This is an entry from the weekend I am posting to see, again, whether posting causes the server to throw me out again.

It gives a concrete example of a search problem that was handled better by Alltheweb than Google and Vivisimo. Hence it is a bit longwinded.

I didn’t intend to write so much about search engines. But having started, I think I should give a few concrete examples of how a search engine helps when a particular problem comes up. This time, Alltheweb did the trick: it has clustering at the end of its results, something I’ve never noticed before. It also gives examples where the word is declined: I entered ideell, it also gives ideeller, albeit not at the top of the list.

Problem sentence:

bq. Die vermögenswerten Bestandteile des Persönlichkeitsrechts bestehen nach dem Tode des Rechtsträgers jedenfalls fort, solange die ideellen Interessen noch geschützt sind.

It’s actually the use of vermögenswert as an adjective rather than a noun I am wondering how to translate. It is contrasted with ideell, but when I try to put that into words I remember that ideeller Firmenwert (goodwill) is something you can put a figure on.

There are some times in translation when only a book will do. In my case that book is often the three-volume Deutsches Rechts-Lexikon. I also think of Markesinis on the German law of torts, and Palandt’s commentary on the Civil Code – but I haven’t got the latest edition of either. Continue reading →

I’ve been having problems posting. It seems the server I use is on the point of breakdown when I attempt to post (at least, Movable Type tries to post again and again). In fact, my website was closed for a few hours.
I do have longer things to post, I’m just trying this one without the plugin Textile (which lets me do block quotes) to see if it works any better.
Strictly speaking I’m waiting for a reply from MT as to how much memory MT needs to post and rebuild.

I’ve been having problems posting. It seems the server I use is on the point of breakdown when I attempt to post (at least, Movable Type tries to post again and again). In fact, my website was closed for a few hours.
I do have longer things to post, I’m just trying this one without the plugin Textile (which lets me do block quotes) to see if it works any better.
Strictly speaking I’m waiting for a reply from MT as to how much memory MT needs to post and rebuild.

The German TV midday magazine program has been showing a clip of Kathleen Hepburn, at a fairly advanced age, saying she goes out every day intending the be the victor in the day-to-day struggles. It was dubbed in German. At the end she says ‘That’s me – everlasting ego’. At least, that’s what I understood. The German version was ‘immerwährender (?) Adler’, i.e. ‘eagle’.

I understand that dubbing can go wrong, but then I wonder why they show the clip at all if the punch line is so weird.

It reminds me of the Gary Larson cartoon the Nürnberger Nachrichten showed just before Christmas one year, where a witch is disappointed that her Brussels sprouts house is not luring any children. Brussels sprouts was translated as ‘Brussels lace’. The picture was coloured, but the lace remained white. Of course, the translation was not the NN’s work but syndicated, but why did they take the cartoon at all? I suppose because gingerbread houses and witches are Christmassy. At all events, it would be hard to convey in Germany that kids in the USA and Britain don’t like Brussels sprouts.

The German TV midday magazine program has been showing a clip of Kathleen Hepburn, at a fairly advanced age, saying she goes out every day intending the be the victor in the day-to-day struggles. It was dubbed in German. At the end she says ‘That’s me – everlasting ego’. At least, that’s what I understood. The German version was ‘immerwährender (?) Adler’, i.e. ‘eagle’.

I understand that dubbing can go wrong, but then I wonder why they show the clip at all if the punch line is so weird.

It reminds me of the Gary Larson cartoon the Nürnberger Nachrichten showed just before Christmas one year, where a witch is disappointed that her Brussels sprouts house is not luring any children. Brussels sprouts was translated as ‘Brussels lace’. The picture was coloured, but the lace remained white. Of course, the translation was not the NN’s work but syndicated, but why did they take the cartoon at all? I suppose because gingerbread houses and witches are Christmassy. At all events, it would be hard to convey in Germany that kids in the USA and Britain don’t like Brussels sprouts.

Under my entry yesterday on General Right of Personality, Derek Thornton asks me if this is the kind of post I would normally have made in FLEFO.
FLEFO is the Foreign Languages Educational Forum, some sections of which are used by translators (section 10 for queries, section 11 for general, section 12 for technology). FLEFO used to be much more populated, in the days when the WWW had not really taken off and before CSi was bought by AOL. It should be accessible even for non-members now, but I am still a member and when I enter via the Web I am recognized. Derek says this link should work. Continue reading →