Via Marshall Fuss in alt.coffee (on Usenet), an article in The Onion finds that the majority of human discourse now occurs in online product reviews.

‘Duke sociology professor and study head Dr. Allan Piersall’ said, inter alia:

bq. “Not only was I impressed by the large number of people expressing themselves through the written word, but I was amazed by the sophistication of the rhetoric,” Piersall said. “In the same review, I saw examples of parallel construction, metaphor, and tautology, as well as standard debate devices like propositions of policy and use of evidence—all to support the argument that the Krups 872-42 Bravo Plus Espresso Maker is not worth the money.”

I am recovering from a day at the annual general meeting of the Bavarian chapter of the BDÜ (Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer) typing up this blog with the Eurovision Song Contest in the background. I won’t offer a comparison of the two experiences.

The Wikipedia has nothing on the BDÜ but it has an entry on the Eurovision Song Contest. This was news to me (the second bit about the two-day event):

bq. Up until 2003 entry to the Eurovision song contest also requires the country to have performed with a reasonable amount of success for the previous few years. France, Germany, Spain and the UK automatically qualify.

bq. At the beginning of 2003 the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided to make the Eurovision Song Contest a two day event as from 2004. This means that the previous restrictions for countries to participate will be dropped. Any EBU member country will be able to participate in any given year. Continue reading →

I am recovering from a day at the annual general meeting of the Bavarian chapter of the BDÜ (Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer) typing up this blog with the Eurovision Song Contest in the background. I won’t offer a comparison of the two experiences.

The Wikipedia has nothing on the BDÜ but it has an entry on the Eurovision Song Contest. This was news to me (the second bit about the two-day event):

bq. Up until 2003 entry to the Eurovision song contest also requires the country to have performed with a reasonable amount of success for the previous few years. France, Germany, Spain and the UK automatically qualify.

bq. At the beginning of 2003 the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided to make the Eurovision Song Contest a two day event as from 2004. This means that the previous restrictions for countries to participate will be dropped. Any EBU member country will be able to participate in any given year. Continue reading →

The main (but not only) subject of this weblog is legal translation from German to English (and sometimes vice versa).

Translators post queries and exchange information in many mailing lists, newsgroups and forums, both public and private, and I follow a number of those myself. However, I do not normally quote from those other places. I may give a sentence to give an impression of the forum when describing it – I think that is fair use – or I might quote myself if I gave the main answer, but again, I haven’t done that yet. Not only would it be unfair to the other forum, but the questions themselves are often private, in that translators have a duty of confidentiality towards their clients. Suppose I am translating a contract relating to a new kind of mayonnaise – let’s call it mustard mayonnaise – and there’s some term relating to making mayonnaise that I don’t understand and that isn’t in the dictionaries. I might ask the question in a small mailing list. But I don’t want to find the question repeated elsewhere, e.g. in Transblawg. Even if there’s no harm in the discussion, what if the client happens to find out that the terminology has been quoted elsewhere? The client will no longer trust me to observe confidentiality.

If my theory is correct, then searching in Google for “mustard mayonnaise” (with or without inverted commas) should give a Transblawg hit – perhaps not immediately, but in the next couple of days. How about “mayonnaise” alone (no inverted commas)?

Das Hauptthema dieses Weblogs ist deutsch-englische Übersetzung, meist von juristischen Texten.

Ich bin dabei, eine Seite über diesen Weblog zu verfassen, auf der ich ein paar Anmerkungen über Vertraulichkeit machen werde – hoffentlich kürzer als dieses hier!
Ich zitiere andere Übersetzerforen meistens nicht. Ein Beispiel: wenn mein Kunde eine neue Art Mayonnaise einführt, die z.B. „Senfmayonnaise“ heißt, und ich Schwierigkeiten bei der Übersetzung von Mayonnaise-Termini habe, stelle ich vielleicht eine Frage in eine Übersetzer-Mailingliste, aber ich möchte nicht, dass die Frage anderswo, z.B. in Transblawg, zitiert wird, sonst könnte mein Kunde dies erfahren und eventuell den Eindruck haben, ich sei nicht vertrauenswürdig.

Wenn meine Vermutung stimmt, dann dürfte eine Google-Suche nach „mustard mayonnaise“ (mit oder ohne Anführungszeichen), vielleicht erst morgen oder übermorgen, direkt zu Transblawg führen.

The main (but not only) subject of this weblog is legal translation from German to English (and sometimes vice versa).

Translators post queries and exchange information in many mailing lists, newsgroups and forums, both public and private, and I follow a number of those myself. However, I do not normally quote from those other places. I may give a sentence to give an impression of the forum when describing it – I think that is fair use – or I might quote myself if I gave the main answer, but again, I haven’t done that yet. Not only would it be unfair to the other forum, but the questions themselves are often private, in that translators have a duty of confidentiality towards their clients. Suppose I am translating a contract relating to a new kind of mayonnaise – let’s call it mustard mayonnaise – and there’s some term relating to making mayonnaise that I don’t understand and that isn’t in the dictionaries. I might ask the question in a small mailing list. But I don’t want to find the question repeated elsewhere, e.g. in Transblawg. Even if there’s no harm in the discussion, what if the client happens to find out that the terminology has been quoted elsewhere? The client will no longer trust me to observe confidentiality.

If my theory is correct, then searching in Google for “mustard mayonnaise” (with or without inverted commas) should give a Transblawg hit – perhaps not immediately, but in the next couple of days. How about “mayonnaise” alone (no inverted commas)?

Das Hauptthema dieses Weblogs ist deutsch-englische Übersetzung, meist von juristischen Texten.

Ich bin dabei, eine Seite über diesen Weblog zu verfassen, auf der ich ein paar Anmerkungen über Vertraulichkeit machen werde – hoffentlich kürzer als dieses hier!
Ich zitiere andere Übersetzerforen meistens nicht. Ein Beispiel: wenn mein Kunde eine neue Art Mayonnaise einführt, die z.B. „Senfmayonnaise“ heißt, und ich Schwierigkeiten bei der Übersetzung von Mayonnaise-Termini habe, stelle ich vielleicht eine Frage in eine Übersetzer-Mailingliste, aber ich möchte nicht, dass die Frage anderswo, z.B. in Transblawg, zitiert wird, sonst könnte mein Kunde dies erfahren und eventuell den Eindruck haben, ich sei nicht vertrauenswürdig.

Wenn meine Vermutung stimmt, dann dürfte eine Google-Suche nach „mustard mayonnaise“ (mit oder ohne Anführungszeichen), vielleicht erst morgen oder übermorgen, direkt zu Transblawg führen.

Yesterday I was trying out Blogmatcher and came across another translator’s weblog.
Blogmatcher does two things: tells me how many other blogs link to mine, and suggests other blogs I might like on the basis of the links used by the blog whose URL I enter. That seems to me a very useful feature if I enter the URL of a blog other than mine. I don’t properly understand how it functions: sometimes I get no reaction or a reaction that the index has been updated (it updates every 4 hours), but I don’t want to update the index, I just want to show related weblogs on the basis of the updated index. Continue reading →