Like Sasha Volokh, I don’t usually like these Internet / weblog quizzes, but this one is amusing. (Originally via Quare).

I am William John Cavendish-Bentinck-Scott, the Fifth Duke of Portland!

bq. renowned as the finest judge of horseflesh in England, you took the tradition of aristocratic eccentricity to unprecedented heights. Having inherited the stately home of Welbeck Abbey, you proceeded to construct miles of underground tunnels and a ballroom, in pink, beneath it. The ballroom was complete except for one small detail. It had no floor. Despite this vast home, you lived exclusively in a suite of five rooms, each one also pink.

I remained unmarried, after being turned down by an opera singer, but I cared about the welfare of my servants and even helped them muck out the stables. However, if my servants met me in the corridor, they were to ignore me while I froze on the spot until they were out of sight. I made sure there was a chicken roasting at all times so I could sneak into the kitchen for a snack.

rogue semiotics (via the Guardian Weblog) had a post commenting on the weird names used by spammers:

bq. This morning I had offers of genuine prescribed medication from, amongst others, Demetrius Column, Arnulfo Mcleod and the titanically monickered Inflorescence B. Afghan.

Jon speculates whether these come from the heirs of the French surrealists.

To quote a comment from Chuck Lawson:

bq. Of course, we probably should have figured out that Magritte’s grandson was involved when messages started appearing with “This is not a spam!” prominently displayed at the bottom…

Or ‘Do not read this fax!’, of course.

I regularly empty the trash in my Eudora. These are all the names I can offer at the moment: Zaida Coxum, Young Alford, Jernigan Fletcher, Yesenia Hopkins, Kermit Clinton, Genaro Lovett, Barton Kilgore, Roman Guy, Laverne Sosa, Godiva Stanley and the monosyllabic Butts.

The beginning of the trial of Armin Meiwes has been widely reported in both German and English publications. This means I always cast my eye over the English versions to see how they describe German legal institutions and law, what vocabulary they use.

The question arises as to whether this would be more likely to be murder in English law than in German law. An Oasis, for example, wonders

bq. His defence revolves around the fact that his victim actually agreed to be killed and eaten and his defence team argue that at worst he is guilty of illegal euthanasia – “killing on demand” which carries a maximum sentence of five years. Presumably however (I’m out on a limb here) even although consent was given that would not mitigate the fact that there was actus rea and mens rea.

Looking at the English definition of murder, however, this doesn’t seem to have been committed ‘under the Queen’s peace’. However, I can’t see any defence working. Insanity would be pleaded. Serial killers may fit the legal definition of insanity, but they aren’t usually allowed to get away with it. The German definition of murder is even weirder than the English one. It’s closely followed in the Criminal Code by circumstances that are less than murder, including killing at the victim’s request.

Meanwhile, there is also a language-learning aspect involved, according to the Guardian report:

bq. Brandes spoke good English, he said, and since eating him his English had improved.

Scribe of The Discouraging Word (what a good title – do Americans realize I learnt that song at junior school in England?) has twice posted sentences from a translation of Alte Meister, Old Masters, by Thomas Bernhard. Of course he was interested in two words, bolshie and gravid, and not in the translation. But I was surprised to learn that people in the USA read Bernhard in translation, because I wouldn’t think it would travel. I don’t think Bernhard is that hard to translate – he doesn’t have a lot of wordplay. In some of his books he has incredibly long sentences, but they aren’t constructed in a way that couldn’t be done in English. And Alte Meister has not such long sentences. It has no paragraphs, and otherwise there is a lot of repetition as a device. I just wouldn’t expect the content to convey. But perhaps I’m wrong.

Anyway, when I saw the word bolshie, a British dated slang word, I immediately felt: Bernhard would never use this word if he were writing English. So I finished my copy in German – it had been lying in the bookcase with a bookmark one-third of the way through. I then tried to translate those sentences without looking at the version by Ewald Osers, and compared the results. Eventually I bought the translation myself and tried three separate sections – I can’t say paragraphs, because there are none. To sum up, I found the translations of the two sentences really odd, but the three longer sections were more acceptable to me.

