Chasuble

I was surprised to see a garment in a German fashion catalogue termed ein Chasuble.

An online dictionary says:

Chasuble (sprich schaßübl): Sehr lange Weste, die bis zur Kleiderlänge variiert werden kann.

Well, I was thinking of the English term pronounced somewhat like tSaezjubl. The last time I wore one of these was about forty years ago, when I had the misfortune to be cast as the chaplain in the school’s (all-female) production of the dreadful Christopher Fry play, ‘The Lady’s Not For Burning’ (later made more famous by Mrs Thatcher under a slightly different title). My garb wasn’t as exciting as this, but it was that kind of thing.

When did this term enter the German fashion world – at the same time as body bag?

It’s the way you tell them / Die Guardian zu deutschem Humor

‘Comedian Stewart Lee’ writes in the Guardian on German humour. This analysis arises from a trip to Germany with Richard Thomas, who wrote Jerry Springer the Opera, who was commissioned to write a musical of that type set in a British stand-up comedy club which then had to be translated into German. (Why am I laughing already?)

Lee says that Germans do have humour, but it is hard for us to recognize, and vice versa. He claims that English humour is facilitated by the English language. Putting verbs at the end of the sentence and using a lot of compound words kill humour, he says (apparently seriously). He now concentrates on the humour of ideas:

On my first night in Hannover I had gone out drinking with some young German actors. “You will notice there are no old buildings in Hannover,” one of them said. “That is because you bombed them all.” At the time I found this shocking and embarrassing. Now it seems like the funniest thing you could possibly say to a nervous English visitor.

At all events, Germans are invited to submit their own jokes in English, to show there is German humour. The four quoted have failed to do this. (Thanks to Trevor for the link).

As amended/In der Fassung von

Sind die Wörter “in der jeweiligen Fassung” bei einem Gesetz notwendig (auf Englisch)?

Corp Law Blog
has another interesting entry on language. The question is: If you quote a statute ‘as amended’, what do the words ‘as amended’ add?

And how do you interpret Section 1 of the Securities Act of 1933, which tells us that the short title of the Securities Act of 1933 is the “Securities Act of 1933” (no reference to “as amended”)?

The comments are interesting too – and even Sydney Carton contributed.

The question is whether a short title means the statute at the date of a contract, for example, or the statute in all its subsequent amendments.

Robert Schwartz’s comment ends:

Clients just hate hearing lawyers argue about shit like that at $500 @ hr. Another reason I have forbiden my children from going to law school.
Have you noticed that secretaries often corect the title of the Act to The Securities Act of 1993?

And Gary comments, inter alia:

It is interesting to note that most “sophisticated” transaction documents have a lengthy section of defined terms but they often give short shrift to rules of construction. In particularly complex transactions, I include the following within a section containing rules of construction:

“Any reference to any federal, state, local, or foreign statute or law includes (1) all rules and regulations promulgated thereunder and (2) such statute or law as amended, modified or supplemented from time to time (including any successor statute or law).”

Typos

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.

Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache

Die Zeit provides Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache online – reported by Handakte WebLAWg

An der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften wurde Anfang März 2003 durch das Projekt “Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (DWDS)” das größte frei zugängliche, online abfragbare Wörterbuch für die deutsche Sprache zur Testbenutzung frei geschaltet.