::::::Well, of course it was the wrong question. We weren't asked if we wanted to replace the monarchy with a republic. We were asked if we were happy to have one very specific way of running a republic, among many possible ways of running a republic, as an alternative to the monarchy. We did not as a nation fancy that very specific way of running a republic, so we said no thanks. The main question has still never been asked of us. Had a more transparent process applied in 1999, we would have become a republic in 2001 because the mood of the country was for change, the Queen's continuing to be alive notwithstanding. -- [[Special:Contributions/202.142.129.66|202.142.129.66]] ([[User talk:202.142.129.66|talk]]) 04:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
::::::Well, of course it was the wrong question. We weren't asked if we wanted to replace the monarchy with a republic. We were asked if we were happy to have one very specific way of running a republic, among many possible ways of running a republic, as an alternative to the monarchy. We did not as a nation fancy that very specific way of running a republic, so we said no thanks. The main question has still never been asked of us. Had a more transparent process applied in 1999, we would have become a republic in 2001 because the mood of the country was for change, the Queen's continuing to be alive notwithstanding. -- [[Special:Contributions/202.142.129.66|202.142.129.66]] ([[User talk:202.142.129.66|talk]]) 04:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
::::::::Well yes, but that's exactly why you need a specific question on a referendum. It's all very well asking 'Do you want change?', and then if the country's in the mood for change everyone says 'yes', but then what do you do with that? The choice isn't between 'Queen' and 'not-Queen', it's between one specific system of government that involves the Queen and...what? That's what needs to be decided and put on a referendum. You don't want to be handing legislators a blank slate to create a system of government, any system of government, just as long as it doesn't involve the Queen: you want them to create a specific system that you've chosen. If the system proposed in the referendum was the main alternative being considered and proposed, then it was exactly the right question. If there was a single different system being agitated for by most republican campaigners, then it was probably the wrong question and this other system should have been on the referendum. But you can't just ask 'Should we get rid of the Queen?' or 'Should things change?' or 'Do you want more nice things, and fewer bad things?', because you can't actually do anything honest and productive with the answer. [[Special:Contributions/109.155.33.219|109.155.33.219]] ([[User talk:109.155.33.219|talk]]) 12:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
::When I moved from New England to attend college (university) in California, I was struck by the common use of the phrase "back East". If anything, it was used more commonly by native Californians, even those born to West Coast natives, than by those who came from an Eastern home. [[User:Shakescene|—— Shakescene]] ([[User talk:Shakescene|talk]]) 23:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
::When I moved from New England to attend college (university) in California, I was struck by the common use of the phrase "back East". If anything, it was used more commonly by native Californians, even those born to West Coast natives, than by those who came from an Eastern home. [[User:Shakescene|—— Shakescene]] ([[User talk:Shakescene|talk]]) 23:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
:::When I started visiting New England I was struck with the common use of the phrase "[[Down East]]". I grew up in Buffalo, New York, not that far from Maine. But hearing "down east", my first thought is "Florida". To address the original question, phrases like "we bought a new home" or "we live in a ranch home" sound wrong to me, and I can't recall hearing people say such things, unless they are playing with words. And I'm American (in fact, I just spent some time trying to find info about '''any''' of my (paternal) ancestors' migration from Europe and failed with all but one line--every other line has been American longer than there are existent records). [[User:Pfly|Pfly]] ([[User talk:Pfly|talk]]) 09:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
:::When I started visiting New England I was struck with the common use of the phrase "[[Down East]]". I grew up in Buffalo, New York, not that far from Maine. But hearing "down east", my first thought is "Florida". To address the original question, phrases like "we bought a new home" or "we live in a ranch home" sound wrong to me, and I can't recall hearing people say such things, unless they are playing with words. And I'm American (in fact, I just spent some time trying to find info about '''any''' of my (paternal) ancestors' migration from Europe and failed with all but one line--every other line has been American longer than there are existent records). [[User:Pfly|Pfly]] ([[User talk:Pfly|talk]]) 09:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Revision as of 12:29, 21 September 2010
Welcome to the language section of the Wikipedia reference desk.
The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
Hi all - I'm trying to remember the French idiom for an artistic work that is little-known, and commercially unsuccesful, but celebrated by critics and the literati. Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 01:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have a linguistic doubt about Emma Zunz (original text here) that I'd like to resolve once and for all. In the fourth paragraph we find the following: "[...] fue con Elsa a un club de mujeres, que tiene gimnasio y pileta. Se inscribieron; tuvo que repetir y deletrear su nombre y su apellido, tuvo que festejar las bromas vulgares que comentan la revisación." (Italics mine.) I first read the story in the English translation by Andrew Hurley, who renders the passage thus: "[...] she went with Elsa to a women's club that had a gymnasium and a swimming pool. They joined; she had to repeat and then spell her name; she had to applaud the vulgar jokes that accompanied the struggle to get it correct." As a result of reading this, I went away thinking that the name "Zunz" must resemble some obscene word in Spanish, though I could never discover that word. Now, years later, sufficiently competent to read the Spanish original, I conclude that Hurley made a major error. My idiomatic counter-translation: "[...] she went with Elsa to a women's club with a gym and a pool. They signed up; she had to repeat and spell out her name, had to seem amused by the vulgar jokes that peppered the physical exam." The word revisación is sufficiently peculiar to be overlooked by the RAE, but it's pretty transparently an inbred Argentine cousin of revisión, the standard term for a medical examination. Evidently Hurley failed to recognize the word and pressed blindly ahead, putting his faith in context. But wouldn't his translation have been proofread by a native speaker, and wouldn't a native speaker have been given pause by this little inexplicable scene, conjured up by Hurley's carelessness, of receptionists making dirty jokes about the name "Zunz"? Is it perhaps the case that, by pure coincidence, the name "Zunz" does indeed resemble some Spanish profanity, so that Hurley's erroneous translation is nevertheless plausible? Or is Borges weird enough in his choice of words that even Spanish-speakers are willing to swallow the occasional mystery and move on? Or is this more likely a case of simple editorial oversight? I appeal to the hispanophones out there, and particularly the Argentines if there are any among us: What was Borges's intent when he wrote that sentence? (Assuming it was not merely to set in motion a charming little hiccup of translation.) LANTZYTALK04:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The French translation (by Roger Caillois) reads "elle dut rire des plaisanteries vulgaires qui agrémentèrent la lecture de l'inscription". Nothing about a physical exam. I get a sense that Emma's last name sounds somewhat ridiculous in Spanish, which fits with her being a bit of a social outcast, hence the stupid jokes. --Xuxl (talk) 22:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Caillois had precisely the same interpretation as Hurley. I think they're both wrong. I'd really love to hear from a native speaker, though. I'm especially curious about "revisación" and how it would be understood. If it isn't in the RAE dictionary, then it must be confusing to a lot of Spanish speakers. Incidentally, I presume an Argentine would pronounce "Zunz" as [suns], not [tsunts] as in Yiddish. LANTZYTALK06:55, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Argie speaking here. Revisación is the typical word for the physical examination undergone when being granted access to a swimming pool (or similar sports facilities). No doubt as it as the first meaning. Can't think of a vulgar implication of her name so far. I guess Borges just played games with his translators. Pallida Mors15:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pallida_Mors, would you say that "revisación" is characteristically Argentine? I asked a Colombian acquaintance if she'd ever heard the word, and she hadn't. Not once in her life. First she insisted that it "wasn't Spanish", then haughtily conceded (in response to a suggestion from me) that it was "the kind of thing you might hear" in Argentina. Not that I place much stock in that, but it set me to wondering whether Argentines also say stuff like "televisación" and "circuncisación"... Some haphazard Google research suggests, to my surprise, that they do show this tendency. "Televisación", for instance, seems to be used chiefly in the context of Argentine sports. As for "circuncisación", that's clearly a nonce word, but the first result is the Argentine Yahoo! answers site. Could it be that "revisación" is part of a more general Argentine propensity to using -ación? Or is this a misapprehensation on my part? LANTZYTALK04:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, revisación is here exclusively used in the sense of medical/physical examination; for the editorial sense, we use revisión. Here this dictionary lists the variant as Argentinian/Uruguayan. Generally speaking, the -ación is perfectly valid and productive; so, many instances of this derivation are not even listed on the dictionary, which just lists the solid, uniformly accepted productions (that's why televisación will have to wait). Here the RAE explains the origin of -ción and -ación. For the case of revisión, the obvious note is that we Argentinians have in use two forms: revisión, directly derived from Latin' revisio. And then, the apparently unnecessary form derived from revisar+(a)ción, alas, only used in the specific sense already commented above. But come on, circuncisación!! That's going too far! :P Pallida Mors09:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I haven't made myself clear in the previous answer, let's clarify it a bit. The formula of 'noun derived from the verbal root plus -ación' is in general valid, though of course may sound overproductive or plainly wrong. The case for televisación is understandable, since it conveys the idea of "the action of transmitting something on tv". The verb televisar, relatively new, has no other verbal noun associated with this meaning. The case for circuncisación, on the other hand, is more pathetic: what's the need for it, when we have circuncisión? Pallida Mors09:21, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. In English I suppose we say "televising" more often than "televisation", but Google reveals that the latter form is not infrequently used. I was just curious as to why the "-ación" forms were so strongly correlated with Argentina. A Bit of Fry & Laurie once had a sketch set in an American courtroom, and the lawyer and judge kept using bizarre, overwrought formations like "bruisality" and "dismissulate". Evidently, to British ears, Americans have a tendency to add suffixes willy-nilly. (Although the only real-life example I can think of is "burglarize".) I was wondering if Argentines had the same reputation in the Spanish-speaking world. LANTZYTALK03:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't give you a precise answer over that; maybe the case is that you describe. I guess some foreigner Spanish speaker living in Argentina can give you a precise answer on the topic. I might note that generally speaking, Argentines are not afraid of easlily producing new words through suffixation. Pallida Mors08:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for those links, Sluzzelin. Evidently I'm not the first to have noticed something wrong with Hurley's translations. It's a shame they relied on him for the big fancy edition of Collected Fictions a few years back. As for "Funes, His Memory", I've always hated that. Honestly, what's wrong with "Funes the Memorious"? It sounds cool, and it's not as if English speakers are going to stare at it for hours and wonder "What the hell does that mean?" It's transparent. LANTZYTALK03:07, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since recently
Hello! I'm having a brain freeze: is the expression "since recently" correct in English (as in the phrase, "Since recently, they have a new car"). It doesn't sound right to me, yet Google seems to turn it up on pages with otherwise good English. If it's not a good expression to use, does someone have a suggestion for a better expression? Thanks in advance! — QuantumEleven12:10, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Of late, they have had a new car?" Or "lately"? I've seen 'since' used like this in Bollywood translations and I know what you mean - it sounds wrong. I think "since" has to precede a fixed time. Sandman30s (talk) 12:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'Of late' and 'lately' have connotations of temporarariness, particularly since you've changed 'have' to 'have had'. The sentence is trying to say they have a new car, and will continue to use this car, but they haven't had it for a very long, which isn't at all surprising since it's a new car we're talking about. There comes a point when a new car ceases to be a new car; when that is ...? But it's not a question of tautology to combine 'recently' with 'new car' because they might have recently bought a second-hand car. How about "They recently bought/purchased/acquired a new car"? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:39, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
... "since recently" still sounds slightly "foreign" to my British ear. Jack's suggestion is better British and Australian English. Dbfirs11:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On further consideration you're probably right, and one would be unlikely to phrase it in such a way. But if a native speaker (or a self-assured foreigner) were to tell me, "Since recently they've had a new car," I don't think it would give me pause. LANTZYTALK03:11, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t care for “since” with the original tense either. Another paraphrase that would sit better with me: “Since recently they’ve been using/driving a new car.” I think the construction is more common when “recently” is modified, e.g. by “just” or “only”. Odysseus1479 (talk) 01:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
word for decorative arrangement...
