On the pt Yahoo translators group (German), once again the question has been asked: ‘What does SS mean?’ I want to summarize the problem here so I have a summary for next time.

Bedeutung der U.S.-amerikanischen Abkürzung SS in Rechtstexten – oft wird danach gefragt, ganz sicher weiß es niemand. Ich will das Problem hier schildern, damit ich das nächste Mal auf diesen Eintrag verweisen kann.

1. My latest belief is what Bryan Garner says in Dictionary of Modern
Legal Usage: that it was entered once in error and then copied
again and again over the centuries. Garner, in his , says it comes from a flourish in the Year Books (unofficial law reports from 1282 to 1537). Example from Garner:

District of Columbia, ss.:
John Rand, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he has read the foregoing bill by him subscribed and knows the contents…

(John Rand, nachdem er beeidigt wurde, gibt eidlich zu Protokoll, dass er das vorhergehende Schriftstück, das von ihm unterschrieben ist, gelesen hat und dessen Inhalt kennt…)

1. Neuerdings glaube ich Garner, in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. Er sagt, Anwälte in den USA haben sich lange gefragt, was es bedeutet. Es erscheint oft auf der ersten Seite einer eidlichen Erklärung (affidavit). Eigentlich ist es ein Schnörkel, ähnlich dem Absatzzeichen ¶. Ein Gerichtsberichterstatter hat es in einem Sammelband benutzt und andere habe es kopiert.

Garner cites Lord Hardwicke: ‘The word ss., I verily believe, was not originally meant to the county [sic], but only a denotation of each section of paragraph in the record. ‘ An early formbook writer incorporated it into his forms, and ever since it has been mindlessly perpetuated by one generation after another.

Andere mögliche Bedeutungen/other possible meanings:
2. supra scriptum (vorhergehend – steht neben der Unterschrift) / written above – this stands beside the signature.
3. scilicet: “nämlich” (normalerweise als scil. oder sc. abgekürzt – aber viele Abkürzungen, die man als Übersetzer antrifft, sind “falsch” / ‘namely, to wit’, usually abbreviated as scil. or sc..
4. “signum sigilli” (Zeichen des Siegels)/ sign of the seal
[Ich kenne locus sigilli, Ort des Siegels, und das scheint ausreichend / Locus sigilli, place of the seal, definitely exists).
5. “signed and sealed” (passt aber nicht im Kopf des Schriftsatzes)/ Seals are not that common in the USA, and the tradition British equivalent was ‘signed, sealed and delivered’, although the seal is now no longer required.

Someone referred to this thread.

Wenn 1 oder 3 stimmt, dann kann das SS. in der deutschen Übersetzung weggelassen werden.

If answer 1 or 3 is correct (or seems to work!), the SS. can be left out in the German translation.

Bei ProZ wurde das Problem auf Russisch diskutiert, was mir nicht weiterhilft.

ProZ has a discussion of it in Russian, but I can’t understand Vladimir’s winning reply.

LATER NOTE: I am copying here the comment made by Mark on language hat’s site, where a discussion has developed:

According to my father, a law professor, “It’s the preamble to an affidavit, which is a sworn statement made under penalties of perjury before a notary or an officer of the court of that state. The party signing the document has Stated and Sworn in said county whatever is written in the document.”

I don’t think there’s any dispute as to what an affidavit is (I think ‘sworn’ and ‘under penalty of perjury’ mean the same thing). But ‘stated and sworn in X county’ does make sense. It depends on the context. I don’t think it’s always affidavits it’s on.

I regularly use the JIPS portal (Juristisches Internetprojekt Saarbrücken) for German law at Saarbrücken, and I’d seen press releases translating summaries of court decisions, but I didn’t realize there was an English entrance page.

In fact if you enter via the JIPS portal, there are a number of language options to click on at the top of the screen, and the English one takes you to the English page, all translated by hand, whereas I’d assumed it was just a set of Babelfish-type machine translation options.

Here’s the introduction to the English page:

bq. Welcome to the English Section of the Law Web
“Law Web Saarbrücken” is a project coordinated by the the Institute of Law and Informatics (Institut für Rechtsinformatik) and is based at Saarland University (Universität des Saarlandes). From this page, English-speaking users are able to navigate around the project and take advantage of this comprehensive portal into contemporary legal affairs from Germany and around the world. The focus of the project is the application of computer technology in law, as well as the legal implications of information technology in society. The site also offers a broad overview of interesting articles or websites, making it an essential starting point for anyone with an interest in the law.

bq. Of particular interest to English speakers are Link of the Week and News. Both items deal with current occurrences in the legal world that are selected by our Editorial team. Matthew Francis (University of Warwick) is responsible for the English translation of these items. Similarly, a selection of interesting German Press Releases have been translated by other members of the department. Any queries, comments or suggestions that are specific to the English Department of the Law Web are welcomed. Please do not hesitate to use our e-mail: jips-en@jura.uni-sb.de.

