bonus za sobota!

Spot the mistake in the picture above and win the respect of your peers! (Cheeky jokes about my favourite Beatle and one of the greatest living drummers will result in immediate disqualification ;).

motive - motif

 

(L) A floral motif. (R) A floral motive. 

Now here’s an interesting thing – using motive when motif is the word we want. It doesn’t happen all that often – and I’ve never seen it happen the other way around – but it’s happened often enough over the years that we can see it’s a definite sore spot that needs some soothing Bad Article cream gently applied to it. Definitions first of all, and at first glance they’re nice and simple:

motive  (n) what induces a person to act in a particular way.motif  (n) 1) theme that is repeated and developed in an artistic work. 2) decorative design or pattern.
3) ornament sewn separately on a garment.

Now let’s play Good Cop/Bad Cop:

Bad Cop:
1a) Our summer collection is enhanced by a striking floral motive.
2a) The first few notes of Beethoven’s legendary Moonlight Sonata form a recurring motive throughout the piece.

Good Cop:
1b) Our summer collection is enhanced by a striking floral motif.
2b) The first few notes of Beethoven’s legendary Moonlight Sonata form a recurring motif throughout the piece.

Remember this very simple rule: If you’re talking about art, music or fashion, then use motif. If you’re talking about criminal activity, or wondering why someone did something, then use motive. ‘Four men were found dead by the side of a road in Poznań today. Police apprehended the killers almost immediately, but it is not yet known what their motive was.’ ‘Did you hear? Aga left her husband, emptied their bank account and took the kids to Sweden!’ ‘Oh no! Why would she do that? What were her motives?’

There's one more thing about all this that you might find interesting: motif is a French word which has connections to motive, but motive is a Latin word, which is all about movement and impetus, both physical and abstract. Weird eh? At any rate, for our purposes – i.e. those of translating in modern English – this is both confusing oraz irrelevant. Or not? What do you think?

 The classic 'dah-dah-dah-dah de dah, dah-de-dah'  you hear whenever Darth Vader appears on screen is a musical motif. Beethoven was also very good at these. Good old Beety.

Go West, Young Man

Hello again friends! How was your Easter break? Full of good things, I hope. Well, we’re back from our little English trip, and thank God too, because Polska is where I like to be, i dzięki Bóg że jestem polakiem! ;)

We were staying down in Cornwall, in the south-west of the country. This part of England is the home of one of (broadly speaking) the two ancient, founding languages of modern Britain. I’m talking about Brythonic (Celtic), which loosely speaking covers ancient English, Cornish and Welsh. The other is, of course, Goidelic (Gaelic), which stems from the Gaels who populated Ireland, Scotland and various associated parts.

The Cornish are a very distinct peoples amongst the British tribes, and their melodic, lilting accent is unlike any other. The ‘West Country’ (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset) is largely agricultural, their farmers once supplying the majority of Britain’s food (before quotas and EECs and EUs and various insane post-war government decisions). Cornwall has a strong sea-faring and fishing culture too - Daphne du Maurier immortalised Cornish tales of smugglers, piracy and adventure in the classic Jamaica Inn, and over time various ship-wrecked Spanish and French sailors integrated themselves into society down there, resulting in a superb blending over time that shows itself in an occasional swarthiness or Latin lilt in the language. I suppose it’s something like what we have in the south of Małopolska and so on, with the border communities in the mountains. At any rate, a trip to the South-West is a real pleasure on all fronts.

Linguistically, we did see a few interesting things, and I wanted to take pictures for you all but I’m a bit shy about whipping it out and waving it around (the camera, that is). Highlights include an amusingly phrased sign in a local Lidl (yes, they’re everywhere), which warned of the dangers of trying to buy alcohol by saying: ‘If you’re lucky enough to look like you’re under 18 years of age, we will ask for proof of identity, in compliance with the law, so please do not be offended.’

Another interesting bit of phrasing I noticed was on an estate agent’s advertising board, outside some newly built flats: ‘12 dwellings available!’ Here, it’s the quaint, almost Tolkien-esque use of dwellings instead of flats or apartments, which caught my eye. Most unusual.

Can’t really think of anything else relevant right now, possibly it’s the huge quantities of chocolate coursing through my system interfering with my brain, so we’ll leave it there. Tomorrow or Friday I’ll put up another word or phrasing issue which has been tickling my mind lately, and then we’ll meet again on Sunday to discuss our plans for the coming week. See you then!
 

map courtesy of Wikipedia, via http://www.planiglobe.com/omc_set.html 

photo - my own, taken on the roads of Cornwall. See? I told you it's fun down there! 

