I have started using a script, closecomments.php, to block any comments on posts older than thirty days old. At least, if I run the script every day, that will be the case, and otherwise it may be 31 or 32 days.

The script came from tubedogg at geeksblog.

I did this because I get comment spam and also trolls, and often they use one or two particular entries. I suppose that particular URL has been handed on.

There’s one entry I would have liked to leave open, and that is Macroglossum Stellatarum, which may come to life again when the moths return. I suppose there is no way of opening a single comment?

Englische Urteile geben die Namen der Parteien an. Oft heißen die Fälle nach den Parteien. Deutsche Urteile geben die Namen nicht an. Manchmal fehlen auch die Namen der Richter und andere Personen- und Ortsnamen.

This is a piece of a judgment I’m supposed to be translating. Someone who did a summary of the case did at least know that ####### was D, or C, or British Virgin Islands. This time even the judges’ names are secret.

bq. Nach knapp 6-jährigen Ermittlungen im In- und Ausland mit mehr als 30 Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen bei Banken, Hauptvermittlern, Vermittlern und Anlegern sowie bei den Beklagten zu 2 und 3 in #######, nach insgesamt zehn Rechtshilfeersuchen an #######, #######, #######, ####### und ####### mit einem Fehlschlag der Rechtshilfebegehren an ####### und ####### – hat die Staatsanwaltschaft die Ermittlungen eingestellt, weil nicht mit der notwendigen Sicherheit der Nachweis geführt werden könne, dass der Beklagte zu 2 Gelder der Kapitalanleger zweckwidrig verwendet habe und dass der Beklagte zu 2 oder ausländische Gesellschafter der Beklagten zu 1 von vornherein beabsichtigt hätten, die von den Kapitalanlegern als Risikokapital zur Verfügung gestellten Gelder nicht ordnungsgemäß entsprechend den Prospektangaben in asiatischen Fonds und Firmenbeteiligungen anzulegen.

Here is a list of solutions to the prepositions quiz for non-native speakers of (legal) English:

Download file

In a few cases I have indicated where American English would differ. In one case there are two possible answers. There may be other correct answers I haven’t thought of.

(Via Delia Venables): new website for the UK government.
Here is the section on the judicial system(s).

The previous site, ukonline, still exists.

According to Herbert Schlicht, the Fürth bird expert, the wrong stork has arrived at the nest in Gustavstraße (article in Fürther Nachrichten).

The pair of storks that have used the nest for some years now (and brought up 4 young in 2001) are not expected back for a week. According to Schlicht, storks aren’t stupid. Some of them only fly as far as Spain, Israel or Turkey and get back earliest. But the storks that come all the way for Africa are stronger and they fight the usurpers for the nest. Last year, for instance, the nest was so damaged after all the fighting that no eggs were hatched at all.

If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can just about see some white feathers slightly left of centre in the nest.

Renee Perelmutter, in glosses.net, recounts the story of Maksim Grek, a Greek translator who was found guilty in 1525 of deliberately corrupting Bible translations (hmm, guilty of, not guilty for…)

bq. When one reads these translations, the most visible evidence of Maksim’s non-Slavic origin is prepositions: from time to time Maxim uses a calque translation from Greek rather than the correct Russian preposition.

Prepositions were always a big problem in legal English for my German students. So I offer the following test sentences – solution (there may be more than one) to follow: Continue reading →