I’m not a literary translator and my versions are just close readings to show the points where I disagree with the published translation. Although I resolved not to post a lot of criticism, I think I can allow myself a little discussion here.

Here’s the sentence quoted by TDW on August 12th:

bq. Thomas Bernhard: Heidegger hatte ein gewöhnliches, kein Geistesgesicht, sagte Reger, war durch und durch ein ungeistiger Mensch, bar jeder Phantasie, bar jeder Sensibilität, ein urdeutscher Philosophiewiederkäuer, eine unablässig trächtige Philosophiekuh, sagte Reger, die auf der deutschen Philosophie geweidet und darauf jahrzehntelang ihre koketten Fladen fallen gelassen hat im Schwarzwald.

bq. MM: Heidegger had an ordinary face, not an intellectual face, said Reger, he was unintellectual to the core, completely lacking in imagination, completely lacking in sensitivity, a thoroughly German ruminant chewing the cud of philosophy, a philosophical cow constantly pregnant, said Reger, that grazed on German philosophy and then, decade after decade, dropped its coquettish cowpats in the Black Forest.

bq. Ewald Osers: Heidegger had a common face, not a spiritual one, Reger said, he was through and through an unspiritual person, devoid of all fantasy, devoid of all sensibility, a genuine German philosophical ruminant, a ceaselessly gravid German philosophical cow, Reger said, which grazed upon German philosophy and thereupon for decades let its smart little cow-pats drop on it.

Note: geistig can mean spiritual or intellectual.
Gewöhnlich is more like ordinary than common.
I tried to bring out the transitive meaning of wiederkäuen, to chew the cud – ein Wiederkäuer (literally a re-chewer) is a ruminant.
Of course sensibility and sensitivity are both possible.
In the last line, darauf could mean then, i.e. thereupon, or it could mean thereon, i.e. on philosophy – but it can’t mean both.
Gravid is OK.

And here’s the other sentence:

bq. Thomas Bernhard: Mit den Druckern dürfen Sie sich nicht anlegen, sagte Reger, sie werden sofort aufsässig und drohen Ihnen, alles hinzuwerfen, wenn Sie sich ihrer Borniertheit nicht beugen.

bq. MM: You must not get into an argument with printers, said Reger, they will be up in arms immediately and threaten to drop everything, if you do not give in to their narrow-minded ideas.

bq. Ewald Osers: You must not tangle with printers, Reger said, they get bolshie at once and threaten to chuck everything unless you bow to their blinkered ideas.

I find it a problem in translating Bernhard to hit the right terminology that’s not too formal and not too slangy.

The longer texts, which are less interesting but show that the translation is better than these two sentences, are in this PDF file Download file.
.

There’s an introduction to German patent law at patentfuehrerschein.de. It’s intended for people doing research at universities. Has some nice materials on basics. (Via Handakte WebLAWg).

In England and Wales, examination-in-chief, and in the USA, direct examination is the first stage in examination (erste Zeugenvernehmung) of witnesses in court. It’s the stage where the witness’s ‘own’ counsel elicits what the witness has to say and is not allowed to ask leading questions (Suggestivfragen). It’s followed by cross-examination (Kreuzverhör), where the opposing counsel can ask all the leading questions he or she wants!

The Independent produces a transcript of yesterday’s examination-in-chief of Ian Huntley. Defendants charged with the murder of two ten-year-old girls don’t always take the stand. Huntley tells how the girls died in his house, without being murdered. Counsel for the defence is Stephen Coward.

bq. COWARD: Did you try on either of the girls any resuscitation?
HUNTLEY: No.
COWARD: Do you know why you didn’t?
HUNTLEY: Holly was, had gone a strange colour. Jessica I felt for signs of – I felt none and to be honest I weren’t quite sure what to do.
COWARD: If these identical events were to repeat again what do you think you would do now?
HUNTLEY: I would have pulled Holly out of the bath straight away … I remember thinking about what to do and I was thinking of calling the police but I couldn’t believe what had happened and I kept thinking how do you explain this to the police. If you can’t believe what has happened yourself, how are you going to expect the police to believe what you say?