Joint NGO Statement for Izmir Conference

Today, the High Level Conference on the future of the European Court of Human Rights started in the Turkish city of Izmir. This two-day conference is a meeting of state representatives of all the parties to the European Convention and follows up on a similar conference in Interlaken last year. The main purpose is to take stock of the developments since then and to agree on any further steps to be taken. A consortium of human rights NGOs (including Amnesty International, Interights, EHRAC, Justice, Liberty, the Aire Centre, and the International Commission of Jurists) has issued a joint statement. These are the main points:

· the fundamental right of individual petition is preserved and not further curtailed by imposing a fee on applicants or adding additional admissibility criteria;
· there is an efficient, fair, consistent, transparent and effective screening of applications received, in order to identify the admissible applications from the very high proportion (around 90 per cent) of applications that are inadmissible under the current criteria;
· judgments are given within a reasonable time, particularly in cases where time is of the essence, or that raise repetitive issues where the Court’s case law is clear and those that arise from systemic problems;
· the Court, including its Registry, is given adequate financial and human resources, without adversely impacting the budgets of other Council of Europe human rights mechanisms and bodies.

Notably, the NGOs emphasize the following (following moves by some states to use Izmir as a platform to curtail the Court in some ways, such as extending the margin of appreciation): "The states should not view the independence of the Court as an obstacle to its reform, and should not allow the reform process to be used to put forward grievances against particular aspects of the Court’s jurisprudence." And: "Renewed efforts by states to implement the Convention in national law, policy and practice are now essential for effective application of the principle of subsidiarity, in accordance with the aims of the Interlaken Declaration. The principle of subsidiarity does not, by contrast, justify states placing inappropriate pressure on the Court with regard to its interpretation and application of the Convention."

New Blog on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

As an exception to the principle that I only post about ECHR related measures, it is my pleasure to announce the birth of a new blog on one of the regional peers of the European Court: the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The blog has been set up last month by one of our excellent students in the Utrecht University LL.M. on Human Rights: Oswaldo Ruiz Chiriboga. It provides very regular updates on news, jurisprudence, and academic articles concerning the Inter-American Court as well as related national-level news. The blog's language is Spanish. A good addition to the blogosphere!

I have added the link to the blog to the sidebar. Congratulations, Oswaldo!

Automatic Personalization and Recommended Sections in Google News

Posted by Lucian Cionca, Software Engineer

Last summer we redesigned Google News with new personalization features that let you tell us which subjects and sources you’d like to see more or less often. Starting today -- if you’re logged in -- you may also find stories based on articles you’ve clicked on before.

For signed-in users in the Personalized U.S. Edition, “News for You” will now include stories based on your news-related web history. For example, if you click on a lot of articles about baseball, we'll make sure that you get a chance to see breaking baseball stories. We found in testing that more users clicked on more stories when we added this automatic personalization, sending more traffic to publishers.

Also for signed-in users, we’ve introduced “Recommended Sections” in the side column that suggests topics you can add to your news page as custom sections, based on stories you’ve clicked on before.

If you don’t want to see personalized news based on your Web History, you have a few options:

• Click on the “Standard U.S. Edition” link at the bottom of Google News. This will not delete any of your News settings or Web History. It will switch you to an unpersonalized version of Google News for the duration of your current session. (To switch back, click on “Personalized U.S. Edition”.)
• Delete your web history. (Google News may take some time to update.)
• Log out of your Google Account.

To learn more, please visit our Help Center. And of course we'd love your feedback.

Update 6/6/2011:
We've extended the scope of automatic personalization to include Google News's "Local" and "Spotlight" sections. Since Spotlight has always been about serendipity, we are personalizing it with a light touch. As ever, if you'd prefer to see an unpersonalized edition, you can still switch to "Standard U.S. Edition," log out, or remove your web history.

Annual Report Committee of Ministers on Execution of ECtHR Judgments

This week, the latest Annual Report 'Supervision of the Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights' (covering the year 2010) of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers was published. According to the Committee's own press release:

The year also witnessed the highest number of new cases transmitted to the Committee of Ministers for execution supervision since it started its supervision function - 1 710 new cases. The number of closed cases nevertheless reached 455 (240 in 2009), and the total number of pending cases was 9 325 (7 880 in 2009) by the end of the year. The compensations awarded to the victims of violations in the new cases in 2010 reach almost 64 million euros (54 million in 2009).

