I was chugging along towards the end of a translation of a decision of the Cologne Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court of Appeal) when I hit on a new word to me: Partikularinsolvenzverfahren (territorial insolvency proceedings). This could be a Word of the Day, I thought to myself. It isn’t a difficult one because it comes straight from an EU regulation. It means insolvency proceedings relating to a specified territory that can be held parallel to the main insolvency proceedings.

But not long afterwards, I was broadsided by something much weirder (to me): als Minus enthalten. Here’s the passage:

bq. Einer Stellungnahme des Senats zu diesem Meinungsstreit bedarf es an dieser Stelle jedoch nicht, da der Schuldner einen Hilfsantrag auf Eröffnung eines isolierten Partikular-insolvenzverfahrens über sein inländisches Vermögen nicht gestellt hat. Er kann auch nicht als in dem Antrag der Schuldnerin als Minus mit enthalten angesehen werden, da wegen der Verschiedenheit beider Verfahrensgegenstände nicht ohne weiteres davon ausgegangen werden kann, dass der Antragsteller die Durchführung eines isolierten Partikularinsolvenzverfahrens anstrebt für den Fall, dass sein Antrag auf Eröffnung eines Gesamtinsolvenzverfahrens zurückgewiesen wird.

(OLG Köln 2 W 82/01, April 23, 2001; bold by me. SchuldnerIN is a mistake in the original, of course: this was a man, a sole trader)

A bit of Googling revealed several examples in legal texts. I concluded it was similar to the situation in English criminal law of a lesser included offence. For example, if you indict someone for murder, they can always be convicted of manslaughter, a lesser included offence, whereas in other cases, two or three possible offences have to be charged separately, because they are not included. I therefore decided to translate it as lesser included petition:

bq. Nor can such a petition be seen as having been included in the petition as a lesser included petition, since the subjects of the two proceedings differ and it cannot therefore be automatically assumed that the petitioner wishes separate territorial insolvency proceedings to be held if his petition for the commencement of main insolvency proceedings is dismissed.

The only source I could think of for more information on this was a student’s book on criminal law, but I haven’t succeeded in tracing it in the index of anything I have on substantive or procedural criminal law. Thank goodness for Internet search engines: they give enough examples to construct a definition from. I like my attempt because it is both legal terminology and comprehensible, but am open to further suggestions.

Off topic, and it doesn’t behove me to make light remarks about a hurricane that isn’t going to affect me, but here it is anyway:

The ethicalEsq? law blog has some hurricane haiku:

bq. they call it
a driving rain, but
we better not drive
[haikuEsq]

and the Unofficial Dave Barry Blog repeats some hurricane advice originally printed in the Miami Herald (for South Florida):

bq. STEP 1. Buy enough food and bottled water to last your family for at least three days.
STEP 2. Put these supplies into your car.
STEP 3. Drive to Nebraska and remain there until Halloween.
Unfortunately, statistics show that most people will not follow this sensible plan. Most people will foolishly stay here in South Florida. If you’re one of those people, you’ll want to clip out the following useful hurricane information and tuck it away in a safe place so that later on, when a storm is brewing, you will not be able to locate it.

But for real advice he recommends the Miami Herald storm site.

Hurricane Isabel has already had consequences in criminal law:

bq. PORT ST. LUCIE — With Hurricane Isabel churning in the west Atlantic on Sunday, a 70-year-old woman allegedly hurled a knife at her husband because he watched football instead of preparing for the storm, police said Monday.

He wanted to watch a football game, she wanted him to prepare for the hurricane. Robert M. Harris finished up with a large laceration to his leg, and Joan W. Harris was being held in the St. Lucie County jail.

From Bag & Baggage: a Dutch law firm has started a blog, claiming to be the first European law firm to do so. Also linking to a Dutch chocolate page, Denise says, ‘Yet another reason to learn Dutch’. Hasn’t she heard about Belgian chocolate? But I do remember being taken to try cherries in liqueur and chocolate in Amsterdam, with the stalks still on.

I tried to learn Dutch at evening classes two years ago. I only went for the pronunciation, but it was a very frustrating experience. If you know German, Dutch is so easy, but being asked to tell a story and realizing every word you were saying was pidgin was quite irritating. Isabella Massardo recently mentioned a vocabulary book for learners of Dutch as a second language, i.e. immigrants, that looks really useful for speakers of German and probably English too.

I’m fascinated by the lengths to which U.S. publishers sometimes go to ‘localize’ British novels, and I gather it happens the other way round too.
There is a very interesting paper written in English by a German, Helge Nowak, on the changes demanded of A.S. Byatt’s Possession, not my favourite novel but one that was very successful. Nowak looks at every possible aspect of difference between U.S. and British versions, including dustjacket and typography.

Here is just one example of a change. British version:

he saw himself as a failure and felt vaguely responsible for this.
He was a small man, with very soft, startling black hair and small regular features. Val called him Mole, which he disliked. He had never told her so.

U.S. version:

he saw himself as a failure and felt vaguely responsible for this. He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women. He was generally unaware of these feelings, since he paid little attention to what pe/ple thought about him, which was part of his attraction. Val called him Mole, which he disliked. He had never told her so.

I was reminded of this by a recent Guardian article about American publishers nearly retitling the British novel Brick Lane – they wanted it to be called Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers (however, this was the title originally used by the author, Monica Ali).

There are many Internet sites with B.E./Am.E. wordlists, but they have a tendency to be over-simplified and suggest A is always used in AmE and B always in BE and never the twain shall meet.

I’ve never seen the series Law & Order, although apparently it is shown in Germany. But I am intrigued by this colouring book (you can print it out). Here’s a picture showing the long path between arraignment and trial (click to enlarge). From Bag & Baggage.

This was a mystery to me, because in England and Wales, arraignment is the stage of the criminal trial where the indictment is read out to the defendant, so it’s part of the trial. But in the USA, arraignment is

bq. an initial step in the criminal process wherein the defendant is formally charged with an offense, i.e. given a copy of the complaint… and informed of his constitutional rights…

The defendant is brought before court and told how he can plead, and he may plead (e.g. not guilty). But it is not the trial (Gifis, Law Dictionary)