Hier geht es um den “Marmeladenkrieg” (Marmelade oder Konfitüre) und um einen Artikel (deutsch) von Heidemarie Markhardt in Lebenden Sprachen 1/2004.

Apparently the Austrians may call Konfitüre (jam) Marmelade again, despite the fact that when Austria joined the EU, that word was not in the list of Austriacisms they were to keep. The British wanted the term marmalade reserved for orange and lemon marmalade and some such.
Thus dpa reports. Elsewhere it appears that the Council must yet ratify this decision.

I find this odd. In BE, marmalade means the citrus stuff, jam the strawberry stuff, and jelly the strained clear stuff like bramble jelly. In the USA, I believe jelly is the general term for jam, so you get things like Jelly Roll Morton and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. But how can the British want to control German? And has the German word Marmelade (meaning jam or marmalade) stopped being used on jars and been replaced by Konfitüre? Probably it has. Anyway, serve the Germans right if they claim they can produce Parmesan, but then it’s not the Germans here, it’s the Austrians.

See Wikipedia on Konfitüre.

Google reveals an article in taz in January:

bq. Ein “Marmelade-Diktat” aus Brüssel erregt Österreich
Die Kronen Zeitung, Österreichs größtes Kleinformat, sorgte sich wieder einmal um die drohende Überfremdung. Diesmal ging es nicht um Horden aus dem Osten, sondern um der Österreicher liebsten Frühstückaufstrich: die Marmelade. Schuld war natürlich die EU, die mit einem “Marmelade-Diktat” über die Spracheigenheiten des Alpenvolkes drüberfahre. Entrüstet berichtete das Blatt im Oktober, dass einem Wachauer Gastronomen ein Strafverfahren drohe, weil er selbst gemachte Marillenmarmelade nicht – wie vorgeschrieben – als Konfitüre verkauft hatte. Anders als die Marille (Aprikose) steht nämlich die Marmelade nicht auf der Liste der 23 typisch österreichischen Ausdrücke, die von Brüssel anerkannt werden.

(According to an Austrian newspaper, in October 2003, a restaurateur in the Wachau region was threatened with criminal proceedings because he sold apricot jam under the wrong name. Apricot jam is Aprikosenkonfitüre/-marmelade in Germany and Marillenmarmelade in Austria. Brussels recognized 23 typically Austrian terms, Marille being one of them but Marmelade not. Apparently Austria could have done something about this when the Marmalade Directive was implemented, which should have been by 12 July 2003, but it didn’t, so the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ definition prevailed.)

LATER (INTERIM) NOTE:
A comment points out that this is purely an internal Austrian problem. Possibly the newspaper report linked to ‘Elsewhere’ above gives the impression the EU was at fault. See this:

bq. Both Denmark and Greece have arrangements to deal with the fact that, in their languages, the distinction does not exist between marmalade and jam. It seems that in this case over-zealous Austrian officials have fined a businessman for using an incorrect term. Continue reading →

Newsmap ordnet Links zu Google News in verschiedenen Farben an (auf “Deutschland” klicken für deutsche Version).
Newsmap shows news headlines in different colours, spaced by topic.

bq. Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator.

(Via Ben Hammersley)

German asparagus at its best:

Franconian tomatoes:

Darrel Knutson, whom I mentioned in the last entry, has an excellent list of Vulgar Vocabulary on his website.

The list is divided into ‘What to say to a friend’ and ‘What to say in front of your mother’.

Opinions differ, and I’m afraid my mother would not have been a good yardstick, but it’s worth noting that many German speakers seem to think the F-word is used more widely in English than it in fact is (see comment from An Austrian at the bottom of this page.

Note that Darrel’s alternatives are for the USA. Perhaps we should translate it into British English! For instance, ‘shoot’ is US, and so are numerous other bits.

More on the topic at Wikipedia. The topic has also been touched on by Mark Liberman at Language Log.

www.mediadeck.de
bq. Auf einem Parkdeck in Hamburg arbeiten 26 Multimedia-Firmen ganz gemütlich zusammen.

Bilder auch von dort nistenden Bachstelzen und Enten (von den Bachstelzen gibt es sogar eine kleine Videoaufnahme). (Auf “biotop” klicken).

Darrel Knutson is a co-founder of mediadeck, a collaboration of 26 multimedia firms sharing office space on the sixth floor of a 1960s multistorey car park in Hamburg. mediadeck is the main lessee, and smaller firms can rent office space and become part of Mediadeck. Darrel is described as an internet trainer, webmaster, translator and English trainer.

Some translators are listed under ‘bord services’.

What first caught my eye was the section ‘biotop’ with photos and videoclip of a nest of pied wagtails and photos of a mallard and chicks, all bred on the ‘balcony’.

(Thanks to Matthew Harris of context for extra information)

In a similar vein, Boing Boing recently linked to a webcam at the ‘Pig Brother’ (!)site showing a family of wild boars in Germany (originally via Darren Barefoot and CNN). Microphones and video-camera 24 hours a day.

There are a number of webcams watching storks’ nests in Germany too, for instance storchennest.de.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Auf Bild klicken zum Vergrößern.