In their introductory remarks to the report, the successive Chairs of the Committee of Ministers’ special human rights meetings in 2010 highlighted the important efforts undertaken to address the high number of cases, both by the Court and by the Committee of Ministers. In light of these efforts and of ongoing reflection on the follow-up of the reform, they expressed great confidence in the future.

Taking stock of 2010, the Director general of human rights and legal affairs of the Council of Europe, Philippe Boillat, insisted on the importance of the new working methods adopted by the Committee of Ministers, in force since 1st January 2011. They should allow for a more effective and transparent supervision of execution and, also, for a more appropriate response to the persisting problem of clone and repetitive cases.

Drawing the conclusions from the significant and continuing increase in the number of cases under the Committee of Ministers’ supervision, the Director general stressed the need to improve both the implementation of the Convention at national level and the execution process.

The report includes detailed statistics highlighting the main tendencies of the evolution of the execution process in 2010 and a thematic overview of the most important developments in the execution of the cases pending before the Committee of Ministers.

The optimism of some of the Chairs of the Committee notwithstanding, the readers of this Report can see that the Committee is also facing a very large backlog of cases - not as big as the Court itself, but still considerable. Most of the improvement following the Interlaken process will only show up in the course of this year. The Report gives a lot of insight in detailed matters such as which countries abided by the payment deadline for just satisfaction and to what extent. It also shows that of the total sum of just satisfaction awards, 42% was due by Turkey alone. And even more tellingly, that nine countries (out of 47) accounted for 99% of the total!

Beyond Telegrams: Congratulations, Pulitzer Prize winners

Posted by Dan Hirsch, Google News Support Team

Yesterday, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced an impressive list of 13 prize winners and 29 finalists for excellent work in journalism and storytelling. These winners represent a wide array of incredible stories, such as The Los Angeles Times's multi-part series about government corruption in the small town of Bell, California, or The New Jersey Star Ledger's gripping tale of a mysterious boat wreck. We on the Google News team have nothing but respect and admiration for their fine work. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists.

The winners also reflect the rapidly changing and evolving world of journalism itself. Almost all the awards went to stories accompanied by a rich presentation of content beyond just the printed words. ProPublica's series "The Wall Street Money Machine" includes detailed timelines and succinct data visualization to better illustrate the troublesome financial practices that led to the economic meltdown. To tell the story of one family's struggle to find a cure for their son's rare medical condition, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel produced numerous videos and an interactive graphics detailing the mysterious disease's physiology.

This year, prize rules explicitly encouraged the use of visual information, multimedia or databases. In fact, for the first time in the Prize’s history, jurors were mandated to bring laptops to the judging.

This isn't the first rule update in the prizes' 95 years of history. For instance, nobody has won the Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting since 1947. One recipient of the short-lived award was James Reston of The New York Times for his reporting from the 1945 Dumbarton Oaks Conference, a meeting between Allied Forces that laid the initial groundwork for the UN. Much of his reporting came from the acquisition of leaked cables from unsuspecting diplomats. Though reporting technology certainly has changed, this incident doesn’t sound so antiquated these days.

You can read one part of Reston's series here in Google News Archives as it appeared in The Montreal Gazette.

In expanding the short-lived category of Telegraphic Reporting to National Reporting and International Reporting, the Pulitzer Board must have suspected that technology for communicating over long distances would inevitably evolve. This year's prizes better reflect our current media environment, but it makes me wonder what the best in journalism will look like fifty years from now.

[Reporting from the age of the telegram c. 1940, from Life Photo Archive]

To search for the recent work of this year's Pulitizer Prize winner, you can use the Advanced News Search feature. Enter the name of the journalist whose work you're looking for in the "Author" field of our Advanced News Search page, or use the [author:] search operator in the News search bar. For an example of an [author:] search and to see the recent work of this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for distinguished criticism, click here.

Statistics on States with Systemic or Structural Problems

The secretariat of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has just issued an information document entitled 'States with major structural/systemic problems before the
European Court of Human Rights: statistics'. It contains a host of data on the state of affairs in nine states: Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine. These have in common that they raise a very high number of applications in Strasbourg and that the underlying problems are systemic or structural (which is also reflected in implementation problems). The document includes a range of statistics and information both on the extent of the problems as well as their particular nature per country.

18th - 25th April: On Holiday!

Hail to thee, friends. Just a short note today to say that the Article will be on holiday from Monday to Monday. I'm taking the Small Proofreaders back to the other half of their ancestral lands to visit 'anglik babcia' for a week. 

