Velcro

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There was a question on a German mailing list recently about translating Klettband, and someone mentioned that Velcro is a mark and it might be safer to say hook-and-pile fastener or Velcro-type fastener, to avoid the risk of threatened lawsuits by the manufacturer protecting its property. At the very least, the translator should warn the client.

I was reminded of Mark Israel’s FAQ from the UseNet group alt.usage.english, which is a source of all kinds of useful information. Here is the beginning of his list of ‘trademarks, although people use them generically’:

Adrenalin (the generic words are “adrenaline” and “epinephrine”),
AstroTurf, Autoharp, BVDs, Baggies, Bakelite, Band-Aid, Beer Nuts,
Benzedrine, Biro, Boogie Board, Breathalyzer, Brillo Pads, Caplet,
Carborundum, Chap Stick, Chemical Mace, Chiclets, Cinerama,
Coca-Cola/Coke, Colorization ? (process of adding colour to
black-and-white footage), Cuisinart, Dacron, Day-Glo, Deepfreeze,
Demerol, Dianetics, Dictaphone, Dictograph, Ditto machine, Dixie
cups, Dolby, Dow Jones Average, Dry Ice ? , Dumpster, Dvorak
Keyboard, Erector Set, Eskimo Pie, Ethernet, Exercycle, Fiberglas,
Fig Newtons, Formica, Freon, Frigidaire, Frisbee, Grand Marnier,
Green Stamp, Hacky Sack, Hammond organ, Hide-a-Bed, Hi-Liter,
Hoover, Hula-Hoop …

I must say, I can’t imagine using Dianetics generically. Will have to work on that one.

Jurawiki

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From Langenhan, Rainer and Melanie, Internet für Juristen, 4th ed. 2003, ISBN 3 472 05106 X (Rainer Langenhan is the author of the HandAkte WebLAWg), a definition of wikis. I had seen wikipedia but didn’t realize what a wiki was. ‘Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. ‘

Wikipedia itself has a law section, and if you click on Deutsch, you get a German law page in real German, not (as one always fears now) a page of Babelfish MT gibberish.

I looked up equity, found the maxims, and was surprised by some of them.

Plain English has turned Equity aids the vigilant and not the indolent into Equity aids the vigilant, not those who sleep on their rights. Equity does not require an idle gesture was new to me, to say nothing of the law students’ summary in a final maxim (must be American).

There’s also a German law wiki. Some interesting notes on Aktenzeichen led me to rather painstaking allocation of cases in Saxony (Amtsgericht Dresden). When allocating cases by the parties’ last names:

‘Außer Betracht bleiben dabei

Adelsbezeichnungen;
die Zusätze Abdel, Abu, al, auf dem, auf der, auf die, Ben, d’, da, dal(a), dall(a), de, del, dell’, delle, del la, della, di, do(s), du, el, la, le, lo, M’, Mac, Mc, N’, O’, tel, tem, ten, ter, van, van de, van den, van der, van ten, van ter, vom, von, von dem, von der, von zu (m,r) und zu (m,r);
bei Doppelnamen der zweite Name.
Diese Regelung gilt ohne Rücksicht auf die Schreibweise und unabhängig davon, ob ein Bindestrich verwendet wird oder mehrere dieser Zusätze Bestandteil des Namens sind.’

Typos

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When I was looking at Internet books in Buchhandlung Campe in Nürnberg on Wednesday, I noticed a number of German book titles using Typo to mean typography. I suppose it isn’t a false friend really, just an abbreviation but in English a typo is a typing mistake.

Manche Büchertitel benutzen jetzt das Wort Typo statt Typographie (im Englischen bedeutet typo einen Tippfehler).

e.g. Ulli Neutzling, Typo und Layout im Web
Cyrus Dominik Khazaeli, Crashkurs Typo und Layout
Ralf Köhler, Typo und Design

There’s also a list of Einige der besten Typo-Bücher aller Zeiten.
Perhaps this is just normal German and I haven’t noticed it before.

Still, there’s a fake site showing the English meaning.

Accession Treaty

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Treaty of Accession 2003 / EU-Erweiterungsvertrag
via Lenz Blog
To be signed on 16th April by the existing 15 member states and the 10 acceding countries, i.e. the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia.

Can be downloaded
but is 5,000 pages long.

Berufsakademie / Fachhochschule

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A colleague, Paul Thomas from Ehningen, translated two certificates containing the word Berufsakademie, which he rendered as vocational academy. The client – a German – was annoyed and said the translation was wrong: it should have been University of Cooperative Education.
Paul searched the Web and found the term almost exclusively used on German Berufsakademie websites.

I don’t know these Berufsakademien – they are a Baden-Württemberg thing, and I’m in Bavaria. There’s a site here.

They sound a bit like polytechnics. But what does cooperative mean?

Eurybase definitely puts them outside higher education. It says they are in eight Länder.

‘Berufsakademien (professional academies) form part of the tertiary sector and combine academic training at a Studienakademie (study institution) with practical professional training in the workplace, thus constituting a dual system (duales System). They were first set up in 1974 in Baden-Württemberg as part of a pilot project and are now to be found in Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Sachsen and Thüringen, where they are state-run, and in Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachsen and Saarland, where they are privately maintained state-recognised institutions.’

The DAAD book: Wörterbuch Englisch, Französisch, Spanisch – Begriffe aus Wissenschaft und Hochschule (ISBN 3 7639 0418 2) gives ‘higher education institution in Germany with professional orientation and on-the-job training’.

And Raddatz’s Fachglossar: Deutsche Berufsbildungsbegriffe, Bertelsmann/GTZ (ISBN 3 7639 0128 0), otherwise full of Germanisms, has ‘vocational college’ plus ‘The vocational college which exists in some Federal States of Germany prepares, as a rule, upper secondary school graduates … in a three-year period for a qualified graduation for a scientific and advanced occupational activity. The training scheme features in-company training periods.’

So what do we do when a whole set of institutions has chosen a term that is rubbish in English? Their very choice seems to disqualify them. A similar term is University of Applied Science for Fachhochschule. There’s a term that Eurybase does support. It reminds me of the Holy Roman Empire – neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

Paul calls it ‘what would appear to be a misnomer made up by German speakers for German consumption’. Tim Slater replies, ‘Well, of course it is not for German consumption, but for misleading an international readership (part of unscrupulous and dishonest sales promotion by German authorities)’.

The conclusion on FLEFO at CompuServe was: use the German term, if only once in brackets, make sure you get paid, and let the client do what it wants with the text.

Zusammenfassung: das Wort Berufsakademie wird standardmäßig mit einem sinnlosen englischen Begriff übersetzt, vor allem auf den Webseiten der Berufsakademien. Kunde, der die beeidigte Übersetzung zweier Urkunden wollte, bemängelt Übersetzung deswegen. Übersetzer klärt Kunden auf. Fazit: wenn der Kunde dem englischsprachigen Übersetzer nicht glauben will, oder ihm sogar glaubt aber sich an der eingebürgerten Form halten will, soll er es tun.
Website von Eurybase – Eurydice Database – gibt zweisprachige Entsprechungen für Bildungsbegriffe in ganz Europa.