Hi I've asked this question years ago and didn't get the right answer. It's one of those words that I've known before (when dinosaurs roamed) and it will forever bug me until I can find it again! If I get it, I will stamp it on my forehead to never forget it again and will award a barnstar of torment alleviation!! It's the word to describe such an arrangement: a glass bottle or jar filled with decorative multi-coloured chillies/peppers (and possibly small onions too) and preserved with vinegar or alcohol. It's the word for the entire arrangement, not just the jar or its contents. It's sometimes given as a gift for the alcohol to be drunk but I don't know if anyone is mad enough to drink chilli flavoured alcohol. I was given this gift again and nobody knows what it's called! Sandman30s (talk) 12:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Like this one, I suppose? No, that wouldn't be a potpourri. But I don't know the answer either, so Sandman will have to live with his curse a bit more. No such user (talk) 14:35, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the particular square type of the bottle is called quadrotta[1], though it probably isn't what you had in mind. No such user (talk) 14:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There may be an Italian loan-word for it: a google search for 'decorative vinegar bottle' turns up a good selection of the kind of things you mean, and they are usually presented as part of an Italian themed designs. Bit they always seemed to be called 'decorative vinegar bottles' in English. --Ludwigs214:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
just as an afterthought, you might be thinking of one of the related words: infuser, cruet, amphora. None of them are specific to this, but they apply indirectly. --Ludwigs215:00, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the Italian wikipedia has a reference desk? If so try asking the question there (in English). The photo found by No such user seems to indicate it's Italian. 93.95.251.162 (talk) 15:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC) Martin.[reply]
I tried a google search in Spanish, and came up with this. The product is made in China, and appears to be called a "Botella decorativa de la Navidad" in Spanish (Christmas decorative bottle)... --NorwegianBluetalk19:06, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can only supply the names of different types of conservation: Pickled vegetables in vinegar are called sott(')aceti, in oil they are called sott'olii, in salt water they are called in salamoia. Hans Urian (talk) 12:41, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Coins are "cents" from centi. But since it's time to abolish the penny :) what do you call coins that are 1/10 of a dollar? Decies? Decis? Decs? Deces? Ariel. (talk) 17:35, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know what the name of the coin is, I was wondering about giving a new name for the unit (not the coin), and was wondering which was most correct. Ariel. (talk) 21:24, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The US penny is not going out of circulation any time soon, for various political reasons. But the 1/10 dollar bit is a "dime", and I haven't heard any other suggested names for it. And I remember when it could buy a cup of coffee. PhGustaf (talk) 21:42, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Historically and officially, the dime is the name of the unit in the US, not of the coin. That's why it makes sense that the coin is marked ONE DIME. (And the 5¢ coin used to be marked HALF DIME, not FIVE CENTS.) It's just that the word has transferred itself to the coin (and also, in everyday usage, to the corresponding Canadian coin, which officially is a 10¢ piece). --Anonymous, 11:50 UTC, September 16, 2010.
That sounds plausible, but Wikipedia's dime page doesn't mention that meaning, and dime (United States coin) even says of one design, 'on the reverse is the lettering "10C," making it the only dime minted with an explicit indication of its value (subsequent issues are inscribed with the words "ONE DIME")'. Should this be fixed? Some online dictionaries mention the currency-unit meaning (e.g. Webster's 1913), others don't (e.g. American Heritage 4th ed.). -- BenRG (talk) 20:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say so. The dime is defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 both as the name of a coin (in section 9) and as a unit of money (in section 20). But the wording "ONE DIME" clearly indicates that the latter meaning is being used. Several copies of the act can be found online, not all with identical spelling; in one of them the relevant part of section 20 reads: "That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and the milles or thousandths, a disme being the tenth part of a dollar, a cent the hundredth part of a dollar, a mille the thousandth part of a dollar". --Anon, 03:52 UTC, September 18, 2010.
In practice, it's unlikely there'll be one, even if the penny as a coin is de-facto abolished. Most countries which have abandoned the smallest-unit-coin happily keep calling the larger ones by the old names - see, for example, India, where the smallest denomination coin is the ten paise (100 paise to the rupee). You'd only be likely to change if you revalued (or renamed) the currency as a whole, and even then... Shimgray | talk | 21:37, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In China, 1/10 of a dollar is a máo (毛), and that's generally used as a unit of currency (i.e., for ¥1.50 you wouldn't say "1 kuài 50 fēn (cents)", you would say "1 kuài 5 máo" or just "1 kuài 5"). Cents (fēn) are only used in like banks, department stores, chain grocery stores with cash registers, and other "official" places. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They used to, prior to 1966 decimalisation. Well, a mixture of formal and informal names anyway. We had halfpennies, pennies, threepences, sixpences (known as zacs), shillings (known as bob or deeners), and florins (= 2/-, called 2 shillings or 2 bob, but never 2 deeners). -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 23:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can see how you get "zac" from "six", and "bob" is relatively standard for a shilling, but why "deener"? It had a sheep on, which seems to rule out the obvious guess that it came from the design. Some kind of linkage with "dinar" is possible - compare the old UK use of "dollar" for a crown coin, after large numbers of Spanish dollars were in circulation for a while valued at five shillings - but I don't see any reasonable point at which that would have come into use! Shimgray | talk | 00:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since in Britain there are ten pee to a florin and ten florins in a quid, you could call the unit a florin. "Brother, can you spare a florin?" No, somehow I don't think it would catch on. -- Hoary (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The expression needs to be updated for inflation, since there's little one can buy with the equivalent of a dime these days. An upper-class British type who's fallen on hard times might ask "Brother, can you spare 5 guineas for a hazelnut mocha mugaccino?". :) -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean a phonemic alphabet, plenty of languages do. The most famous example is probably Korean (Hangul). Turkish (and many of its close relatives, such as Uyghur, Uzbek, and Kazakh) also have a more or less one-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondence. The reason I am calling these phonemic rather than phonetic is that they only encode sound differences that also trigger meaning differences, rather than context-dependent sound differences; for example, Korean has both [s] and [ʃ], but those are actually variants of the same phoneme (in some contexts it's pronounced [s], as in Seo-ul신울, whereas in others it's pronounced [ʃ], as in 신촌 Shin-chon) so it's written with the same letter.
I don't think many languages use alphabets that are fully phonetic (i.e., alphabets that represent unimportant differences in pronunciation) because the information they would convey is redundant and not necessary for expression. For instance, if [American] English used a fully phonetic alphabet, "bank" would be spelled "bangk" or "baŋk", "kicked" would be spelled "kicket" or "kickt" or "kikt", etc. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was kinda hoping the link under "Serbian" would be to Vuk Karadžić :) But even if the rule "write it as you speak it" does apply to Serbian, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with calling it a "language that uses a phonetic alphabet" - in essence, all that the rule seems to accomplish is to have foreign names written in the closest approximation to Serbian pronunciation rules (cf.: New York vs. Njujork), but if those foreign names use phonemes that aren't domestic to Serbian, those get glossed over for the closest approximate. If you were to include Serbian, than many other languages can be included as well - many, if not most languages don't have the convoluted writing/reading rules of English or French and really put down words in fairly good approximations of how stuff is actually pronounced - as Rjanag has already pointed out. Also, I'd like to mention Japanese (more precisely, its use of kana) here. TomorrowTime (talk) 22:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the exceptions on foreign names that you mention really aren't exceptions: the scope of the alphabet are the language's own 30 phonemes, and the foreign ones don't count. When foreign names are written as approximation to Serbian pronunciation (Njujork/Њујорк), they are also pronounced using, well, Serbian pronunciation (['ɲujɔrk]). The Serbo-Croatian writing system does not distinguish allophones, of course, and there are some exceptions where consonant voicing/devoicing is not recorded in writing (although it occurs in speech), in order to preserve at some morphology. ɲNo such user (talk) 08:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At what point does a metaphor become an established additional meaning of a word?
We all know what a skeleton is - the bone system of a human or animal. By metaphorical use, the word 'skeleton' has come to also refer to the internal supporting framework of something that is not an organism or perhaps not even a physical object but an idea, or something operating on 'bare bones' resources, i.e. 'skeleton staff', or the 'skeleton' of a structure. I presume the first definition was the original meaning of this word and the secondary usage evolved through metaphor. So at what point does a metaphor become so established that it can be listed in a dictionary as an additional meaning of a word? I am relying on assumptions here, but I believe that these are probably fair assumptions to make.--Nomenclaturehedonism (talk) 01:25, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone can identify a specific "point" at which it happens. Eventually a word is used a lot in some sense (such as the second sense you mention for "skeleton") and then it's put in a dictionary. But there's no cut-and-try turning point when that suddenly happens (there's not a specific number or anything, we can't say "It's been used 500 times, now put it in the dictionary" or "It's only been used 473 times, we'll have to wait"). rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, Etymonline's entry for 'skeleton', specifically, gives 1600 as the earliest usage of the word in the sense of 'bare outline', and 'skeleton crew' in 1778. Also, it also tells us that the original meaning was not 'bones', but 'dried up', and by extension 'mummified remains' - the meaning of 'bones' came later. It's just a case of language changing. As Rjanag says, no-one actually decides when a word has a new meaning (whether as a replacement for or as an addition to the old one(s)). It just happens. Sometimes it takes a long time and sometimes it doesn't. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK)01:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is: it depends on the lexicographer's feel that this is a "new meaning" or "only a metaphore". Lexicographers may have each their own methods for this, usually based on frequency of use in a corpus. --Lgriot (talk) 07:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just as an aside, you're really talking about analogies, not metaphors. Metaphors (as a rule) extend meanings through association, whereas analogies lend meanings between otherwise unrelated objects or concepts. so, when we say that a vulture is a metaphor for death (because vultures eat the dead) all we've done is expand the sense of the word vulture; but when we say a man is like a vulture (analogy) we've loaned some of the attributes of vultures to a man, and in the process begun to create a new meaning for the word vulture as it applies to men (since we probably don't mean that that man is literally like a vulture). --Ludwigs207:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To my understanding, the bare statement that 'X is like Y' would be a simile, not an analogy, which is a more extended logical comparative argument of the form 'just as X does A, so Y does B', though saying X is Y is indeed a metaphor. Thus "Man is a vulture" = metaphor; "A man is like a vulture" = simile; "Just as a man will eat a windfall apple, so a vulture will eat a dead cow" = (poor) analogy. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's the correct analysis, and "vulture" has a long way to go before it "means" "death". I would suggest several hundred years of metaphor (not simile or analogy) would often be necessary before the word acquires its (former) metaphoric meaning, and often not even then. Dbfirs11:43, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mandarin Chinese
Hey, sorry for two questions in one day (I think my roomate asked one too so that's three) but I've been curious about this for a while. My friend (native Chinese speaker) says that she has a lot of difficulty understanding non-native speakers because they don't speak with the right tones. I realise that people are different and some might be gifted with languages, some not so much, but is there a general age threshold range to start learning Chinese after which you can no longer produce the tones natively/speak with a noticeable accent? After enough experience/immersion in Chinese, would it be possible to lose this accent? Thanks. PS: I'm just curious, I'm not really interested in learning the "Latin of the East" as my history book calls it ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.78.167 (talk) 02:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A "general age threshold" is called a critical period, and the issue of whether critical periods exist in second language acquisition is still a controversial one. Intuitively, it may be harder for people to acquire tones if they don't start learning until they're older, but it's certainly not impossible. There are many people who can pronounce Mandarin tones just fine even though they didn't start learning until after age 18 (I can say that because I'm one of them, but there are more famous ones too, such as Leehom Wang and Joseph Needham), although there are probably many many more people who can't. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:46, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for the reply, rʨanaɢ. If you don't mind me asking, because this is a little personal and you can choose not to if your not comfortable with it. Do native speakers say you speak with a noticeable accent? Do they ask you to repeat things because they didn't understand what you were saying (I mean in relation to your speaking, not what was being spoken)? Thanks. 24.92.78.167 (talk) 02:55, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, they're usually shocked to hear someone white speak with tones at all. They tend to say "you have no accent", but then again Chinese people are notorious complimenters so you always have to take it with a grain of salt. I almost never have to repeat myself, though. But anyway, I bet many other learners of Chinese here can attest to similar experiences. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've lived in China for 3 years, and made a reasonable effort to learn Mandarin in that time. My tones, simply put, are pretty awful. Why? I've come to realize that my ears just aren't cut out for the task. If you give me pinyin I can force myself to over-enunciate a tone for you, but when I speak with natives I simply can't pick up on the tones naturally unless they're trying to make a forceful point or something. So, with certain words where I've completely memorized the tone structure (and can mentally picture the pinyin) I can pretty much nail it, but with the majority of my vocabulary which I've picked up through daily life my tones are screwed up if present at all. People will patiently try to correct me and I can't hear any difference between what they say and what I repeat. In the beginning it was very frustrating for me until I realized that I just don't hear tones of any kind very well. (related note - I can't carry a tune to save my life) Lastly, I would speculate that someone who is a very good singer or other sort of musician would be able to pick-up accurate Chinese pronunciation much more easily than someone who has a tin ear. The Masked Booby (talk) 07:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think musical experience makes much difference. Mandarin uses contour tones, as opposed to register tones, which means that what distinguishes a tone isn't its absolute pitch (middle C or whatever) but its "shape", or the way it moves up and down during a word. That means you don't have to be able to pinpoint an exact pitch like a musician has to. Musical experience helps, of course, but it's not necessary; people can pick up tones without musical experience, and people can be good musicians but bad tone learners. There has been a ton of experimental research on connections between tone language experience and musical aptitude, and, while I certainly am not familiar with all of it, the impression I have of that literature is that most of the links that have been found (things like a higher proportion of musicians with absolute pitch who are also speakers of tone languages) are not super-impressive; the connection seems to be a weak one at best. rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(For an illustration that this is still a hot research topic, check out p. 113 of this conference program—the conference is coming up in Nov. 2010). rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reinforcing the earlier point: A lot of people learn Chinese tones (and Vietnamese tones and Thai tones...) well as an adult. The critical period hypothesis is primarily about first language, not second and third languages. I have found that some people really do struggle with the concept, though, so you will find a lot of people who are otherwise competent, but do not use tone consistently. Note that there is a *lot* of tone diversity in Chinese varieties. One is exposed to a lot of interesting varieties of Chinese as one travels around. Many are so distinct as to be unintelligible, but the difference between one city and the city one over will often be an accent difference and some different words. Part of that accent difference is tone, and speakers can adapt to people's different tone systems and understand them, with only a little difficulty. (OR, but it's academic OR) Steewi (talk) 00:18, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Temporal Adjectives
Why are some adjectives that suggest a certain time period capitalized, while others are not? Example: Ancient Philosophy vs ancient Greece. Thanks schyler (talk) 03:03, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a difference between proper and common nouns. A proper noun names a more specific period (e.g., Hellenic period in architecture, Middle Ages, Renaissance), whereas a common noun is just a description and could be more vague (ancient Greece, etc.). One handy rule to help tell the difference is that a common noun is the sum of its parts ("ancient Greece" refers to Greece when it was ancient, for example), whereas a pronoun might not (the "Middle Ages" aren't really ages in the middle, unless you think abstractly; Classical Chinese is not Chinese that's classy).