We'll keep an eye out for anything that might be amusing or interesting for us all here back home, and perhaps do a fun little review of it when we get back next week.

In the mean time, please all enjoy the week, have a very happy wielkanoc with lots of białą kiełbasy, gruby jaj and good vodka with your families and friends. And remember, the most important thing: CHARGE MORE FOR ANY WORK TAKEN OVER THE EASTER WEEKEND! We're not in this business for our health!

Sto lat,

Jim :)

persons, people

I have a friend back in London who always used to greet me and ask, ‘What’s up with you people?’, or ‘What about you people, what are you doing on Saturday?’. This happened whether or not I was actually with anyone else at the time, and even when in company, the appellation ‘you people’ always amused me. This was years ago, but even now I still remember this bit of phrasing and use it myself sometimes.

So in honour of this old friend, we’re going to look at people and persons today. Persons is something that I only occasionally see, possibly because the context for it isn’t all that common, or possibly because of some larger cosmic reason I’m not privy to. Either way, when I do see it (in a Pl>En translation, of course), it’s often being used instead of people. Examples:

1a) There were no more than ten persons left by the end of his speech.
1b) There were no more than ten people left by the end of his speech.

2a) Although it was seen to be an unpopular move by the liberals, many persons still supported it.

2a) Although it was seen to be an unpopular move by the liberals, many people still supported it.

3a) The individual persons responsible are in hiding at this time.  
3b) The persons responsible are in hiding at this time.

3c) The individuals responsible are in hiding at this time.

3d) Those responsible are in hiding at this time.

4a) He was disturbed that she’d been revealing their secrets to untrained persons.           
4b)  He was disturbed that she’d been revealing their secrets to untrained candidates.

5a) Persons travelling with a child qualify for a 10% discount.          

5b) Passengers travelling with children qualify for a 10% discount.

(1, 2) are the classic examples where persons can be replaced with people in one swift, deadly move. (3a) is an example of good persons usage, but with unnecessary repetition – you only need to use one or the other of individual and persons here, giving us (3b) or (3c). Alternatively, avoid the whole bloody thing entirely by cutting it all out and replacing with a healthy pronoun (3d).

(4,5) illustrate a nice bit of synonym usage. Those of you who took Monday’s advice and are now either completely drunk or have a head brimming with new vocabulary will be particularly pleased here. (4) is more general, whereas in (5), we should have been using passengers to begin with really.

Clearly, there are times when persons is the correct choice, so don’t go thinking I’m totally  down on persons and telling you not to use them; rather,  just follow this handy advice from the boffins at Oxford:

 “The words people and persons can both be used as the plural of person but they are not used in exactly the same way. People is by far the commoner of the two words and is used in most ordinary contexts: a group of people; there were only about ten people; several thousand people have been re-housed. Persons, on the other hand, tends now to be restricted to official or formal contexts, as in this vehicle is authorised to carry twenty persons; no persons admitted without a pass.”

Remember people, more people and less persons!

New Google News for Opera Mini

Posted by Arun Prasath, Tech Lead and Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager

While the Google News team has been hard at work redesigning our service for smartphones, we’ve also been thinking about our milllions of users around the world who access the web not from a smartphone, but from a feature phone, using Opera Mini as their browser.

So we have rolled out a redesigned Google News for Opera Mini in all 29 languages and 70 editions of Google News. This includes an enhanced homepage featuring richer snippets, thumbnail images, links to videos and section content without explicit navigation, a convenient search bar, comfortably spaced links and the ability to access your desktop personalization on your phone.

We hope that this will improve the news browsing experience for Opera Mini users around the world, including millions of people using a feature phone as the primary point of access for the web. See it here in the Indian Hindi and Nigerian English versions.

So, pick up your feature phone and point your Opera Mini browser to http://news.google.com to catch up on news anytime and anywhere. For more information or to share your feedback with us, please visit our Help Center.

Azerbaijan and the ECHR

Article 19, the human rights NGO defending the freedom of expression across the globe, is ringing the alarm bells about the recent human rights situation in Azerbaijan, a member state of the Council of Europe and a party to the ECHR. Specifically, a recent press release, entitled 'Forgotten Human Rights Crisis Unfolds at Council of Europe’s Doorstep' (within the house rather than at the doorstep, one might add), points the attention at the alarming clampdown on the freedom of expression by the harassment and arrest of many bloggers, journalists, and civil society activists. Some of the key judgments of the European Court of Human Rights concerning the country remain un-implemented, such as in the case of Fatullayev v. Azerbaijan in which the Court ordered - exceptionally - the immediate release of the applicant from prison.

