The California Lawyer Magazine holds an Extreme Advocacy Contest. The problem is to argue a seemingly ridiculous point so as to convince your audience.

The winner, Blair Hoffmann, argued that the same lawyer should represent both sides on appeal. Others argued that the moon is made of green cheese, people should walk on all fours, and Queen Elizabeth is the reigning monarch of the USA. The competition was judged by Alex Kozinski, a judge on the Ninth Circuit.

bq. Having the same attorney represent both parties (1) enhances the quality of the advocacy, (2) is fairer, and (3) is more efficient. I do not advocate that the same attorney must represent both parties-on occasion multiple attorneys might be useful-but courts should permit, even encourage, a single attorney to represent both sides. Ethical obligations, properly understood, do not stand in the way.

(from Denise Howell at Bag & Baggage).

le sofa blogger, under the heading Heute wollen wir mal nicht pingelig sein (Let’s not be too fussy today), links to a Guardian article by A.L. Kennedy called Mr Blair’s blood count. The article appeared in a very good German translation by Matthias Fienbork in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung today (available online only at a price).

The blogger, Peter Praschl, is unhappy at A.L.Kennedy’s use of metaphor in the original English. Kennedy refers to 92,811 pints of blood ‘on Blair’s hands’ (the translator uses ‘kleben’). Praschl then quotes another ‘mixed metaphor’:

bq. “Obviously, we shouldn’t take the phrase “blood on his hands” terribly literally, because that wouldn’t be fair – Blair’s only our prime minister, sitting at the centre of a complex and sophisticated network of advisers and in possession of global influence and serious investment capital.” Sie kann es also wirklich nicht.

I wonder about this. I know when texts are translated into German, it’s necessary to be much more careful with metaphors. Does ‘kleben’ sound odd in German (because such a large quantity of blood can’t be ‘on your hands’)? (Praschl: ‘Bin schon gespannt, ob ich im nächsten Urlaub beim Schwimmen denken werde, dass das Meer an meinen Händen klebt.’) If it does, maybe the translation should have been freer? I wonder what other translators into German think about this?

The translation looks good to me. It did strike me that the irony didn’t come across:

bq. Of course, it’s tricky to establish the true levels of civilian injury and death in Iraq, due to it being a very big place and looking all the same because of the sand. Estimates of the completely dead vary between 37,137 and the much more comfortable 6,118. Your average person contains around eight pints of blood, but Iraqis have suffered various medical difficulties caused by starvation, stress and speaking Arabic, so let’s guess there are seven pints in each Iraqi adult. And many of the casualties – say 3,000 – will actually have been kiddies, whom we’ll average out at three pints each.

Note those words and phrases: tricky; due to it being; because of the sand; your average person contains; kiddies; whom we’ll average out. Here is the German:

bq. Das Ausmaß der zivilen Opfer im Irak läßt sich verständlicherweise nicht genau errechnen, weil das Land so groß ist und wegen des Sandes überall gleich aussieht. Schätzungen der korrekten Todesopfer schwanken zwischen 37137 und der sehr viel beruhigenderen Zahl 6118. Der menschliche Körper enthält im Schnitt viereinhalb Liter Blut. Da die Iraker aber (aufgrund von Hunger und Streß und weil sie Arabisch sprechen) diverse gesundheitliche Probleme hatten, sollte man vielleicht vier Liter pro Erwachsenen berechnen. Und viele Opfer (sagen wir: dreitausend) waren Kinder, bei denen wir 1,7 Liter ansetzen.

It’s not completely gone, and it may be that so much irony would not be acceptable in the German press.

An article in the Guardian states that the middle class cost Britain £14bn per year. The article is actually based on a survey done by two scientists at the University of Keele (not to be confused with the University of Kiel). Professor Susanne Karstedt and Stephen Farrell carried out a survey:

bq. They quizzed 4,000 people aged 25-65 in England and Wales and western Germany to see how many admitted white collar dishonesty. Germans outstripped the English and Welsh in all but one kind of crime: they were less likely to keep change given in error.

Statistics are given. Perhaps the Germans were just more honest?

Bettina Winterfeld, an English-German translator in Heidelberg, has now found a co-blogger for her Nicht-alle-Tage-Buch. He is Kai Becker, an English-German technical translator in Berlin who also teaches at the Humboldt University.

These names are sometimes needed in other languages. There was a German blackmailer called Arno Funke active a few years ago who called himself (or was known as?) Dagobert (Uncle Scrooge) (interview in German). Not that one should translate the name, and the translation would have made the whole thing senseless anyway. But it’s always worth knowing if a name refers to a Disney or other character, and sometimes you need to tell the English speaker what the equivalent name is in English.

Anyway, Wikipedia has a list (thanks to Bob Creutz for this).

LATER NOTE: Bob says some of the Danish ones are wrong, and Bettina says:

bq. Many more characters (some of them also in other languages) can be found at
http://dlpfan.org/de/lex/showlex.htm
I suppose I should go and correct the Wikipedia, but it seems like a lot of typing.

The town of Homberg in North Hesse is having to pulp 7500 copies of a brochure in ‘English’ that was full of errors, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau (there is a second similar report). (Thanks to Ilse Fallas for the information)

First, the town (15,000 inhabitants) asked a number of English teachers to translate the brochure, but none of them had time. To save the cost of a professional translation, which would have cost several thousand euros, the town then relied on a computer program. Freizeitwert (roughly, value in terms of leisure activities) became casual value, and Freibad (open-air swimming pool) became free bath.

It cost the town 3538 euros to print the brochure.

This is so familiar.
How much time did the town allow for translation?
Were the schoolteachers native speakers of English?
Whether they were native speakers of English or not, how much experience did they have in translation – translation not just for understanding, but for publication, translation that read well?
How much time was the author given?
How much was the author paid?
Who decided the brochure was no good? Not that I don’t believe it, but where in the whole process was anyone with an understanding of English fit for publication? The report says that no-one checked the computer translation, but a machine translation usually takes longer to correct than a new translation from scratch.
(MT can be used to get the gist of a text, but that’s not what was wanted here).