Put more simply (maybe) sometimes the adjective is a true adjective (modifier to a noun) and so remains uncapitalized, but sometimes the adjective is really part of the name itself and thus usually is capitalized. In 'Alexander the Great' and 'Pliny the Elder', 'great' and 'elder' are capitalized because they are part of the standard designation for those persons, and not simply modifiers that point out that the first was excellent and the second was old. --Ludwigs208:01, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[For other Latin phrases, you can refer to List of Latin phrases. Besides the basic answer provided by the first answerer, this phrase has been adopted as a musical title, "In Nomine".
It might be worth noting that this expression is a calque of a Semitic construction (Hebrew be-shem, Arabic bi-'sm), since the Semitic preposition bi means both "in, within" and "by". In Classical Latin in + ablative means only "in, within". The ancient translators of the Bible translated bi with one and the same preposition (in), even when it meant "by", and the frequent use led to this situation, where in the name does not seem so strange ("within the name")...--93.32.36.184 (talk) 12:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
German word for the soft inner part of a bread loaf
It was mentioned tonight in a show on SBS, and I resolved to remember it - the best I have is something like kroft, kraft -- something like that. Can anyone help?
I'm not familiar with it (possibly because there's a different word for it in Austria), but the German Wikipedia suggests Krume: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krume_(Backware) . The word for breadcrumbs "up north" is Krümel, which is apparently a diminutive of Krume (I didn't know this until today) - down here in Austria we call them BröselRimush (talk) 14:45, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone explain to me that rap music izzle language? Does it have a name? Rules? Is it just a substitution language or does it have it's own words? Where does it come from? I never understood a word of it except that I knew it was often used in a sexual innuendo way, like (I might have this wrong) "shizzle my nizzle" or something like that is I guess "suck my dick" but I don't see any substitution in there if that's correct.--162.84.161.15 (talk) 12:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. can someone please remove the self-censorship with the two asterisks above? I can't because the edit filter thingamagig wouldn't let me save it in its uncensored form.--162.84.161.15 (talk) 12:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Celtic word origins are beyond my ken, but whatever the true origin of these two place names, since they are near Dublin in what was the English Pale, it's possible their anglicized versions were influenced by the common -ham suffix (as in Birmingham); see this article for the origin of many English place name endings. But someone with Celtic/Gaelic expertise really needs to answer this one. Textorus (talk) 22:26, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The articles on the two places say that the "ham" in both cases is a modified ending of a person's name, in one case St Maighnenn and in the other case somebody named Fearnán. So the only way the "ham"s could be related is if these two names are related, but I don't know enough about Irish personal names to say whether that is possible. Looie496 (talk) 19:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say it's because both places were probably originally founded as very small villages or hamlets. When I googled ham suffixthis page was the very first hit. Answered by Textorus, with more nuance than me. Whoops. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 18:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - if they were English. But "Kil" and "Rath" are typically Irish, and mixed-source place names are unusual (not unknown, but generally need to be explained), so Old English "ham" is unlikely to be involved. And in fact Looie's answer makes it clear that both places must originally have had "-an" or "-en", presumably modified to "-am" and written "-ham" by English speakers. (Note to American readers: most British places ending in "-ham" are pronounced [-əm], with no 'h' and a reduced vowel.). --ColinFine (talk) 18:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My thanks to Tex & Colin esp. You actually answered the root of the question, which I hadn't properly formed in my head. I'd been wondering whether it was related to the English 'ham' suffix. Youse do good work :) Stanstaple (talk) 20:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Time and (time) again
The expressions (A) "time and again" and (B) "time and time again" are well known and their meaning is clear. We normally process them as a whole idiom rather than as separate words. Try and make logical sense out of the words and you'll get nowhere fast. But they're still made up of separate words, and I'm curious about the function of 'time'.
What's the logical problem with "time and time again"? It seems perfectly sensical to me. Just think of 'time' in the same sense as 'two times' (i.e., two occasions). "Time and again" is less logical, though; I assume it'd just a clipped form of "time and time again". 173.66.149.81 (talk) 21:15, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto. Interchange them to your heart's content, though the longer one ever so slightly emphasizes the repetitive quality of . . . whatever. But not enough difference to make a real difference, ya know? Textorus (talk) 22:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, the logical issue is this. I agree we can think of 'time' as short for 'on two times' or 'on a certain number of times'. But it's never used that way outside of this idiom. I mean, if I wanted to express "I've previously explained this to you more than once", I wouldn't say "I've explained this to you time" (it has to be 'time and again'). Or, if someone wanted to know how often I'd done something or other, and I answered with "Time", they'd think I misheard the question. 'Time' just doesn't have that meaning, except in the idiom in question. It's far from uncommon for words to have a unique meaning within a certain fixed expression, so that's no problem. But to try to explain them using the apparent logical surface literal meaning of the component words would lead a non-native speaker very much down the garden path. (Jack of Oz =) 202.142.129.66 (talk) 23:02, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is it similar to "over" then? You can explain it over and over again, but can you explain it over? I guess you can explain it over again. Again and again, I see questions asked here also being discussed at WordReference.com's language forum (though not that enlightening, in this case [3])---Sluzzelintalk23:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure you can. "How many times have you told me about this?" "One time." "Two times." "Many times." "Lots of times." "Time after time." "Time and time again." It is by no means an isolated or fossilised meaning. The phrase itself is an idiomised (is that a word?) poetic phrase, and I do wonder if there is some original work that people are unwittingly quoting, but it isn't some special meaning of the word 'time'. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 23:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
According to Thomas Boys in [4]Notes and Queries (Oxford University Press, 1857):
"Time and again" appears to have signified originally "once" and again," and thence to have acquired the meaning of "again and again." Grammatical or ungrammatical, the phrase has some countenance both in French, Latin, Scotch, and German.
"A time," in some parts of Scotland, is the act of once furrowing between two ploughings. If two furrowings intervene, it is "a double time;" if four, "a double double time"
In German, *once" is einmal (einmahl, "one time").
"A time," in the sense of "once," exactly corresponds to the French "une fois." With "time and again" compare also the French phrase "de fois à autre."
"Fois" is a slight modification of the Latin "vice." Like the Spanish "una vez" and the Porguguese "huma vez," the French "une fois" comes from the (not classical) Latin, "unâ vice." Indeed, our own "once," with its various antecedents in old English, claims the same origin, thus : - uná vice, un(â vi)ce, once.
A follow-up question to Sluzzelin's post. It seems that numerous IE languages use a similar construct to express a n-time repetition: a number followed by an, um, word meaning "time(s)" (fois, vez, -mal). In my native Serbo-Croatian, the word is "put" or "puta", (Croatian dictionary, excellent Google translate). The type of that word is a bit indeterminate, but it tends to be undeclinable, and not useful on its own: you must say "one time", or "several times", but you cannot say just "time" (I suppose, in either of the languages above). The linked Croatian dictionary says it's an "adverbial particle", (and a "particle" usually means "none of the known word types").
I heard someone on the radio say "there weren't as many tourists this year as there was last year". Should it be "there weren't as many tourists this year as there were last year"? -- Q Chris (talk) 07:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not English at all unless you say "as was the case last year", but then you introduce a possible ambiguity. Use the plural for both. "Someone on the radio" is not a good role model for correct English. Even BBC announcers and presenters occasionally make mistakes. Dbfirs11:26, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - I find myself making mistakes with worryingly increasing regularity! The point I intended to make (but didn't make clearly) is that "someone on the radio" could be just anyone, with any or little knowledge of correct English. Also, spoken English, even from educated people such as radio presenters, often contains errors that would probably not be reproduced in written form. BBC announcers usually read from a script, so they should be the "best" model of spoken English, and usually they are, but occasional mistakes creep in, even there. Dbfirs09:01, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"[T]here weren't as many tourists" is about a plural thing, the number of tourists; "as there was last year" is about a single thing, last year. In the end it doesn't matter - both sentences are obviously understandable. Prescriptive grammar might favour "there weren't as many tourists this year as there were last year". Descriptive grammar would say that both are examples of grammatically OK colloquial English. If I were to comment on which sentence sounds better to my ear, I would argue that "there weren't as many tourists this year as there were last year", sounds just a weeny bit stilted, and somewhat redolent of that quaint thing, thesubjunctive in English.--Shirt58 (talk) 11:48, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"is about a plural thing, the number of tourists" I haven't read this discussion thoroughly, but the way you worded that sounds like a contradiction to me.. Lexicografía (talk) 20:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How is the "was" referring to "last year"? "there weren't as many tourists this year as there was [tourists] last year" - wrong. Rimush (talk) 14:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The "weren't" and the "were" each attest to the presence or otherwise of tourists. Why would you wish to make one plural and the other singular in the same sentence? Either it's: "There weren't as many tourists this year as there were last year" (standard) or "There wasn't as many tourists this year as there was last year" (colloquial; standard usage for some speakers.) Mixing the two breaks the rules of both. Karenjc15:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your argument is a red herring, Shirt. You may as well totally eliminate the word 'were' from your vocabulary if it reminds you of the antiquated subjunctive even in places where the subjunctive is not anywhere to be seen. But it's given me an idea: next time I buy a goldfish, I'm going to call it Subjunctive Irrelevant Redolence. Cute. :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Treatment of initial r/n in North Korea
According to this encyclopedia, for Sino-Korean words, South Koreans will replace /r/ with /n/ in the initial position, while both /r/ and /n/ are lost completely in the initial position if followed by /i/ or /y/. North Koreans ostensibly do not follow this rule, and as far as I can tell, this holds true orthographically. However, when I listen to North Korean news broadcasts on KCTV and/or North Korean song recordings, it seems that North Koreans also change /r/ to /n/ word-initially and lose both /r/ and /n/ word-initially if they are followed by /i/ or /y/. Is it just me, or does it seem that /r/ and /n/ are indeed difficult to pronounce word-initially in the aforementioned situations? 98.116.90.160 (talk) 07:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You probabaly mean to ask whether the North Koreans find it "difficult to pronounce word-initially in the aforementioned situations", don't you? Eliko (talk) 10:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Korean had an archaic phonological process called the Head Consonant Rule, which changed /r/ to [n] word-initially and /r,n/ to ∅ word initially before /i/ or /j/ (like you described) in words borrowed into the language during the period that that process was active (probably a few centuries ago, but it's difficult to estimate), which means a lot of Chinese (i.e. Sino-Korean) words went through this, for example, Hanja 女性 (womenkind) written and pronounced as 여성 ([jʌsʌŋ]) in Hangeul, but when 女 is not word-initial, as in 男女 (men and women) pronounced [namnjʌ], the [n] is preserved. The Head Consonant Rule is inactive in Korean now, however, which is why the later borrowed word radio is pronounced [ladio] and not *[nadio]. Could it be possible that the combination of HCR-affected words and later borrowed unaffected words is giving you the perception that things are different in North Korea? As far as I know, HCR had the same effect on the North-Korean dialect as the South-Korean one, but I'm no expert. Here's a link that mentions a bit about the HCR to prove I'm not just making it up; go to page 3 "Word-initial l avoidance." As for /r/ and /n/ being difficult to pronounce in this environment, we have no problem say words like repeat in English, but at least in the past, Koreans perceived a markedness of these sounds in this environment which brought about HCR. Hope some of this helps.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 00:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed the same mismatch as OP between what people write about North Korean pronunciation and my own perception of pronunciation in North Korean news and songs. I wouldn't attribute this to a species-wide pronunciation difficulty, much less to a misperception on our part. I'm afraid prescribing new pronunciations rarely results in their widespread adoption, that's all. Add to that foreigners focusing too much on yesteryear's prescribed standards rather than actual use. There are distinctly Northern pronunciations, but pronouncing initial r- or ny- does not seem to have caught on, seeing how not even news presenters use it. 82.83.97.205 (talk) 00:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't see any others that dealt with talking differently, but you could walk around barefoot on Hobbit Day, which has either just passed or just coming up depending on how you wish to observe it. Global Orgasm Day was only scheduled once, in 2006, but celebrating the anniversary of that august event every December 22 is surely in order. Matt Deres (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You need a tool that allows you to type in Unicode Nepali. People will need the right font in order to be able to see it properly, but most people have a good Unicode font nowadays. There are some tools on the web that allow you to type Nepali using a western keyboard, for example UnicodeNepali.com; or Google Transliterate might work for you. Looie496 (talk) 17:31, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, so where can I find an alphabet of the script so I know what to type in? that way I can look at the Nepali name in the image and type in the romanization into Google transliterate. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:08, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I understand this to mean that the description will appeal to the reader's intuition and may take some liberties for the sake of conveying the main idea. I am familiar with this sense in math circles. But in general usage, would this more likely be taken to mean that the writer is not entirely sure of the details and is basing the description on his own intuition? 198.161.238.19 (talk) 17:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if intuitive has a specific meaning in programming; my take is the writer means either lingual as opposed to mathematical [description] or easy to understand [as opposed to counterintuitive]. But it could just as easily be a useless filler word, unconsciously put in for the sake of sounding erudite/intelligent in an encyclopedia article. Hard to tell without understanding very much about computer science. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 18:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To me an intuitive description is one that tries to create a picture in the reader's mind, as opposed to one that gives a formal definition. Looie496 (talk) 18:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think what this means (in this context) is that the writer does know the material well, but is trying to avoid using technical jargon and excessive detail, so that less knowledgable readers will be able to follow it. it's the same sense as when you say that a Graphical User Interface is more intuitive than command line instructions. --Ludwigs218:51, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure of what the writer means. What I'm asking is whether it's jargon to say an "intuitive description" means "intended to be intuitive for the reader", vs. "based on the writer's intuition". 198.161.238.19 (talk) 19:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Origin and meaning of "deep sneakers"
I've tried several different searches but can't find a definition and origin for the phrase "deep sneakers". The closest I was able to come was a quote "in deep sneakers (aka up a crick!)".
