly texture.

A briny texture?

bq. For Greeks, the biggest cheese-eaters in Europe, feta is the heart and soul of Hellenic cuisine, and yesterday the EU’s highest court took a decisive step to ensure it stays that way.

Well, or the advocate-general did.

bq. The legal adviser to the European court of justice, the EU’s highest court, has now reasserted feta’s exclusivity, arguing that Denmark and Germany have no right to call their versions feta.

bq. The Danes and Germans make their cheese from pas­teurised cow’s milk. The Danes, who have marketed their “feta” since 1963, and the Germans, who have done the same since 1985, backed by France, have been trying to overturn the European commission’s 1996 decision to give the Greek cheese the same protection as parma ham.

bq. The court’s advocate general, Damaso Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer, advised that feta was not a generic name and should be seen as a traditional name deserving protection throughout the EU’s 25 member countries.

bq. The court of justice, which will issue the final ruling this year, follows his advice in about 80% of cases.

Is it just me, or does this article give the impression that there is only one advocate-general? (There are 8)

bq. But there may yet be a sting in the tail for Greeks savouring victory. Bulgarians and Romanians, due to join the EU in 2007, regard feta as their own and could mount their own legal action.

It’s a bit early to savour victory, of course, if never too early to savour feta.

Short version of opinion
Long opinion in German (well, at least the table of contents)

Mrs. Justice Dobbs is Britain’s first ethnic minority judge. Report and pictures in Blink. According to Times Online (registration required, free of charge), she studied law and Russian and speaks fluent Russian. According to blink, she also did a Ph.D. in Soviet criminology and penology (probably this was what got her pupillage with Michael Havers, rather than the LL.M. mentioned in the Times).

bq. There was also some overt racism. She was briefed to represent some National Front skinheads who had thrown a brick through an Asian shopkeeper’s window. “When the clerk (not the present clerk) gave me the case I asked him if it was wise. He said: don’t worry — just do an Al Jolson in reverse — ie, white up. The clerk didn’t take it seriously.” Predictably, the youths were uncomfortable when they saw her. But she took them head-on. “They were talking about a ‘wog box’ and I made them explain that it was a ghetto blaster. I’d put them on notice and taken control and after that the whole dynamic changed. They pleaded guilty and even thanked me. Much of it is down to ignorance, isn’t it?”

Her mother was from Sierra Leone, and the Times describes her father as ‘British’, which I assume means white, although it needn’t.