According to Agnès Callamard, director of Article 19:

"The human rights situation in Azerbaijan has reached a critical level. We are receiving almost daily reports of abuse against cyber activists, journalists and others in connection with exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly. This raises the question: how many more need to be arrested or beaten before the Council of Europe takes action to hold this Member State accountable? The credibility of the Council of Europe depends on such stewardship."

For an academic analysis of the implementation of the ECHR in the country, one might want to consult the very recent chapter 'The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Azerbaijan', written by Javid Gadirov of Central European University, in the book 'The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Central and Eastern Europe (Edited by Leonard Hammer and Frank Emmert and published by Eleven International Publishing 2011). This is the abstract:

This paper reviews the legal status and implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Republic of Azerbaijan. It touches upon such issues as its treatment by the Constitutional Court, constitutional reforms and reactions of the national legal system to the Convention, including some of the most important cases at Strasbourg.

evidence

I've just this second read one of my favourite 'mistakes'; the use of evidence in the plural (evidences). This is very, very common, and I can rely on seeing it at least 8 times out of every 10 that the word occurs in any form. If I had a złotówka for every time it came up... (insert contrary joke here ;).

Fortunately, the solution is simple: 1) Never ever write evidences. 2) Always check that the surrounding sentence structure matches its correct use as a mass (uncountable) noun. 3) Pour yourself a drink, smile contentedly, take a sip.

OED Summary:
evidence (mass noun): He gave evidence to the court.
evidence (verb with object): The quality of the photography, as evidenced by her use of light, is outstanding.

as a phrase: in evidence - His acting skills are still very much in evidence.

Examples, Good and Bad:
1a) On the sides of the unit, evidences of leakage were found
1b) On the sides of the unit, evidence of leakage was found.

2a) The festival is regularly reported on by the biggest newspapers and is always acclaimed by international critics, evidences of its growing success.

2b) The festival is regularly reported on by the biggest newspapers and is always acclaimed by international critics, evidence of its growing success.

Now then, back to the drinks. Err, work. Back to work.

New Norwegian and Swiss Judges

Yesterday, 12 april, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Ccouncil of Europe elected two new judges to the European Court of Human Rights. In respect of Norway, mr Erik Møse was elected and in respect of Switzerland Ms Helen Keller.

Erik Møse is a Supreme Court Justice in Norway and a human rights expert with a wide international experience. For over ten years (1999-2009) he was judge and even for three years president of the Rwanda Tribunal (ICTR). This might, by the way, strengthen the European Court's expertise on humanitarian and international criminal law - an often criticised 'blind spot' in the Court's case-law. Møse is also very familiar with the Strasbourg system (according to the website of Essex University, to which he is associated) as he was involved in the negotiations leading to Protocols six to eleven of the European Convention on Human Rights. He also pleaded cases before the Court and Commission of Human Rights. Finally, he has been chairman of the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Human Rights and the Committee which drafted the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture. He received 93 of a total of 160 votes cast. Møse's term of office will start on 1 September 2011.

Helen Keller is a professor of International Law, Constitutional Law and European Law at the University of Zurich. Her books, which may be familiar to the readers of this blog, are leading in the field and include issues such as the impact of the ECHR on national legal systems and friendly settlements. In addition, as a current member of the United Nation's Human Rights Committee, which supervises state obligations under the ICCPR, she brings in additional expertise about global human rights protection. Her term will start on 4 October 2011.

Two strong additions to the Court, it would seem to me. I wish them both good luck in starting to work in the world's busiest and most active international court!

Opinion Pole

Hail Translator, well met! Today I'd like to take a moment to just knock heads with you about a couple of things to do with this here bloggy. At the bottom of the page I've added a poll, with about a year's worth of time on it to vote. I'm asking you for feedback on the way I write about the 'issues', the actual technical stuff we discuss here.

I'm aware that some translators, or maybe most, like their explanations to be fully and properly presented using all the right technical lingo for explaining language issues. Crazy, mind-rending terms like conjugation, adjective, case, third-person singular and other lunatic dream-speak.

So, to get to the point, I'm also aware that I tend to avoid a lot of this where necessary. To me, this means that certain really gruby, soczysty issues get delayed for ages because my research time for our blog articles is often quite limited. I've been working mostly from existing notes so far, but there are things we can do which require a bit more effort.