Nhopenwheeler (talk) 19:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Appears to be school slang that originated in the mid-1980s. This etymology page quotes a Newsweek Periscope piece from 1991 that defines it thusly: Deep sneakers: In big trouble. Usage: "Kevin's in deep sneakers for skipping phys ed.". Looie496 (talk) 20:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
September 18
Phonetic equipment
I plan on using my laptop to record speech for spectrogram analysis, but my laptop's built-in microphone is horrible for this. What should I look for when buying an external microphone to generate clean spectrograms? Can any fellow phoneticians recommend something? My plan is to plug it into my laptop and record in Praat. I'm assuming that's enough for good sound sampling and all I'm lacking is a suitable microphone. Not sure if Wikipedia's the best place to ask this, but I figured I'd give it a try Thank you!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 00:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a phonetician so I don't know a ton about this, but you might want to check what is used in relevant articles related to what you're doing. For example, the facilities in my department have an ElectroVoice 767 microphone (among others; this is the only one I know off the top of my head). The only thing is, I imagine those sorts of microphones are quite expensive.
If you don't need a top-of-the-line microphone I think you can get by with just about any average one. For the intro phonetics class we teach, students have to do a project where they record themselves and do some spectral analysis, and we just let them use the regular microphones in a regular computer lab on campus; it's not the nicest ever, but it's certainly good enough to get a clean spectogram. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:21, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your answers so far. I've made notice of this question on the science desk. The ElectroVoice microphone looks great, albeit expensive as Rjanag points out. A short perusal of decent microphones sold online brought up a few options ~$20, mostly microphones intended for music, which make me a bit weary, at least those with "noise-canceling" features that make me wonder whether they'll filter out any meaningful frequencies of human speech, or have the potential of accidentally altering the speech signal. Is there some code-word I should look for in the product description that will tell me the microphone doesn't filter any of the signal, or certain descriptions of a microphone that would make it a good candidate for phonetic applications (I see this word dynamic a lot)? Also, I know a good amount of phonologists who have bought expensive portable recorders to plug the microphone into. I'm not sure if that's necessary--I just use a laptop, which I would think would be able to sample sound better than a higher-end portable device.... Plus for phonetic work, I'd be collecting data sitting down in a quiet room, so even a bulkier laptop isn't a problem. Are these portable samplers really any better?--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 04:24, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As for noise-cancelling, you definitely want to make sure it doesn't record or save stuff in mp3 or mp4 format; those are the ones that filter out some frequencies. Generally you're save if you use .wav format. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:46, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My husband does quite a bit of digital voice recording for work, directly onto a laptop using Audacity software. He uses a Shure SM58 microphone, which has been pretty much an industry standard for stage vocalists for many years, and tells me it's the best thing for the job for various technical reasons I don't understand, although I believe it tends not to pick up background noise, for one thing. There are some issues around cheap fake SM58s from unauthorised sources (see here) that any prospective buyer needs to know. Karenjc17:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Aprel: just in case you're wondering, Audacity is also free and is useful for sound recording (especially for stuff like cutting and splicing files), although if you're doing spectral analysis you're probably better off sticking with Praat, since Audacity can't do any of that sort of stuff (as far as I know) and Praat is just as good as audacity when it comes to the pretty basic editing stuff (Audacity is better for more advanced stuff). rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not to dissent from all the above, doubtless excellent, advice, but do not linguists in their published scientific papers specify the equipment and software they have used? If you have in mind extending the research on a particular area covered by particular previous papers (which you may well be citing) it might be good practice to duplicate, if possible, the more commonly used equipment and software to maintain maximal comparability. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 10:33, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(They do, that's why the very first bit of advice I gave was "you might want to check what is used in relevant articles related to what you're doing.") rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Dynamic microphones are described on the Microphone page--albeit not in detail, nor very well. If you want to record really clean sound, your best bet would probably be some kind of condenser microphone. I've used Shure SM58 microphone a lot, and while they are great workhorses, they are no where near as clean and clear as a good condenser microphone. I have a nice AKG and the difference between the AKG condenser and the Shure dynamic is very obvious. But then, you want to spend less than $20 or so? And you want to plug the microphone into your laptop without any extra hardware, like preamps? I dunno, good luck. Even Shure SM58s are the like cost closer to $80 or $100 new, as far as I know. You'd also want to make sure you can plug it into a laptop. The Shure microphones I've dealt with (and most microphones in general) use XLR connectors. Laptops don't have XLR. If you really want to go cheap and not deal with XLR and/or additional hardware, perhaps you should forget Shures and look instead for microphones specifically designed for use with laptops. I don't know much about that topic, but there must be USB or similar microphones out there for cheap, which while not great would be an improvement over whatever junk the laptop has built in. (Btw, I've played around with Praat, it's yet another amazing piece of freeware made by a Dutch genius) Pfly (talk) 11:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Films with American accents
Okay, throwing a spanner into the works just for the sake of a little comedy (?) relief here. My question is: Do British movie houses provide barf bags for the audience when they run films with American actors playing historical British characters - or even (gasp) an American cast doing Shakespeare?
And a follow-up question, are there any American actors that British audiences perceive as doing a truly believable British/Scottish/Welsh/etc. accent, and why? The vowels, the consonants, the rhythm, the elision . . . ? Just wondering. Textorus (talk) 01:28, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why do people never complain about the other way around? British people sometimes have laughable American accents. (Although I always thought Gary Oldman was American...and presumably most people don't know Hugh Laurie is British...but still! Still!) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As for an American with a believable British accent, I'd suggest Gillian Anderson. I even recall an episode of QI where Alan Davies insisted vociferously that she was English, even though she was born in Chicago. (Of course, she did spend some of her childhood in London.) As an American, I found that especially satisfying. I think British audiences have basically decided, for whatever mystical reason, that Americans are physiologically incapable of putting on a convincing British accent, so it's become a death sport for an American actor to attempt such a feat. No one wants to be the next Dick van Dyke. And it's not as though there aren't plenty of affordable Australians lining up to play British characters, so what's the point? LANTZYTALK03:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Last time I looked, there was a nice little explanation in our article Dick Van Dyke. His accent was so bad, it became the widely-derided example of an American doing a bad cockney accent, in Britain. It is taken as 'common wisdom' that the only British accents in American media are 'Hugh Grant' and 'Dick Van Dyke': exceptions to this are usually noticed and praised, often with some passing reference to Mary Poppins, but oddly not remembered next time the paper wants to write an article on accents in film and on TV. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 15:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Haven't seen Mary Poppins in years, but come to think of it, I guess Bert does have a strong American accent in that picture. Please tell me Meryl Streep makes up for any offense caused. Textorus (talk) 20:16, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oi, LANTZY. Ah you saying Australians are cheap? !! (No offence take.) Australians know that it's extremely rare for any non-Australian to do our accent at all well. As for Hugh Laurie, I only knew him as British. Is not knowing that an American thing? I wonder how many here are familiaar with Simon Baker in the Mentalist? DO Americans think his accent is OK (for an Aussie pretending to be American)? HiLo48 (talk) 03:46, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, HiLo, I'm saying Americans are overpaid! Generally speaking, I'm impressed by the job Australians do with any non-Australian accent, but especially with American accents. LANTZYTALK03:51, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've never seen the Mentalist, but the Australian guy in True Blood sounds completely American to me. (The British guy, too). And Anna Paquin is not American either, is she? But she always sounds like one. Maybe that's because southern American accents always sound fake, even when they are real... Adam Bishop (talk) 03:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very good point. The ratio of phony to genuine southern American accents on film is probably something like ten to one. And it's always Mississippian or Texan. You never hear Virginian or Carolinian accents. LANTZYTALK03:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing grates on my ears worse than a Yankee actor pretending to tawk Suthun. They just don't get it. Ought to be against the law. And Lantzy is right; nobody in Hollywood ever seems to realize there is not one Southern accent, but many. Textorus (talk) 04:03, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think. There've been a succession of American actors (and British too) trying, and mainly failing, to do a good Australian accent. They all seem to think it's a close cousin to Cockney. I can hear a vague resemblance, that's all. But who am I to talk? I've lived here all my life and I'm a natural mimic, but try as I may I cannot make the sounds that a lot of younger Australian people make when they say "through", "grew", and similar words. They swallow the vowel yet somehow simultaneously make it sound very aggressive and accusatory, no matter what the context is. A very ugly and disturbing development. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:49, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll let a Kiwi answer that; I've never seen that movie anyway. I'll just say that comparisons between Australian and New Zealand English should not assume any huge similarity based on mere geographic proximity. There are times when New Zealanders sound like Martians to Aussies; and I'm sure the opposite applies as well. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I usually can't tell NZ and Australian accents apart...and anyway, we almost never hear anyone from New Zealand over here. The only recent exposure is the guys from Flight of the Conchords. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:13, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jack, on that note, the accent of your new PM sounds to my admittedly untrained ears, rather . . . um, how shall I say; would "informal" be neutral enough? ("Barmaid," I'm afraid, would definitely give offense, when I really don't mean to offend.) Noticeably different even to an American ear from the "Toy me kangaroo down" accent I've always thought of as typically Australian. Where does that come from? (And should we start a new thread on this, grin?)Textorus (talk) 21:51, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, she has her detractors here. Me, I don't care because she speaks very clearly and deliberately and I can understand every single syllable she ever utters, which is something I could not say about her predecessor. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No disrespect meant, no doubt she will do a fine job. In the one short clip I've seen of her, I thought she seemed a Down Under version of Reba McEntire, one of my favorite country & western singers, who is from just up the road here. I can't quite imagine Reba in the White House, though; but hell, who knows, we've certainly got a lot of entertainers in high places these days, in all parts of the country. Intentional or not. Textorus (talk) 03:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Australia's new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, while born in Wales (yes, we let foreigners do the job), spent her earliest schooldays in a less salubrious corner of Adelaide, which was typical for many British migrants of that time.I think it's those first years of school that set your style of speech, especially in a new country. HiLo48 (talk) 06:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that explains the unexpected accent. Which I suppose I could have figured out from her WP article if I'd had good sense. (Now I'll be up all night wondering if Reba has Welsh ancestry.) Thanks for the tip.Textorus (talk) 06:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For a British actor with a terrible American accent (or perhaps deliberately portraying an Englishman with Hollywood pretensions badly failing to use a convincing American accent), see the BBC's As Time Goes By (TV series). As someone born in London, I was at first taken aback by the accents of my fellow Shakespearean actors in Northern California, but in fact their accents were probably no further from Shakespeare's than those of Southeastern Englishmen and women in this century. Many "Americanisms" like "gotten" and "fall" for autumn are just common 17th-century English that has survived in America while dying in metropolitan Britain. