patentoftheweek.com reports (via IPKAT) that a patent application has been filed for two new punctuation marks, the question comma and the exclamation comma. It was filed by the suspiciously German-sounding Leonard Storch, Ernst van Hagen and Sigmund Silber.

I can’t find anything on the website – perhaps the patent came via the mailing list – so IPKAT’s account is all I have to go on.

bq. The IPKat has only one thing to say: ?&$%*!

Oh, just a minute – I’ve found them, and the gentlemen are from the USA:

Patent number WO9219458

bq. Abstract
Using two new punctuation marks, the question comma and the exclamation comma: and respectively, inquisitiveness and exclamation may be expressed within a written sentence structure, so that thoughts may be more easily and clearly conveyed to readers. The new punctuation marks are for use within a written sentence between words as a comma, but with more feeling or inquisitiveness. This affords an author greater choice of method of punctuating, e.g., to reflect spoken language more closely. Moreover, the new punctuation fits rather neatly into the scheme of things, simply filling a gap, with a little or no explanation needed. Also, the interabang comma if the interabang is available. An example of usage follows. Readers encountering their first question comma in print may silently remark: “Clever! funny I never saw one of those before”.

There are other instances, but I think they are the same patent for different jurisdictions.

The question comma just has a comma at the bottom instead of a full stop / period, and similarly the exclamation comma.

In the last entry, I mentioned – inter alia – non-native speakers of English correcting my grammar.
This has been met by a couple of rants about Germans writing English.
I do feel like ranting against Germans correcting English myself sometimes, but not always.

One correction: non-native speakers of English who know the subject area can be very useful and perfectly good revisers. It’s very useful for me to have a reviser. And I recognize good revision when I see it, much as I hate to admit mistakes.
Conversely, anyone who wants the opinion of a native speaker of English on a publication should get one who’s experienced in dealing with texts and/or publication.

Usual scenario: Translator translates for German lawyer.
German lawyer may speak English but has no time to translate.
Translator may have questions.
Sometimes there’s an odd term. I ask for a definition in German.
Reactions: 1) Omit it
or 2) I will rephrase the original
or 3) This is what it means in German:
or 4) Let me see, I’m not sure if I can tell you how to say that in English (I don’t like this, and it shows the client doesn’t realize translators simply need a German rephrase, that is, they need to understand the source text)

Less common: T translates a church or castle guide
Author may be a much-published historian – usually no problem
Author may be a little-published historian at the beginning of his or her career, and very ambitious – can be difficult
Author may be an amateur who sees the building and guide as his or her life’s work – can be difficult
Author may have time on hands
Usual reaction to translation: 10 or 20 corrections or queries
Occasional reaction: call in a “specialist” in English.

More examples in the continuation. Continue reading →

Sometimes the translation business raises questions.

1. Translate into English (About the painter Poliakoff):

Als 13. von 14 Kindern nahm ihn seine gläubige Mutter täglich mit in die Kirche. [As the thirteenth of fourteen children, his religious mother took him to church with her every day.]

Who was the thirteenth child, the mother or the painter? If it was the painter, why did she take him – was she superstitious? (Actually, the only Poliakoff I remember ran a mole in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy).

2. Message from author: Replace Mark Rothko’s Violett Grün Rot with rot, weiß, braun. Text remains the same. (So why didn’t he stick to black and white?)

3. Client says the defendants really are copying our trademark in the Erkennungsleiste of their web site. Translator looks at website but can’t see any kind of Leiste. In addition, there is no such thing as an Erkennungsleiste [recognition toolbar?])
Client is at a meeting. Colleagues say, ‘Just write “web site”.’

4. Client says, ‘The translation was first-class. But just one thing – why did you write express agreement and not expressive agreement?’

5. Author’s English expert (a native German, Leipzig): ‘I have the impression the translator has researched the terminology very well, but her grammar is certainly not that of a native speaker, as I can tell from my university study of English.’ Translator spends several hours refuting grammar ‘errors’ that never were errors except to a non-native speaker (can anyone suggest a better tactic?). A couple of the errors were content errors though, but only 1%. The author, a clergyman: ‘This has been a helpful exercise, as the translation is now improved’.

6. Author’s quote: ‘The translator’s English is unreliable. In English, there are never commas before relative sentences, nor before ‘but’ or ‘that’.’The painting is said to date from’ should be ‘The painting allegedly dates from’. ‘It was known as the chapter-house’ should be ‘the so-called chapter-house’.

7. Some clients are very secretive and won’t tell me the name of the firm the translation is about. It becomes ‘XXX’. So I can’t get all that useful information from their website about the machinery they produce etc. Fortunately, some clients blank out the hyperlinks in the document with XXX, but the hyperlink still works. Or they leave the name of the company in the file details. (Some clients exchange cheeky notes with the secretary in the file details).

Two mosque leaders in Albany, New York, accused of supporting terrorism, may have been the victims of a translation error, according to Yahoo News:

bq. [Prosecutors] said a word on one page, written in Arabic, referred to Aref as “commander.” In fact, the word was Kurdish, and could be translated as “brother,” according to prosecutors.

bq. Reviewing the page for the newspaper, Nijyar Shemdin, the U.S. representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Washington, said he did not see how a translation would have come up with the word “commander.” He also said Aref was referred to with the common honorific “kak,” which could mean brother or mister.

The New York Times also reports, with more details (this was all part of a sting operation).

bq. However, many of the conversations between the informant and the men were in Urdu, as well as in Arabic and English, and Mr. Kindlon said there might be problems with the translations of those meetings, as well.

bq. In court documents, the government provided only snippets of the conversations already translated.

Thanks to John Lynch of the Forensic Linguistics list.

When I was in London recently I picked up a copy of Nigel Foster’s Austrian Legal System and Laws, ISBN 1-85941-757-4
It cost £35 (amazon.de is offering it from 85.95 euros, which is worrying)

There is also Hausmaninger, The Austrian Legal System 3rd ed., ISBN 3-214-00289-9

I have only the first edition of Hausmaninger, dated 1998. That has less substantive law than Foster. But I don’t know if the later editions are fuller.

Maybe books on ‘smaller’ legal systems concentrate more on the framework. They expect you to know a lot about German-language civil law (and criminal law) from books about German law. That was the impression I got from a book on Canadian law, that it wanted to spare me the basics: Stephan Handschug, Einführung in das kanadische Recht, 2003, ISBN 3-406-50826-X – a lot about constitutional matters in there (perhaps the more so since the written constitution is relatively recent).

Kenneth A. Adams, A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting, has been published by the American Bar Association Press. At the book’s site, you can see the table of contents, and there are also articles by the author. The site also tells you how to get hold of the book – it was only published in July 2004, so it’s rather scarce as yet.

From the back-cover blurb:

bq. The focus of this manual is not what provisions to include in a given contract, but instead how to express those provisions in prose that is free of the problems that often afflict contracts. This manual highlights common sources of inefficiency, dispute, and misunderstanding and recommends how to avoid them. It offers a level of practical detail not found elsewhere in the literature on drafting.

I see the author originally studied medieval archaeology at York University.

(via Mark Adler of Clarity)