But generally speaking, from the poll at the bottom, I can sort of gauge how happy you all are with the explanations so far. Personally, I feel like our vocabulary and formatting items are the meat of the blog, and the rest is just gravy (yumm). But what do you think? Take a moment to click a button, or if you feel really strongly either way, you can email me or leave a comment below. Alrighty? Good good, carry on!

appreciate - cooperate

appreciate

1a) The movie has already been appreciated by both critics and cinema-goers.

1b) The movie has already been acclaimed by both critics and cinema-goers.

1c) The movie has already been lauded by both critics and cinema-goers.

1d) The movie has already been applauded by both critics and cinema-goers.

Much like offer, appreciated is one of those all-purpose, one-word-does-all jobs that is over-used in our En translations. Possibly it is a much more flexible and versatile word in Polish, but in English it is rather more specific and has a much more limited use, particularly as here, in its past-tense form. (1b, c, d) are all great synonyms, but note that (1c) can (but not strictly) have a slightly more official meaning, in that our film may have won some prizes or something.

cooperate

An old favourite, and as with all these funky things, it can never be repeated too often or stressed too much: cooperate is over-used, and also has certain undesirable connotations. ‘You will cooperate with us Mr. Proofreader. We know where your family lives...’ Fortunately, it’s really easy to fix:

2a) As the leading Polish manufacturer of aerospace components, we cooperate with the biggest spaceship factories in the USA.

2b) As the leading Polish manufacturer of aerospace components, we work with the biggest spaceship factories in the USA.

3a) We guarantee the high quality of our cat flaps by cooperating with only ISO-approved flap component manufacturers.

3b) We guarantee the high quality of our cat flaps because we work with only ISO-approved flap component manufacturers.

4a) We welcome you to/for cooperation!

4b) We're waiting for your call! / We welcome all enquiries / etc etc, itd, itp, blah blah...

OED Definition

1- (mass noun) the action or process of cooperating.¹

2- Cooperate: (v) work jointly towards the same end (also ¹); assist someone or comply with their requests.

Note: If you ever find yourself writing (4a), you should strongly consider sitting down with an English dictionary and a bottle of wine, and not getting up again until one or both are finished... ;)

(although I have a book of Polish verb tables that, if I spent more time with it and less time with bottles of wine, I might actually be able to make more sense in Polish... :D)

The Sunday Review, 10/04/2011

Good weekend to you, fellow wordsmiths. Won't you take a moment to join me in looking both ways before crossing the weekend road to next week?

It's been fairly quiet around these parts; illnesses fading, Small Proofreaders playing quietly together with their klocki. All in all, a rare blessing indeed. The one thing of related interest that did come up was a rather depressing negotiation with a client about a very large, very ongoing job which we're ploughing through as we speak and will probably keep us busy until autumn. 

Despite this being our third year together working for this end client, it turns out now  that my mostly monolingual-but-bilingual-where-necessary proofreading on this project is being monolingually proofread again by the agency, then passed to the client for final approval before being deemed as payable. 

Now, all of this is understandable - to an extent. You expect the agent to look over your work again themselves, it's common sense. But they're actually going over it in a very laborious way, which includes comparing the lengths of paragraphs between ST and TT and then emailing to ask if we missed a bit or added a bit. In that terribly polite, passive-aggressive way the English are World Champions at. 

Again, I'm always happy to deal with feedback and critique, especially if it will produce a better end result. I've always said pride and ego should have no place in the active work of this job. Of course, being proud of a job well done is something else. 

But what really gets my goat is that all of this post-return palava is resulting in 60 day+ payments! I long ago stopped working for anyone paying on 60 day terms when I realised how expensive it would be to fly around the world shoving exploding puddings through their letterboxes, but now I'm here again, watching the bills mount up while these phlegmatic Brits ponder their texts. 

*sigh* Well, it's my fault for not negotiating a better schedule at the outset, and hopefully now it's all sorted, but I can't help wondering how, of so many people further down the chain, no one said 'Gosh, we're taking ages with these things, I wonder how the translators are coping?'

Oh well, c'est la vie. Better things lie just around the corner. Like this, for example:

From The Proofreader's Desk

Three random things I've seen so far today: 

(1)

Using the wrong type of person in the wrong place (possibly at the wrong time too, but that would make it a Bruce Willis film). Here are the correct associations (with some bonus info):

theatres and cinemas attract audiences. They stage plays and screen or show films (respectively), each of which are based on scripts,

sporting events, (everything from football matches to the Olympics) have spectators,

events, spectacles* draw crowds,

music festivals, rock/pop etc concerts – crowds,

opera halls, symphonies – also audiences. 