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't tell you how often I've pointed that out to British friends. And Americans, for that matter. It never sinks in. As far as most people are concerned, all Shakespearean characters (and all Romans) should sound like Oxbridge alums. LANTZYTALK07:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes. In fact, it pains me to read that Received Pronunciation is practically obsolete now. Pity. I saw in a documentary of some kind a while back, I think it was a member of the Royal Family, saying "okay" and otherwise chatting on like an American. I shuddered a little. Us colonials like the nobility and such to talk real good English, ya know? Otherwise, what would we have to joke about? Grin. Textorus (talk) 09:51, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It was the middle classes that invented snooty pronunciation. The aristocrats were, at least until recently, always lazy in their manner of speech. Studiedly lazy, in fact: "Ain't we goin' fox-huntin'?" Presumably in order to distinguish themselves from the belabored snobbery of the upstarts. LANTZYTALK10:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Texican is a term of offense here to large numbers of my compatriots. I advise not using it if you ever come south of the Red River. And laziness is an old canard about Southern speech in general, as Colin points out below.Textorus (talk) 20:16, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's nothing to do with laziness: its just fashion (in the sense of "the way that this group behaves"). Despite the spelling, there is nothing omitted in "huntin'", it's the substitution of one sound (/n/) for another (/ŋ/) not obviously more difficult to pronounce. But it is true that the English aristocracy and working class share a number of ways of behaving that sets the middle class apart: see Watching the English by Kate Fox, passim. --ColinFine (talk) 11:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how anyone could think Hugh Laurie was an American. I'm glad I usually watch House dubbed into German so I don't have to laugh out loud at his pitiful attempt at an American accent. Honestly, if they wanted Hugh Laurie, why not just make the character English? Then there's Christian Bale, who couldn't be bothered to turn off his phony American accent even for his profanity-laced tirade on the set of Terminator Salvation. I suppose speaking in his own accent would have broken his concentration too. —Angr (talk) 14:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That seems a bit strong. Laurie's current American accent, while obviously a put-on, isn't what I'd call pitiful. Christian Bale is another matter. Both of them occasionally give off that "Bicycle Repair Man" vibe, but they blow Cary Elwes out of the water. LANTZYTALK17:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a request for information, not a request that anything WP does should change. But, I started off a mini-spat at Talk:Main Page over the use on the main page of the word "hometown" to describe Karachi, the home city of a Pakistani politician. To me, the use of that word in that way seems derogatory - Karachi is a major city and (to me) cannot be described in any sense as a "town", or indeed as a "hometown". But others (apparently, everyone else in that discussion) disagree with my interpretation, saying that the word "hometown" is a common neutral description of the place someone comes from, regardless of size. That definition is not one I have ever used - I know it is used in that sense, but I had thought it was used only in a self-deprecating way by someone describing their own place of origin, not as a neutral term which could be used by anyone about someone else's place of origin. I'm struggling to understand how my understanding of the word is so much at variance with that of others. Can anyone shed any light on this - or is it, in fact, just me with an attitude problem? I would add as background that I'm over 50, in the UK, with a long professional career as an urban planner behind me. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a US American and in my 30s. I've never heard "hometown" used in a derogatory way, whether the "town" actually is a town or a city. Yes, people make discouraging remarks about towns, cities, etc. For instance, many Chicagoans speak negatively of Berwyn. But someone would say "Oh, so Berwyn is your hometown!" and being using hometown to implicate anything about the city itself or the person from there. I regularly say that my hometown is Chicago (though I'm not from the city but it's easier to say that than some suburb that the questioner has never heard of) and Chicago is a major city. Dismas|(talk)08:13, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Melbourne, Australia is my home town. I do separate it into two words, but I don't feel in any way negative about telling you that. HiLo48 (talk) 08:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to pin this down further. In the UK, it's normal to use the word "city" for a large urban area and "town" for a smaller area. There are exceptions, of smaller places with historic city charters, but they are exceptions to the general rule. In the US (correct me if I'm wrong), the term is often (usually?) used for a particular type of administration, almost regardless of size. And, in the UK (in my view) the usual way to describe someone's place of origin would be "home town" if they originated from a home town, or "home city" if they originated from a larger urban area. In neither case would a single word be used, but two - "home town". In the US, the single word "hometown" is used (never "home city"), and that usage has now spread more widely so that it is a more common usage than before in the UK and elsewhere. Is that a fair assessment? Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is also the norm in the U.S., Ghmyrtle, to differentiate "cities" and "towns" on the basis of size, just as you said. However, "hometown" is a metaphorical word, if you will: residents of New York City as well as those of Podunk, Texas (population 300), would both use the word without any hesitation, and do. There is nothing whatsoever derogatory about the word; on the contrary, the unspoken assumption would be that the speaker would feel a certain loyalty to or affection for his or her "hometown," unless explicitly denied.
"Town" as referring to a particular type of administration - no, not really. Probably you are thinking of township, a historical form of local government in New England but unknown in most of the rest of the U.S. "Cities" of course would have much bigger, more complex administrative structures than small towns would, but the main difference again has to do with the size of the place.
"Home city," whether one word or two, is an unknown phrase here, unless perhaps referring to a corporate headquarters or something like that; not used for a person's place of origin. Textorus (talk) 08:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
From Frank Sinatra....
On State Street, that great street, I just want to sayThey do things that they never do on Broadway -- sayThey have the time, the time of their lifeI saw a man and he danced with his wifeIn Chicago, Chicago, Chicago -- that's my HOME TOWN
In the US at least, "town" is frequently used to refer affectionately to any municipality of any size, be it a village or a metropolis. New York City is a town; so is East Jesus, Alabama. In fact, you'd be more likely to use "town" to describe a large city than to describe a small village. However, it isn't as though it's a synonym of "city". It's used to refer to specific places, not to urban environments in general (except in archaic fossilized phrases like "town and country"). So you wouldn't say, for instance, "Rap music originated in towns." But you could say, "Los Angeles is a crazy town." And, at least in the United States, "hometown" is the standard term for one's native community, whatever its size or population. It's not slang. It's not in the least bit derogatory or even particularly informal. LANTZYTALK09:51, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"The standard term." Exactly. Not slang, not folksy, just standard.
Although, strictly speaking, one's hometown might not be the same as one's "native city"; the latter literally means the place where you were born, but as in my case, my parents moved when I was a toddler so I grew up for the next 20+ years in another city, which if anyone asked I would call my "hometown." Textorus (talk) 10:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go so far as to say that the American usage of "hometown" has more or less broken free of the confines of the word "town", so that the term is now somewhat metaphorical. If "hometown" had a synonym, it would be something like "cradle" - a connotation of nativity, early and intimate acquaintance, and persistent loyalty, a concept entirely independent of geographical size, form of government, size of population, etc. Hell, I wouldn't be particularly surprised to hear someone say, "This island is my hometown." It's become a single, indivisible semantic unit. LANTZYTALK10:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm from the UK, and to me "hometown" (one word) sounds American and a bit folksy and parochial. To me, it does not seem appropriate to decribe Karachi as a politician's "hometown" in an encycopedia. 86.173.172.12 (talk) 12:02, 18 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]
UK, late 30s here, and I agree that 'hometown' is too folksy American to appear in an encyclopedia. One would expect Karachi to be full of hot dog stalls and rodeo shows and friends shooting each other for bets. I would go with 'place of birth'. To more directly answer the OP's question, however, I can say that I am from Liverpool - a major city - and I have no trouble calling Liverpool my home town (or hometown). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK)12:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
From my own UK perspective it would always be "home town", two words. "Hometown" (one word) sounds to my ears like an adjectival form: "The place seemed instantly familiar: there was a real hometown feel about it". Compare it with: "She came from a small town" and "Just a small-town girl / Living in a lonely world". If it's hyphenated or two words run into one, my radar would see it as descriptive. Karenjc17:41, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So - am I right in concluding that most Americans use "hometown" (one word) to describe their place of origin regardless of size, and that most Brits do not - though they may use the two word phrase "home town", in an informal way, to convey the same meaning? Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That would seem to be the consensus emerging here. FYI, notice this definition from the (American) Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
hometown: the city or town where one was born or grew up; also the place of one's principal residence
Example: She returned to her hometown to stay after college.
First Known Use: 1912
We find it very useful to have a single word that conveys all that might be meant by the definition, as shown. Which, as you see, potentially might apply to two or more towns or cities in the course of a person's life: where you are from now, or where you were from originally, etc. Textorus (talk) 18:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've led a sort of wandering, peripatetic, rootless, nomadic life. When I meet new people in my latest place, they'll typically ask, not where my home town is, but "Where are you from?". And I never know how to answer that. I haven't lived in my place of birth since I was 10 years old, so there's little point giving that as the answer. I've lived in six other places between then and where I live now, so just mentioning the most recent one seems a bit pointless too. I almost wish the standard question was "Where's your home town?" - then I could just answer it exactly, but qualify it by saying it's not my most recent place of abode. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can relate. It took me some time to figure out that when people ask, "Where are you from?" they don't really want to hear the story of your life. So now my answer is simply "I grew up in . . ." without further elaboration, which satisfies the questioner in most social situations. Usually it's a question asked when strangers can't think of anything else to talk about, after "nice weather isn't it" and before "are you married?" Textorus (talk) 19:58, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is pretty much over but I'd also like to point out how common it is in American English to ask someone about their "hometown team" which carries no population/city size implications of any kind whatsoever. It literally simply means "the pro-sports team followed by those from the place where you grew up" ... The Masked Booby (talk) 06:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've just recently became aware of this discussion but I'd like to point out the claim hometown is only used in the US is incorrect. The term is used in Malaysian English quite a bit because of the balik kampung common among Malays and Chinese people during Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Chinese New Year holidays respectively [6]. The usage isn't quite the same and often one's hometown (or one's parents' hometown/s which may be more relevant if your grandparents are still alive and sometimes people may call their parents' hometown their hometown even if they didn't grow up there and finally some may call where their parents or grandparents live now their hometown even if in reality no one grew up there) won't be a city but it's hardly uncommon that Kuala Lumpur may be someone's hometown [7] and there's nothing degrogatory about it. It's unlikely someone will use home city or homecity Nil Einne (talk) 21:09, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While it's possible this is American influence, I doubt it. The term is used because it's a simple term that conveys the meaning resonably okay (well the meaning does vary somewhat from country to country). Of course some people may be in a less clear situation and so an actual explaination may be better (I moved around a lot etc). Terms like 'native city' or 'home city' anything else which attempts to distinguish between cities and towns are somewhat missing the point. Whether your hometown is a city or town isn't relevant. Things like 'where I was born' also don't really convey the same meaning at least to me, as I would take the term literally. If you were born in Kuala Lumpur, perhaps your parents were visiting and you mother went in to premature labour or whatever but you grew up in Ipoh, Ipoh is your hometown but Kuala Lumpur is the place you were born. Even if for example you were born and spent the first 4 years of your life in KL, you still probably wouldn't consider it your hometown if you spent your next 20 years in Ipoh.