A couple of days ago, Handakte WebLAWg linked to 123recht on the topic of the legal situation when Germans found companies abroad. 123recht presents an article by Völker Römermann on the subject.

Germans have been founding limited companies in England and Wales / the UK for some time now. For one thing, you don’t have to deposit 25,000 euros. As I recall from doing a few translations in this area, the German courts were always looking for moral reasons to find against these companies. They weren’t reallay recognized in Germany if that was not their main place of business. The Austrian courts seemed to make more sense. So it was left to the European Court of Justice last September to hold that companies validly founded in one state of the EU must be recognised without restriction in every other state of the EU. (in C 167/01 English not available in German?)

bq. Das Gericht hat entschieden, dass in einem Staat der Europäischen Union wirksam gegründete Gesellschaften in jedem anderen Staat uneingeschränkt anerkannt werden müssen. Bezogen auf Deutschland bedeutet das, dass hierzulande neben den “klassischen” deutschen Gesellschaftsformen, wie z.B. der GmbH oder der AG, auch ausländische Rechtsformen, wie z.B. die englische Limited, am Rechtsverkehr teilnehmen können.

The case isn’t new, but the article is.

Eugene Volokh, on The Volokh Conspiracy (via GeekPress), links to this University of Maryland page (Professor Robert Fradkin) showing by animation how various alphabets evolved.

There is a basically genealogical site online, Scottish Documents, with copies of Scottish wills up to 1900 and a search service for others you can order. The site shows some wills in the original form, as graphics.

There is a glossary of unfamiliar words – here is an excerpt:

bq. Abuilyements [of one’s body]: clothing, or garments
Act: formal decision
addettit: indebted to, owing
air: heir
alienate: sell
aliment: a maintenance
allenarly: only, solely or exclusively
anent: concerning
annalzie: alienate, or sell
annualrent : interest on a loan, paid annually
apparent heir: not the person who “appears” to be heir to landed property, but the heir who has already succeeded to it
appraisement: valuation
articles of roup: the conditions under which the property was to be auctioned
auchtand: owing
Availl: worth, or monetary value
awand: owing

The FAQs also provide definitions, for instance of will, testament (‘testament’ has more to do with probate than wills), testament testamentar, testament dative, eik (apparently a codicil) and more.

I had hoped to see a holograph will (handschriftliches Testament) but didn’t happen on one. There are wills of famous people, so I looked for Robert Louis Stevenson, who died in Samoa at the age of 44 of tuberculosis. Henry James was one of his executors, but did not act.

bq. That the said Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson Advocate of the Scots Bar died at Vailima in the Island of Upolu, Samoa upon the third day of December Eighteen hundred and Ninety four a British Subject whose domicile of Origin was Scotch and whose Will is Valid by Scotch Law, his domicile at death being doubtful That the Deponent is Executor nominated by him along with Henry James Novelist London, (who declined to act) in his Last Will and Testament executed by him in September Eighteen hundred and ninety three …

(I like the use of ‘Scotch’ here, which is of course a perfectly good word – but then it made me want a Scotch egg, and in order to make one of those I would have to prematurely slaughter a couple of Thuringian sausages, which would be going too far).

(Thanks to Rainer Langenhan of Handakte WebLAWg for a tip-off by email).

It’s clear that the BBC uses American terms on its website. I don’t say it’s wrong, if they have lots of American readers, but it seems odd to me. I mentioned this on January 13th. Now I am looking at the story ‘”Nazi” dog owner gets sentenced’, of February 5th. No matter if I read the World Edition or the UK Edition, the following strikes me:

bq. “Adolf is a very sweet dog,” said the man’s attorney, Nicole Bumann-Zarske.
“He loves cookies just like his owner!”

I don’t at all mind ‘attorney’ for ‘Rechtsanwalt’ – I sometimes use it myself. It’s more precise than ‘lawyer’, and I wouldn’t use the specifically English terms ‘barrister’ and ‘solicitor’ to translate foreign lawyer designations. It’s a long time since I’ve thought of ‘cookies’ as anything other than an Internet matter, though.

I wouldn’t swear to the whole article being in U.S. English – there may well be some Britishisms too.

There’s a sad and bizarre news story about 18 Chinese cockle pickers being drowned on Morecambe beach. 14 more survived. They may have been illegal immigrants being exploited by someone.

bq. Police said they were of Oriental appearance and they are questioning them with the help of Chinese interpreters.

LATER NOTE: I found it odd to hear the cockles described on German TV news and in the press as ‘kostbare Herzmuscheln’ (‘valuable/precious cockles’). The term I read in the British press was ‘lucrative’, which makes more sense. According to the Independent (February 7th):

bq. The immigrants were enticed to the Red Bank sands near Morecambe by the prospect of easy riches. The bay’s high-quality cockles fetch £10 per 50kg bag for the employer and a picker can fill one in an hour. There is said to be £8m-worth of cockles in the bay.