Dr. Erika Fuchs, Comic-Übersetzerin und frühere Chefredakteurin der deutschen Micky-Maus-Ausgabe, ist gestorben. Ihr wird die Schöpfung des sogenannten Erikativs zugeschrieben, der aus der deutschen Sprache nicht mehr wegzudenken ist. Der Spiegel zitiert Entenhausener Liedgut: „Die Wolken ziehn dahin/ Sie ziehn auch wieder her/ Der Mensch lebt nur einmal/ Und dann nicht mehr.“ *Schnüffel*

The news has been full of puns how “The Interpreter” (the movie mentioned earlier here) translates into box office success or somesuch. Trying to get across the difference between the translating and interpreting looks more and more like a losing battle. Today, I read in the NYT (emphasis mine):

“The Interpreter” (Universal), the first film ever shot inside the United Nations headquarters, directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Nicole Kidman, as a United Nations translator and Sean Penn as an F.B.I. investigator, opened at No. 1 this weekend with $22.8 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates.

“We read German poems together ’til 3 am. Even Grandma stayed up and enjoyed the exotic sound of words like Rasenmäher, Motorsäge or Solidargemeinschaft.” Rentagerman.de offers a wide range of Germans for your personal and social needs. (Via MEX Blog.)

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by an agency I sometimes work for if I could help out with a huge project they had to translate practically overnight. The text was divided among several translators, but I could take on only 4,000 words since I had another project running at the same time. The were very helpful answering questions and communicating exactly what they wanted us to do. They also added a percentage for our efforts to keep to the original formatting — which (in my experience) is unusual in and of itself.

On Saturday, I received a $20.00 gift certificate for amazon.com by e-mail. The message: “Thank you so much for all of your help with the large XY project completed last week. We really appreciate your availability and flexibility with the schedule and all of the time and effort you put forth. This is a small token of appreciation just to say thanks for being a part of the Translate4me team! We look forward to working with you again soon!” What a nice surprise!

Turkey season is about to open. Living in rural Boone county, I enjoy observing the still plentiful wildlife. It would never occur to me to kill it; but I am in the minority here. According to the local paper, it is “time to organize supplies to help bring home the bird.” Here some of the essentials that I learned:

Major ammunition manufacturers market expensive turkey loads. A better choice would be a box of copper-clad No. 6 or No. 4, high-brass shotgun shells. If your shotgun will accommodate a 3-inch shell, purchase the longer, heavier load. I prefer copper-clad shot to the traditional shot because it penetrates better and provides cleaner kills.

Who would have known? I will file it away with all the other reams of trivia that translators accumulate, sit out on the deck and watch the gobblers do their thing.

In Sally Morrison’s blog The Language Feed I came across a link to a news article reporting that the Canadian dog food company Qimmik Manufacturing is attempting to trademark qimmik, the Inuktitut word for “dog.” Nunavut’s Languages Commissioner Johnny Kusugaksays is not happy with this move. By trademarking the word, he says, no one can use it again to name their business or organization — including Inuit. (Other entries about Nunavut here and here.)

I find it strange that anybody could trademark a simple word like “dog.” I am sure that if Anheuser-Busch tried to trademark “Bier” in Germany, they would not succeed. But I am no specialist in names and trademarks. Come to think of it, if it were possible, perhaps I should try and trademark “translator”?

Microsoft Corp. has added an “N” to the name of the Windows XP versions without Windows Media Player that it was ordered to offer in Europe. The European Commission chose the names “Windows XP Home Edition N” and “Windows XP Professional Edition N” after rejecting Microsoft’s first choice, “Windows XP Reduced Media Edition.” Geoffrey Pullum blogs about this in the Language Log, and I simply have to quote two passages here in case you don’t have the time to go and read his full entry.

About Microsoft’s strategy in general:

For those recently returned from sailing around the world nonstop with no radio, let me remind you that Microsoft has been actively pursuing its policy of illicitly destroying other companies’ ability to do business, this time in the media player software market. The idea is to kill companies like Real Audio. The strategy is familiar: if anything new or good comes out, plagiarize it or buy a mediocre competing product (remember, it doesn’t have to be good, you’re a monopolist); embed it as an integrated component of the Windows operating system in a way that made it easy to access and very hard to remove; introduce a few covert and plausibly deniable difficulties for other vendors’ media players and keep your code secret; wait for the other vendors to die; then increase the price of Windows to cover the costs.

About Microsoft’s wrangling of the courts:

Again and again I have found myself thinking “These Microsoft people are bandits;” and then I think again and realize I’m being unfair — to bandits. (Bandits who are caught and found to have violated anti-banditry law don’t typically manage to plea-bargain robbery and murder down to a parking violation, appeal the parking ticket, and go right back into banditry while the appeal is being heard.)

My 18-year old daughter who practically lives with her computer attached to her body would never be caught using Windows Media Player. Her judgment reflects that of her peers: “Windows Media Player is evil.” There is hope after all.

Joi Ito’s blog (or at least part of it) is now available in Japanese; with copyright by NEC. Joi thinks, correctly, I might add, that “…translations are essential for building bridges between cultures.” The big problem, in his opionion, and there I have to disagree, is “that translation sometimes cost MORE than the cost of writing the original work. It’s also more boring.” I somehow cannot develop any enthusiasm for a situation where, of all entities, a Japanese monolith such as NEC enters blogging in such a fashion. Call me cynical, but “using CC [Creative Commons] to allow people to create business models to pay translators seems like a great idea”? Haven’t we skipped one or several steps here? Like paying translators properly in the first place?

When I watched the news last night there was a commercial for the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida. Usually I don’t pay much attention to commercials, but there was something quite wrong with this one which made me sit up. The main message said “Attention Workaholics: It’s time to fall off the wagon.” Really? Wouldn’t a workaholic have to get on the wagon to find the time to visit Universal Orlando? Just to make sure I googled for the meaning of the phrase “falling off the wagon” and found this very ad mentioned in the Slip-Up Archive and in Completely Geeked.