It's probably true that in a number of countries, people may be less likely to talk about their 'hometown' if they were born in a large city but it doesn't necessarily mean they will be offended if you call the city they grew up in their home town nor that they will say they don't have a hometown since it's a city. In parts of Asia, Malaysia being the obvious example but I would guess also India and Pakistan (as well as China) for cultural, social and development reasons, one's hometown is generally more significant then say in UK, so it's not surprising that the term is probably used more there.
Thanks Nil Einne, that's interesting and informative. If only you'd been at Talk:Main Page a couple of days ago, you would have been able to help avert a lot of time wasted in fruitless argument! Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An anonymous IP in Koblenz has just added this sentence to the Guido Westerwelle article:
He is the first Homofuerst (german word for openly gay person) to hold either of those positions.
I see that fuerst or fürst means "prince" but I don't speak German. Can someone who sprechens sie Deutch tell me if this is a truly complimentary, or at least non-judgmental word in German? Or is somebody trying to insert a little homophobic joke into this English article? My tracking sensors lit up when I saw this, just wondering. Textorus (talk) 22:30, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ich spreche nicht viel Deutsch, but based on this and the obvious derivational relationship to English gaylord (as well as the fact that Google Translate translates Er ist ein Homofürst as He is a gaylord), I think it would be safe to guess that this probably isn't a 'complimentary or non-judgmental word'. Lexicografía (talk) 22:38, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, and I wouldn't trust Google Translate for colloquial usage, Urban Dictionary is fun but a lot of it is stuff made up in school one day. We need a speaker of modern, idiomatic German. DuncanHill (talk) 22:49, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even if it weren't a schoolyard taunt inserted by an anonymous IP, why on earth would we need a German word to express such a simple concept? It's as if the Michelle Bachelet article contained the line, "She is the first mujer (Spanish word for female person) to hold the office of president". LANTZYTALK22:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(after edit conflict) A word from a native speaker of German: this is indeed clear, obvious and childish vandalism. I've reverted it as such -- Ferkelparadeπ22:53, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now somebody from Mainz has just undone the "vandalism" committed by Ferkelparade, and the Homofuerst sentence is back. Hmm, what to do, what to do? Textorus (talk) 06:40, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a German native speaker. The german article de:Gaylord says Homofürst corresponds to Gaylord (inded, it is the literal translation), which is an insulting word, no expression of gay proud. Hans Urian (talk) 10:29, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've warned the IP editor to stop doing it, but only on the basis that we don't need to use a German noun in the English Wikipedia to denote such a simple concept - I hadn't seen this discussion at the time. I have the article watched now too, so we should be able to deal with it easily enough - we can get it semi-protected for a short while if necessary. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Or just as it is spelled? I suspect that answer was a humorous one, but if you google "vietnamese pronunciation guide" you will find quite a few websites that may help. Textorus (talk) 01:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
QE2LS -- The question is actually not too linguistically meaningful in the form in which you asked it; all languages are constantly changing in small ways, which add up over time. Some languages may have strikingly archaic features (such as the Icelandic case system, Classical Arabic phonemic system etc.), but no living language is overall the same as a language spoken a thousand years ago etc., and the stories about Elizabethan English being spoken in Appalachia etc. are just myths... AnonMoos (talk) 11:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is almost certainly untrue that "most language(s) came about via conquests in the last few thousand years". Most languages have probably not moved very far (geographically) in the last few thousand years, and rather few of them have spread by conquest. --ColinFine (talk) 20:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well Wiktionary gives pylons as the plural of pylon, presumably as it's a word that has been completely assimilated into English. My gut feeling is that either form would be acceptable. Rojomoke (talk) 09:40, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my take on the question, if I may. * Short: plural of "pylon" is "pylons", so plural of "tetrapylon" is "tetrapylons". Were it to be anything different would be absurd. * Long version: were "tetrapylon" a Latin or Greekloan-word, then there may be a minute, pedantic, and artificial{{POV}} rationale for not pluralising it by just adding an s. However, the word presumably didn't exist in Latin or Ancient Greek. It is not a loan-word, it's a native English neologism. It's made up of either (a) Greek (as it were) "loan-prefix" tetra plus Greek loan-word pylon, or (b) a Greek "loan-prefix" plus a former Greek loan-word, now thoroughly naturalised. Were I to hazard a guess, it would be that the modern Greek word for a tetrapylon is technically a loan-word, as it was probably used in English first. Or I may possibly be completely wrong about the whole thing. --Shirt58 (talk)Caveat: closest I came to Classics was reading Ulysses. And even then, I mostly only read the funny bits.
"Sticking to her own way and pace a little though, she's a hard worker"? But it is difficult to translate without context. 頑張り屋 could be translated into three different ways. See this. Oda Mari (talk) 14:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It may vary from one country to another, but in the UK you would only get this in a teacher to pupil relationship (if I understand your question correctly) See here for example.--Shantavira|feed me17:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Such rules of address vary greatly between cultures and societies, between different situations within cultures and societies, and over time - in much of my past experience, particularly the last 20 years (2/5ths) of it, what you say would simply not be true, but it might be in your own situation. For your question to be answered relevantly for you, you will have to specify your own cultural and social milieu, and someone with specific first-hand knowledge of it (likely an older adult) would have to reply. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:36, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Last name without title is to me (in the US) a formality used only in newspapers, and a term of endearment among highschool-college age guys. I don't think it's really used anywhere else here. Lexicografía (talk) 18:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Practice has changed in the UK. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, set in the latter part of the 19th Century, the protagonist and his colleague address each other as "Holmes" and "Watson". In a similar circumstance today they would almost certainly address each other by their first names. --rossb (talk) 19:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As others hinted above, this varies greatly from one person/group to another, as it's mostly a matter of personal style. Like Lexicografia points out, it's common among guys (I went through high school and college being called by my last name, and my friends from back then still call me that). Another common usage is for talking about someone who is not present, particularly professors/superiors (for example, "I haven't taken Smith's class yet, but I hear it's good"), but again there are probably big variations from one person to another in how this is used. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Up to WWII, in Britain colleagues who were not close friends would address each other by surname: "What do you think, Johnson?" I'm not sure when that changed - during the 50's I suspect. On the other hand, when my father wrote to one of my teachers (in the 70's) as "Dear Stokes", this was a joke; because he and Mr Stokes had been at the same school at the same time (though they didn't in fact remember each other). Certainly there are very few circumstances in Britain today, apart from the armed forces, where you would address somebody by their surname alone. --ColinFine (talk) 20:41, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your first sentence also applied in Australia, Colin. It certainly did in formal contexts, because there's the famous anecdote about the then Prime Minister, Bob Menzies (1949-66), who wrote to the Chairman of the ABC, Sir James Darling, and started out "My dear Darling". The only time I was ever addressed by my surname alone was by school teachers. It virtually never happens now. School friends are far more likely to come up with some goofy name arising from a particular incident which you had to be at to fully appreciate, rather than ever calling each other by their surname. Time was when people who did not know you but knew your name, would address you as Mr, Mrs, Miss <surname>. The police in particular always did this; but now, they take a look at your licence and routinely assume the legal given name shown there is the name you prefer to go by. Which is not always the case. Which is partly why I'm currently in the process of changing my legal given name from whatever it is to Jack. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:30, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Close friends call me by my last name all the time, but that's probably because there were lots of other Adams in elementary/high school, and now it's just a habit. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:29, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
US here as well. It's not uncommon for men to address other men as "Mr. <surname>" when they are coworkers or friends with no sense of superiority involved. For instance, the maintenance guys that I work with. Neither one of us is above the other as far as work goes. We're of similar age, salary, etc. But it wouldn't be unusual for us to say "Mr. <surname>" especially when one of us enters a room. Dismas|(talk)02:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a home in New Orleans...
Apropos the "hometown" discussion and the consensus among non-Americans that the term sounded "folksy", I was wondering how speakers of American and Un-American English feel about the word "home" itself. My impression is that speakers in the United States use the term far more often, and in far more contexts, than speakers elsewhere. Americans say things like "Welcome to our home", "We bought a new home", even (shudder) "We live in a ranch home", apparently out of the sentiment, fostered by real estate agents, that there's something warm and welcoming about the word "home". It's for just this reason that I avoid it like the plague, preferring to use specific terms like "house" or "condo" or "apartment" or "mansion" or "brownstone" or "yurt". What is the situation in the UK, Australia, Ireland, et cetera? Has this mawkish overuse of "home" reached your shores? And on an unrelated note: In the sentence "I walked home," what is the part of speech of "home"? Is it merely a noun without a preposition, or is it actually an adverb, a contraction of "homeward"? LANTZYTALK17:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
From a UK perspective, the word "home" does tend to be used by agents in trying to sell buildings for living in, and when one wants to give the impression of somewhere warm, cosy, snug, to which people belong. But I think that Brits probably use the term less in that way than many Americans do. Your average Brit is much more likely to say "we're thinking of moving house" than "we're thinking of getting a new home", for example. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A house is not always a home nor a home a house. As for "walking home", it can mean more than walking towards home, it can also imply reaching it, as "he walked home alone." Cf. "he's just rounded third base and now he's headed home." [i.e. towards Home Plate in baseball], where the sense of direction as opposed to completion is implied in "headed". —— Shakescene (talk) 18:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding overuse of "home" by USians: I haven't really noticed that. I'm from the US and I could never picture anyone saying "we bought a new home", although the other examples you cite sound marginally better; as you point out, when you say "welcome to our home" you're not just welcoming someone into a physical building, but into a safe, cozy place. ("Welcome to our home" still sounds awkward to me pragmatically, if I were throwing a dinner party I'd say "welcome to my house!" or "you're welcome to come to my house anytime" or something; for a more illustrative example, imagine some dramatic movie stuff like "I welcomed you into my home and then you betrayed me!", where "I welcomed you into my house" just doesn't pack that punch). And, to further drive this point "home" (snicker snicker) and piggyback off of Shakescene's observation, "house" and "home" don't always overlap; take, for example, "and this house just ain't no home // anytime she goes away".
I'm American, born and raised in the Midwest. ‘Home’ to me means either a) one's current residence, even if on a trip and staying at a hotel or a friend's place or b) one's hometown or the place where one identifies as one's ‘neck of the woods’, so to speak. It usually brings a mental picture of somewhere comfortable and safe. A ‘house’ is just a specific type of structure, that may or may not be a ‘home’. I would only find it awkward to say “we bought a new home” if the ‘home’ was not inhabited yet. Lexicografía (talk) 19:29, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But what about "I live in a ranch home" or "town home"? I swear there are people who treat the word as a mere synonym of "house". Blissfully, I've never heard anyone speak of "climbing on top of the home", but if I did it wouldn't faze me. LANTZYTALK20:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When referring to the structure itself and not the concept of what it functions as, I'd find it wrong to use "home". "Ranch home" and "town home" would both be incorrect. Lexicografía (talk) 20:06, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In Australia, "home ownership" is highly valued. People will scrimp and save in order to put down a deposit on their own "home" (which admittedly isn't always a house as such, it can be an apartment or a unit); then, they'll invite their family and friends around for a "home house warming" party (which term is always used even if it's not a house as such). 'Home' is often used for the physical object, not just the usage of it. (Driving down an unfamiliar street, I saw some very expensive homes - although 'house' would fit there as well.) One doesn't jump to one's death from the top story of one's home, nor is there such a thing as a 'town home' or a 'semi-detached home' - only 'house' does there. When my kids complained of having to keep their bedrooms reasonably clean, I told them "This is and will always be your home, but it is not your house. The house belongs to your mother and me, and we make the rules. ...." (my parental rant would usually continue for some minutes; I'm just bringing you the relevant bits). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, Lantzy has gotten the section header wrong, although I suspect he did that intentionally to highlight the use or (in his eyes) misuse of the word home. We have a nice article on the famous song, which should make it obvious why it refers to a "house," not a "home." Grin.
Second, Lantzy, don't work yourself up too much, buddy, over the delightful elasticity of the English language, which is in fact one of its glories. The word home is a perfectly good one and has been in constant daily use for more than a thousand years now, which is longer than any of us can remember. So lighten up a bit, will ya? Grin. Just a few short decades ago, many Britons were much exercised over "vulgar" (= American, natch) words such as weekend and okay too - but by all accounts, the horror has long since dissipated.