Note the action verbs – theatres stage plays; cinemas show films (at film festivals and certain other competitive or unique events, like Kraków’s awesome Film Music Festivals, they’re called screenings).

* Calling something a spectacle is really quite archaic, I mean like we’re going back to e19 or whenever it was coined and put in the dictionary. For any spectacles you find (!), use events instead. Same thing for actions, although that can vary a bit. We’ll give actions its own space another time.

(2)

(a) The Polish production was competing in the category with such well-known series as Doctor Who, Lost or Human Target.

(b) The Polish production was competing in the category with such well-known series as Doctor Who, Lost and Human Target.

Remember what we said here – no or at the end of a list unless it’s a list of choices!

(3)

As part of a discussion thread on a poll posted at proz.com on the subject of the intriguing-sounding “Muphry's Law”, proz member Mustafa ER said:

“Muphry's law is an adage that states that "if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written". The name is a deliberate misspelling of ‘Murphy's law’.”

This is certainly something I’ve fallen prey to myself many times (I blame my gigantic sausage-like fingers), and reminds me of something  funny that happened yesterday during a stress-relieving  game of Battlefield online: Driving a tank, I chased an enemy soldier around a beach for a good few minutes while he desperately tried to blow me up with grenades before I squashed him like one of teściowa’s gołąbki. Finally, with my tank’s armour at almost zero, I crushed him under my tracks like a piece of MultiKino popcorn.

Moments later, the individual in question broadcast across the open chat channel: ‘You can kill me in a tank! Ha!’ To which I replied, ‘Yes, I’m rather good at that aren’t I?’ :D

Court's Opinion for the Upcoming Izmir Conference

In the preparations for the upcoming Izmir high level conference in Turkey (under the Turkish chairmanship of the Council of Europe), the European Court of Human Rights has issued an 'Opinion' which reflect its input and views for that meeting. The Izmir conference is following up on last year's conference in Interlaken in Switzerland on the ongoing reforms of the European system of human rights protection. According to the website on the Izmir conference, the conference has three goals in the context of maintaining the momentum for reforms:

"The first is to make a preliminary assessment of the impact of Protocol No. 14. The second is to take stock of what has been achieved by the reform process launched by the Interlaken conference in February 2010 and the third is to reflect upon further ideas for pursuing that reform."

In that context the Court has now made public its views on a range of matters. The Opinion starts with setting out that the reforms of Protocol 14 (which entered into force in 2010) are "encouraging" but will "not provide a lasting and comprehensive solution to the problems facing the Convention system." It re-emphasizes that subsidiarity is a core aspect of human rights protection: first and foremost human rights should be ensured at the national level. But it adds, importantly, that subsidiarity "cannot be unconditional and unilateral". It only works if states do secure rights in practice and offer effective remedies and execute the Court's judgments. The Court refers to this as a shared responsibility for human rights. It also indicates that it exercises ultimate control on whether an applicant's rights have been effectively respected. Here the Court balances on a fine line between Scylla and Charybdis: on the one hand an effective protection on the national level (and thus true subsidiarity) is needed in order for human rights to be protected nationally and in order to avoid a further growth in cases coming to Strasbourg. On the other hand one can clearly read between the lines that the Court is wary of subsidiarity being used by states to weaken the human rights protection system (emphasing national protection while not taking it too seriously).

A second important issue is the Court's own emphasis on its independence as a core principle of the rule of law. No reform must lead to lesser respect for judicial independence. The Court explicitly notes that the proposals for a possible Statute of the Court (which would be easier to change than the Convention itself, but would not be in the Court's own hands as for example its own Rules of Court are). Such a Statute which would deal with procedural issues and would be more flexible than the cumbersome ways of changing the Convention by Protocol (as the very problematic and slow entry into force of Protocol 14 has shown), but it would also potentially strengthen the grip of the Committee of Ministers over the Court. Since there are currently ongoing discussions in a few of the state parties to the ECHR pleading for a more active role of the Committee of Ministers, e.g. by circumscribing even materially the extent of the margin of appreciation or the scope of certain rights, the Court's worries do not fall out of the blue (although that latter discussion is not mentioned in the Court's opinion document). The Court notes that "it has concerns about the direction this initiative is taking and it reiterates its wish to be closely involved in the discussion" - diplomatic language reflecting that the judges are very concerned.

