Although I can see the attraction of buying a ukelele (or ukulele – Collins accepts both spellings – see Desbladet’s entry She’ll be coming round the mountains [sic]), I instead sprang for G.C. Thornton’s ‘Legislative Drafting’, which costs almost as much as a ukelele but takes longer to read.

I quote it in full on shall, may, must in legislation in the continuation (overleaf, as it were).

Note that this is about legislation, not about contracts.

The book has wonderful sections on style, on miscellaneous words and expressions that should be used with care or avoided. Also on the process of drafting and much more.

It made me aware that the Interpretation Act (1978) is worth having for translators. I ordered it for £3.80 plus £3.50 postage from Blackwells.

To see the if I wanted to buy the Thornton, I tried Hammicks (just sold to the Scottish booksellers John Smith), but no luck. Then I went to Wildy’s, whose Colin Wickham knows everything and is in charge of the big second-hand department, and he sent me to LexisNexis (originally Butterworths) in Chancery Lane, where they had two copies. He also told me that Garth Thornton is unfortunately another of those Australians who do these things so very well.

Through Google I found two more legal bookshops: Lambs, in Store Street, London, and Avizandum in Scotland. Continue reading →

PapaScott links to a comparison of the German text of Nena’s song ’99 Luftballons’, beside a literal translation and the freer English version, at the site inthe80s.

The literal version was produced by one Siobhán Silke, who sounds doubly female to me but is referred to as ‘he’. SS does not claim to know everything and has done a good job. I think ‘nicht gerafft’ means ‘they didn’t get it/they didn’t realize what was going on’, and ‘dass sowas von sowas kommt’ more like ‘how one thing can lead to another’.

Top ten misconceptions people have about translators, according to Jez on July 5th.

An excellent list. Examples:

bq. 10. Anybody with two years of high school language (or a foreign-tongued grandmother) can translate.
9. A good translator doesn’t need a dictionary.

Like the first commenter, I queried only number 4:

bq. 4. Becoming a translator is an easy way to get rich quick.

I don’t think people imagine that translators are getting rich quick – well, perhaps some of them do. And I do think you can earn well from translation, although I agree translation takes longer than most people think.

Another comment mentions the belief that it’s equally easy to translate into and out of one’s native language.

Some localized misconceptions about literary translation occur to me:

(The term literary translation has two meanings. It can be used to mean translating fiction, drama and poetry, which is what I mean here; it can also mean translating for publishers, including non-fiction.)

1. Literary translation uses different and superior brain cells from non-literary translation.

2. Literary translators make a good living; non-literary translators don’t.

3. When you find that the translator you’re talking to only does non-literary translation, it’s tactful to change the subject.

I have arrived back and have two complaints:

1. Why can’t I light a German gas stove without holding the knob and counting up to twenty? This drives me mad.

2. Am I the last person to discover that if you use Movable Type (before version 3.0) in Firefox, the buttons B, i, U and URL don’t appear? This is unbelievable.

(Posted from Internet Explorer, which I had abandoned because of browser hijackers)

For those who missed out on the revolutionary seventh edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, the eighth was published on June 4th. Here is the description at amazon.com, and here to order from amazon.de:

The editorial review says:

bq. Edited by Bryan A. Garner, the world’s leading legal lexicographer, Black’s Law Dictionary, 8th Edition is now better than ever! The new 8th Edition has more than 43,000 definitions, plus almost 3,000 quotations. Alternative spellings or equivalent terms and expressions are provided for more than 5,300 terms and senses, serving a thesaurus-like function. The extensive appendix on legal abbreviations is a major addition. It’s the first time such a comprehensive guide has been included in a modern law dictionary, and is an invaluable aid to the legal researcher.
-17,000 more definitions than the 7th Edition
-Newly enhanced with West Key Numbers for research reference
-Includes changes made since the creation of the department of Homeland Security
-Almost 3,000 quotations from authorities drawn from sources over at least five centuries
-More than 1,000 law-related abbreviations and acronyms are defined
-Extensive appendix on legal abbreviations
-Faculty recommended

Blogpause für etwa 2 Wochen.

I shall not be blogging for two weeks or so. I can’t absolutely promise, because I have some technical equipment at my disposal, but it may not work, and even if it does, I might not have anything to say.