Third, as others have already alluded, the difference between house and home, no matter what country you live in, is one of denotation versus connotation. House means the physical structure; home suggests not only the place but also the feelings associated with it. Indeed, the immensely popular song Home, Sweet Home when played at public gatherings in the 19th century often brought grizzled miners, cowboys, soldiers, and other macho types to unabashed tears.
Although of course, one can have a home but not a house, as is the case with apartment dwellers and others. All the many possible meanings of home in its work as a noun, a verb, an adverb, or an adjective make a list as long as your arm; go look. Another example of the great versatility of our language.
Yes, for the past hundred years or more, real estate agents and builders in the U.S. have routinely advertised homes for sale instead of mere houses; see this example from the 1916 Sears kit house catalog. Which, though it may be a venial linguistic sin, is actually quite clever on their part when you stop and think about it: who but my friend Lantzy wouldn't prefer to acquire a new home instead of a mere house? Grin.
However, regional differences are at work here, as always. Speakers from one part of the U.S. may not be familiar with longstanding idiomatic usages in other parts of this big country. To give but one example: here in Texas, as across the Deep South generally, a common rural idiom from way back for "let's go home" is "let's go to the house." (Pronunciation is terribly hard to convey in writing, but it's something like "let's goat (th')house," approx. 3.5 syllables in quick succession.) Not something sophisticated, I'm-too-sexy-for-my-clothes city folks would ever say, but a common old-time way of speaking still heard today in the countryside. Which here shows the reverse of what Lantzy was asking about: the substitution of house when home (in the adverbial sense) is meant. (Compare the locative case of Latin domī; see also the French chez nous.)
Of course you're right that this isn't wrong, Textorus. It's nothing more than a shifting usage that happens to be a peeve of mine, and all peeves are silly from the linguist's standpoint. I suppose I could try to justify my peeve with a specious argument; I could argue, based on that Frost quote, that "home" is an abstraction and that to use it in a concrete way, to talk of "buying a home" or "selling a home", causes us to forget that abstract sense. But of course that's nonsense. A word may have many senses, some abstract and some concrete, and that's just fine. Actually, the only real reason I personally dislike "home" is because it has come to have a cuddly, cozy connotation, and a cold-hearted bastard like me prefers not to use cuddly, cozy vocabulary. (By the same token, I hate the word "folks", although it's perfectly valid, because it reminds me of speeches given at diners by politicians with rolled-up sleeves.) The purpose of my original post wasn't to solicit affirmation of my good taste in word use, but to determine whether this usage is peculiar to the United States. LANTZYTALK21:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Appreciate ya, buddy. Stop by the house sometime, make yourself at home, we'll have us some homebrew and a big house party. I 'spec underneath that cold, hard exterior you're just homefolks like the rest of us, after all. Grin. Textorus (talk) 22:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To me, as a born and bred American, "ranch home" sounds like an architecural style,, whereas "ranch house" sounds like a building on a ranch where the ranch owner lives. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I regard "condo", "apartment" and "mansion" as corruptions of the language when used by real estate agents.
I also recall what to me at the time was a strange usage of home from my youth in 1950s Australia. My grandparents, proud fourth generation Australians themselves, were planing the grand holiday to Britain. (It was a six week sea journey.) Grandfather announced that they would be visiting home. We were all very British then. HiLo48 (talk) 22:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
HiLo, I've occasionally read the same thing in other reminiscences by Australians. When did that identification with being British cease, and why, exactly? Apparently the same shift occurred in my own country very quickly, between 1763 and 1775, but the reasons are well documented in that case. Probably I should ask this question on the Humanities desk. Textorus (talk) 23:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hard to answer that objectively because I was there and part of it all, but it probably began in WWII when the dumb British generals got a whole lot of Aussies captured and made POWs by the Japanese in Singapore, then we said "no" to Britain wanting more of our troops in Europe while we were a bit busy fighting the Japanese in these parts. Later it just seemed a natural thing to question the point of a connection with a country 12,000 miles away which didn't seem to care much about us. They were our mortal enemies in cricket too. HiLo48 (talk) 02:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another milestone was the creation of Australian citizenship on 26 January 1949 (an achievement of Ben Chifley's government). Prior to that date, Australians were legally British subjects. Chifley's successor Menzies (1949-66) would not have taken that step, as he proudly proclaimed himself "British to the bootstraps", and at a reception for the Queen in Canberra in 1963, he quoted "I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die" at her, which made her blush with embarrassment. Many Aussies blushed with the embarrassment of their Prime Minister so blatantly fawning to monarchy. It was around that time that Menzies became the first and only Australian to be made a Knight of the Thistle (hmm, funny that ...). Nevertheless, on the Queen's visits here from 1954 through to the late '60s, the people waving British Union Jacks far outweighed those waving Australian Flags. After a while, the numbers of flag wavers dwindled significantly in any case. No disrespect intended to the Queen there; the whole monarchy thing just became an irrelevance to most Australians. We voted to retain the monarchy at the 1999 referendum, but only because we were asked the wrong question. -- (Jack of Oz=) 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strewth, and I thought I was going to be the non-objective one! LOL. As for that wrong question, opinion polls seem to indicate that we will end up abandoning the monarchy, but only after Elizabeth II departs the throne. That could be a while though, since her mum lived to 101. HiLo48 (talk) 03:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strewth = God's truth, obviously. Has this medieval expression survived all the way down to current usage in Australia, really? Gadzooks! Textorus (talk) 06:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We learned to sing "Waltzing Matilda" in elementary school, and I loved it. But all I remember now is something about a sheepherder sitting under a tree playing with his, um, billabong. Textorus (talk) 08:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, of course it was the wrong question. We weren't asked if we wanted to replace the monarchy with a republic. We were asked if we were happy to have one very specific way of running a republic, among many possible ways of running a republic, as an alternative to the monarchy. We did not as a nation fancy that very specific way of running a republic, so we said no thanks. The main question has still never been asked of us. Had a more transparent process applied in 1999, we would have become a republic in 2001 because the mood of the country was for change, the Queen's continuing to be alive notwithstanding. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 04:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes, but that's exactly why you need a specific question on a referendum. It's all very well asking 'Do you want change?', and then if the country's in the mood for change everyone says 'yes', but then what do you do with that? The choice isn't between 'Queen' and 'not-Queen', it's between one specific system of government that involves the Queen and...what? That's what needs to be decided and put on a referendum. You don't want to be handing legislators a blank slate to create a system of government, any system of government, just as long as it doesn't involve the Queen: you want them to create a specific system that you've chosen. If the system proposed in the referendum was the main alternative being considered and proposed, then it was exactly the right question. If there was a single different system being agitated for by most republican campaigners, then it was probably the wrong question and this other system should have been on the referendum. But you can't just ask 'Should we get rid of the Queen?' or 'Should things change?' or 'Do you want more nice things, and fewer bad things?', because you can't actually do anything honest and productive with the answer. 109.155.33.219 (talk) 12:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When I moved from New England to attend college (university) in California, I was struck by the common use of the phrase "back East". If anything, it was used more commonly by native Californians, even those born to West Coast natives, than by those who came from an Eastern home. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When I started visiting New England I was struck with the common use of the phrase "Down East". I grew up in Buffalo, New York, not that far from Maine. But hearing "down east", my first thought is "Florida". To address the original question, phrases like "we bought a new home" or "we live in a ranch home" sound wrong to me, and I can't recall hearing people say such things, unless they are playing with words. And I'm American (in fact, I just spent some time trying to find info about any of my (paternal) ancestors' migration from Europe and failed with all but one line--every other line has been American longer than there are existent records). Pfly (talk) 09:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How odd - I've had a totally different experience. Literally every single California native I have ever known would use "out" rather than "back" to refer to the East Coast. As in, "Boy, I didn't think I'd like it out here in Boston [Washington, New York, Philly, etc.], but..." or "Yeah, I like coming out to the East Coast now and then..." I haven't heard the (to my ears) truly weird phrase back west but the day is young, figuratively speaking. Back home in Cali sounds perfectly natural, of course. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 15:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a native Californian, I would never say "out", nor do I recall having ever heard anybody say that. And to me, "Cali" is offensive, unless you're a rap singer. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No offense intended - I haven't actually heard the "Cali" bit spoken aloud, it just sounded natural to my doubtless uncouth Eastern ears. But I have heard "out," describing the East Coast, from folks hailing from both the Bay Area and the Inland Empire. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 18:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For example, in Spanish, "minor key" is "tono menor" and "treble clef" is "clave de sol". As for what we call "clave" in the context of Afro-Cuban music, in Spanish they call it "clave" as well. LANTZYTALK21:56, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Man
In the phrase "three man team the barricades", is the word "man" a singular noun being used as a plural being used as an adjective to form a compound noun being used as a verb? Less ridiculously, what part of speech is the second word in the phrases "two egg omelette", "three dog night" and "four piece band"? Noun adjunct, sure, but is it a plural? 81.131.66.146 (talk) 23:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As in "We three-man-teamed the barricades". Not elegant, but it might be spoken in some contexts. Here "three-man team" is a compound of a compound converted into a verb. Plural forms are used in non-final elements of noun-noun compounds only in certain specific cases... AnonMoos (talk) 13:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How would a 'friend' be defined in 2010, to differentiate from an aquaintence or a collegue? When I was a child I had the usual circle of childhood friends. But none of my adult friendships have been as close as those friendships, perhaps inevitably due to the lack of time and many distractions. What differentiates a friend from an acquaintance? 92.15.12.54 (talk) 23:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For some people, nothing at all. That is to say, many people today use the word "friend" to mean "acquaintance", or perhaps "acquaintance not actively disliked". Obviously, others are more selective. The fact that there exists no consensus is, in my experience, a frequent source of confusion and comic tension. If you are one of the more selective types, how are you supposed to feel when someone you've just met starts explicitly referring to you as a friend? If you're the sort of person who assumes the best of others, you presumably find it agreeable, even flattering. If you're like me, you feel like you're being sold a car. But even I could never muster the pissiness required to set the person straight. There's no nice way to say, "I'm not your friend, palooka." So, in the end, the promiscuous prevail. LANTZYTALK00:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would say a friend is (1) somebody you enjoy being with, and (2) somebody you are prepared to do favors for and who is prepared to do favors for you. Looie496 (talk) 00:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Um, actually the world existed before the year 2010, and the meanings of the words you mention have not changed in ages. When I am curious about the difference in meaning between related words, I always find it very helpful to consult a dictionary:
Synonyms 1. Acquaintance, associate, companion, friend refer to a person with whom one is in contact. An acquaintance is someone recognized by sight or someone known, though not intimately: a casual acquaintance. An associate is a person who is often in one's company, usually because of some work, enterprise, or pursuit in common: a business associate. A companion is a person who shares one's activities, fate, or condition: a traveling companion; companion in despair. A friend is a person with whom one is on intimate terms and for whom one feels a warm affection: a trusted friend. 3. familiarity, awareness.
Having said that, let me also say that you are discovering one of the secrets of adulthood, which we don't usually tell children about. Probably for all but the most gregarious, extroverted people, the older you get, the fewer close friends you make; that's just the normal way of things, nothing to be particularly alarmed about. And as you suggest, the pressure of careers, lack of time for socializing, and perhaps family committments are contributory reasons. But the friendships you do make in adult life tend to be deeper than school or college ones, in my experience.