As to ways which have been suggested to avoid nonsensical claims being taken to Strasbourg, it is interesting to note that the Court explicitly opposes the introduction of fees for applicants, both on grounds of principle and because it would add extra administrative burdens. Here the Court thus clearly takes the same view as a consortium of human rights NGOs which are strongly lobbying against such fees. The Court does add that another method, compulsory representation by a lawyer, could be a good alternative. Such a system should be accompanied - and very rightly so, I would add - by appropriate legal aid facilities at the national level. This would be a conditio sine qua non.

Another notable point is that the Court is in principle positive about the option of "advisory opinions" at the request of national courts. Such a procedure would be roughly comparable to the preliminary reference procedure of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Court thinks this should be further explored and asks to be closely involved in exploring this option. Obviously, as the Court acknowledges, such a procedure would initially mean more work but would in the long run enforce subsidiarity.

At the conference itself the Court will be represented by amongst others its president, who has been given ten minutes speaking time.

I have not yet been able to find an online version of the opinion but will add a link to it as soon as it becomes available.

portals VS sites

This is a picture of a flushing toilet. A vortex of water swirls in the middle. Whenever I see the word portal, I get this mental image...

Here’s an interesting thing that a colleague and I were discussing at work today. I’m not sure that it’s a ‘mistake’ really, since so far the evidence points out the writers of our source texts as being the culprits. However, today’s debate was the culmination of several years’ worth of seeing this issue occur, so I’m saying the jury’s still out until further evidence is acquired. ;)

Here’s the thing: It seems to me that portal is being used far too often instead of the technically accurate website.

Over the years, I’ve proofread many sentences that went something like, ‘The event is also being supported by the amazing and brilliant web portal www.badarticle.com,’ or ‘More information can be found at our portal,’ or even ‘The plebiscite was open to readers of the welovemusic.pl web portal.’

Now then, Wikipedia tells us that “A web portal, also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way.” It then goes on to say that “Examples of public web portals are AOL, Excite, iGoogle, MSN, Netvibes, and Yahoo!.” I guess we could add our beloved wp.pl and onet.pl to that list.

The key here is “links page”. Each link takes you away to another website, or to another interesting thing at that portal, such as news, feature articles, weather reports, a search engine, email, pictures of exotic-looking women wearing coconut brassieres etc. To go a step further, websites consist of webpages, and there are also things called vortals, which sound like a cosmic threat to me.

Looking at one or two source texts on the spur of the moment today, my friend showed me that the Polish for portal is, in fact, portal. At least it is in our documents. And since the few examples we looked at today were written by civil servants at the Urząd Miastów of various cities, I have to assume they’re mis-using the word on purpose, because somehow web portal sounds more exciting and grand than web site.

Which, you know, I can understand that in marketing and promo texts we need to hype things a bit, but it’s not like we’re saying that something that is just ‘good’ is now ‘amazing’, rather we’re using an entirely different word altogether. So fine, but then some of these cheeky morons will turn around and give you seven kinds of hell because you used correct English in their texts and not the ‘established versions’ of things which are both zepsuty and bałagan!

Right then, let’s summarise: A website is not a web portal. Civil servants are annoying in any language. It’s now time for a wee drink! Hurrah! See you soon friends, and don’t forget to comment below on this or any other post if you have a different idea or would like something explaining a little more clearly. :)  

New Case Law Fact Sheets

As reported here in October last year, the Court is increasingly making it's case-law accessible by putting thematic electronic factsheets online which summarise the jurisprudence on a particular topic. In 2011 almost twenty new factsheets have been added to the Court's website:

* Child protection
* Data protection
* "Dublin" cases
* Environment
* Expulsions and extraditions
* Extra-territorial jurisdiction
* Freedom of religion
* Homosexual rights (one may assume, by the way, that the Court means homosexuals' rights, as in the rights of homosexuals rather than the rights themselves having a particular orientation (sic!)
* Homosexuality: criminal aspects
* Mental health
* New technologies
* Police arrest / assistance of a lawyer
* Prisoners' right to vote - with info on upcoming cases from Russia, Latvia and yet another one form the UK.
* Racial discrimination
* Right to one's own image
* Roma and Travellers
* Terrorism
* Transsexuals' rights (here the Court does get the spelling right).
* Violence against women - with upcoming cases on genital mutilation form Ireland and Austria.

A valuable starting point both for practitioners, researchers and students - also because some include pending cases and thus offer a preview of the kind of issues that are upcoming in the Court's decisions and judgments.