But some people are in the careless habit of using friend to mean anybody I happen to know, even if I met them just once. I remember back during the AIDS crisis, I sometimes heard people say things like "Over 200 of my friends have died." Which always came as a startling thought to me; obviously, they did not mean they had 200 close, intimate friends, or they would have been psychologically devastated, probably beyond repair. I lost one close friend and two acquaintances, which was very difficult. So don't be hung up on other people's use or misuse of the word friend: look into your own heart, and you will see your real friends' faces there. If you don't think you have as many as you want, join a group, club, or team of some kind and circulate a little more. Textorus (talk) 00:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If we're talking about current times, on the web, the discussion is clearly incomplete without mention of Facebook friends. (I have 102 of them! But I doubt if many of you care.) HiLo48 (talk) 00:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far as understanding Shakespeare, most reputable English dictionaries cover most of the unfamiliar words used there. There are also modernized versions of his plays available. (As well as No Fear Shakespeare that Textorus mentioned, there's No Sweat Shakespeare along the same lines.) Lexicografía (talk) 01:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you really want Old English, it is for all intents and purposes a foreign language, and you can't understand it with a "guide" alone. People take Old English classes just like they would take French, German, or Chinese classes; you have to approach it as a different language. 129.237.245.186 (talk) (=Rjanag) 01:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a bit of shakespeare-reading advice, you need to keep in mind that a lot of the chatter in his plays is bawdy innuendo and double-entendre's that would have made perfect sense to Elizabethan peasantry, but not so much so now. for instance, the whole extended bit about "biting one's thumb" at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet is the equivalent of saying 'eat me', and all the dialog is chopped logic as the manservants try to insult each other without looking like they're insulting each other. Same crap you'll see in grammar school, where each side is trying to egg the other to do something that they can run to the teacher about, just couched in 17th century euphemisms. it often helps to think about the context of the scene first, and then try to interpret odd phrasings in terms of whatever silliness the characters seem to be involved in. --Ludwigs205:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Like the many episodes of The Office in which Tim keeps asking Gareth about whether he'd invade another man's tunnel, take an enemy from behind, or various things like that... rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Shakespeare's Bawdy (1948) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0415050766) is the classic work on all the naughty bits in Shakespeare's work, by lexicographer Eric Partridge. And there's a lot of that, which was not really aimed at peasants, who were rural farm workers, but rather to the urban types who attended the plays, from working class groundlings up to people of rank. But Shakespeare and his contemporary writers were also in love with creating new and exuberant ways of expressing their thoughts in words, and in wordplay; which his audiences delighted in as being part of the entertainment. Nowadays, we generally prefer serious plays and movies to use ordinary language, though comedians have more leeway with puns and metaphors, etc. (Think Groucho Marx or Monty Python.) It really, really helps to watch a video or see a live performance of the play, not to read it out of a book - that wasn't at all how Will intended his work to be enjoyed. Watching the play being performed, you quickly pick up the sense of the words in a way many people find difficult to do from the dry black-and-white text alone.
You may (with justice) hate this suggestion, but the best way to learn a working (non-academic) knowledge of what Shakespeare's saying is to participate in a play of Shakespeare or one of his contemporaries, or to join one of the many renaissance faires or similar historical reenactments in some capacity. It definitely beats going (as I did in high school English) line by line, footnote by footnote through the text, most of which was written not for the printed page but as a screenplay is today: to be spoken and heard, while being kept under the severest guard from the jealous eyes of rival companies always looking for fresh material to steal (no effective copyright in those days, so usually not intended for publication). You'll consult the footnotes from time to time, but with a much better understanding of what they're talking about, and in live exchange with others who also want to figure out the best way of presenting the spoken text. It's also easier when you know roughly where a scene or act is going, and can keep the characters straight because you're seeing live human beings rather than names on a page. ¶ Comparing your favorite Bible passages (and I'm not proselytising here, since I'm not a believer myself) in the Authorised/King James Version of 1611, [or the contemporary Catholic Douai version, or the Jewish Publication Society translation of 1905] with any of several excellent English translations of the last 60 years, can also be very helpful. See http://www.biblegateway.com for the 1611 and many later English translations (with the unfortunate exception of several important Jewish, Catholic and Anglican ones that don't accord with the site's Evangelical beliefs or else may not have given it the necessary rights). ¶ As for videos of Shakespeare plays, two that I think are excellent are Derek Jacobi's portrayal of Richard II in the British/PBS Shakespeare Plays series of the 1970's, and Kenneth Branagh's Henry V. Robert de Niro is also good in The Merchant of Venice and I found, to my pleasant surprise, the Leonardo diCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet to be both a lot of fun and rather good even with its conscious popularisation set in the beach town of Verona, California. (Regrettably, Branagh's other two Shakespeare films, Hamlet and Much Ado about Nothing, are failures in my book. Directing yourself is fraught with perils that will usually defeat you.) Shakespeare in Love, while only using brief extracts from the Bard himself, is very true to the spirit of his plays. [Details about all these films and videos can, of course, be found, together with other opinions and other productions, at http://www.imdb.com ] —— Shakescene (talk) 06:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The original Douai Bible (before the 18th-century Challoner revisions) was known for often being a literalistic translation of the Latin Vulgate, and sometimes having inappropriately Latinesque vocabulary and syntax... AnonMoos (talk) 13:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good point that I didn't know (at least in detail) before. When I said "contemporary", I was thinking mainly that it was translated at almost the same time as the series of Protestant Bibles that culminated in the Authorised (King James) Version of 1611. Bible Gateway, I see, now lets you see passages (or books) from the 1899 version of the Doaui (or Douay-Rheims) Bible. I have no idea if the (U.S.) JPS translators of 1905 were working from an earlier English-language text, or created one of their own cast in roughly the same language as that of the Authorised/King James Version, the Revised Version and the American Standard Version. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When I was at school we had some books that acted as guides and explained all the obscurities. Blowed if I can remember what they were called though! "So-and-so's guide to Henry V" or something like that. You might like to see if you can find one of those. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, a good edition of a shakespeare play will also often include a glossary and explanatory glosses/footnotes for difficult cultural references and stuff. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's a way to make understanding Shakespeare a doddle - learn Middle English. There is in fact a very well-known bit of the Canterbury Tales that sums this discussion up perfectly:
Another vote for watching a play - either live or DVD. The actors' job is to help you understand the meaning, even if some of the words are unfamiliar. Try not to concentrate on catching every single word but just allow the overall meaning to come across to you. You'll find as your ear becomes more tuned in, you'll pick up more. It's also best to try to find a production that has been well praised. My most recent favourite is the RSC Hamlet with David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius. With a DVD, you can also turn on the subtitles which might help. If you are in the USA (Canada, too, I think) you can stream this production of Hamlet for free from PBS Great Performances site - it will be available from there for some years.
Or, indeed, pick up a paperback and bellow bits at the kitchen wall a few times. Not only will it help make it comprehensible, but it'll provide hours of light amusement for anyone in earshot. Shimgray | talk | 18:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but I think I'd prefer to take advantage of the RSC's 8 weeks rehearsal time that the actors put into making Hamlet understandable rather than my own unaided efforts, but perhaps you are a better actor than me!! Here's a fascinating 'scrapbook' of the RSC rehearsal process:
Hello. Can someone please give me a short summary about the following websites (i.e., what the sites are all about), preferably including links to English language Wikipedia articles (or websites) where I can find more information about the sites:
I came upon the links the other day, became curious about the sites' contents, tried Google Translate and searching Wikipedia on a number of keywords, but no satisfactory results. Many thanks. 125.163.228.192 (talk) 02:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(1)Arms of Savigny-sur-OrgeLouis-Nicolas Davout, Marshal of the French Empire Although it sometimes has problems with tense (e.g translating past as present perfect as in "I've been" instead of "I was"), the Google Chrome translation of the home page http://eurodesvilles.populus.org/ gives the general idea. Apparently, before the formal introduction of the euro and the suppression of the franc, mark, lira, peseta, etc., some towns in France were allowed to mint their own temporary "euros" for short periods between 1992 and 1998 to exchange at a fixed rate, in order to get citizens used to the new currency. The website's creator collects these relatively rare and highly temporary coins which are no longer legal tender. Before its adoption, the French favored calling it the écu (European Currency Unit), which is also the name of an old French coin; while the Germans and others successfully championed the name "Euro". (I personally think this was a bad choice, because I can think of half a dozen different pronunciations of "Euro", each of them perfectly valid in some language of the Eurozone). Hence the website's name Ecus et Euros de Ville ("Municipal Ecus and Euros" or "Ecus and Euros of the City"). The specific page for Savigny-sur-Orge (a commune or town near Paris) discusses both sides of the coin, one of them showing the lion from the commune's coat of arms, and the other the Napoleonic Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout [1770-1823] (born D'Avoût, but removing the aristocratic prefix during the Revolution, later named Duke of Auerstaedt in honour of his service at the Battle of Jena-Auerstaedt), who after serving the Emperor during the Hundred Days, became mayor of Savigny during the Bourbon Restoration of 1814-1830. Click the "français" link to the left of the articles for Savigny and Marshal Davout to get more information, pictures, maps, etc. (You might also have more luck with the automatic machine translations of those pages than you've had with others.) Although I could try a full formal blazon of the town's arms, let me try to describe it in semi-popular terms as a red lion rampant holding a Polish lance (with Polish pennant) on gold, underneath the gold French royal fleur-de-lys (lilies) on blue. —— Shakescene (talk) 03:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the excellent explanation. By the way, do English language Wikipedia have article on the (temporary Euro) coins? Also, was the coin legal tender only in the commune or also in entire France? 125.163.228.192 (talk) 04:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See History of the euro and the extensive set of Wikipedia articles listed in the Euro navigation box at the bottom, which, however, doesn't seem to answer your question directly. Now that some of the linguistic murkiness has been clarified, you might want to post the question about the status of these local coins at the Miscellaneous or Humanities Reference Desks, in case they're being watched by a numismatist (I was more of a philatelist in my youth). I didn't want to do detailed translation of those pages (my French being weak enough that it would take me significantly longer to do so than someone who speaks the language more fluently), but I should add one point from the Savigny page, that the coins weren't issued by the municipality itself, but by her merchants, partly to promote the 10th anniversary (1986-96) of their Marshal Davout fair (with the slogan "why search elsewhere for what you can find close to home?"). Along the edge of the reverse, you can read "The merchants of Savigny-sur-Orge"; "1986-1996 Davout Fair [or market]"; along the obverse, "5th anniversary [?] of the Euro, 18-31 March 1996" with the 12 stars representing the Eurozone's members at the time. The Savigny page also gives the merchant's website for information (no coins), together with the e-mail address and telephone numbers of "Francis", who might have some coins to offer (no guarantee, of course, that he speaks English). —— Shakescene (talk) 05:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About the second site (www.deutsches-reich-heute.de): In short, it is apparently a Kommissarische Reichsregierung group. The group's obscurity, my lack of knowledge about German topics (and language), as well as its German content, made the site's identification rather difficult. 125.163.228.192 (talk) 05:01, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One interesting part of that site (I speak almost zero German myself) is the 1941 order from the Fuehrer via his secretary Martin Bormann deprecating the use of Fraktur (Old German) lettering as being the product of "Swabian Jews" in favour of the Latin type and script we're used to seeing today. There's also a PDF showing different types of German script and their finer points, such as ligatures and double-S. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Latin translation request
Afternoon Reference Desk. Sorry for bothering you, wondered if some of our Latin translators could help with the following request. I need something close to "We care only when asked" translated into Latin. It's part of private research. Any help would be fantastic. doktorbwordsdeeds14:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Curamus solum rogati"? Or Textorus' way, "non curamus nisi rogati", or "nisi rogamur". It's hard to do this unless we know what you are trying to say in English. You could also use "attendimus" or "animadvertimus" for "care", "quaesitus" for "asked", or numerous other words. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you all...I gave dictionaries and guides a good half-an-hour before realising that it was quite an obscure request. Thanks for the help, appriciate it. doktorbwordsdeeds21:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Fullness" isn't even a normal word in English. You won't be able to get anything other than a very silly translation unless you provide some context. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure the word exists, but it is far from being in common usage. Your message above is the first time I think I've seen it used at all outside of like song titles or something, and you were using it in a marked way for pragmatic effect. Anyway, this whole issue is neither here nor there, as it's tangential to the OP's request (which Lexicografia has already addressed anyway, at least as best as can be addressed without further input from the OP). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:07, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh no, you don't get away that easily. 'Fullness' is not a word most people use every day, but so what? Dieticians often talk to their clients about stopping eating as soon as they have a feeling of fullness, and nobody blinks an eye. When was the last time you said the words 'macroscopic', 'bluster' or 'frenetic'? They and many others remain "normal" words despite the infrequency of their use. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with 202.142. Having worked the ref desk for a whole week now, I'm seeing a definite trend: so many questioners and respondents seem to have the idea that anything they personally don't know, say, or do has no existence or validity; that their one tiny circle of experience constitutes the center of the cosmos, and the One Right Universal Way of thinking, being, and speaking. Most interesting. Is this what comes from a childhood run/ruined by helicopter parents? Just hypothesizin' . . . Textorus (talk) 04:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Spanish pronunciation
I'm wondering if the sound /ŋ/ is present anywhere in Spanish. I'm a student of the language and the ŋ sound seems to be slipping in to my pronunciation of words like "quién", "con" and "están". Is this OK? Lexicografía (talk) 17:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That seems to be the case. Here is the paragraph in question:
Although there are only three nasal phonemes and two lateral ones, /l/ and the nasal consonants assimilate to the place of articulation of following consonants[27] even across word boundaries.[28] Nasals are only contrastive before vowels; for most speakers, only [n] appears before a pause, though in Caribbean varieties this may instead be [ŋ] or an omitted nasal with nasalization of the preceding vowel.[29][30]
So in other words, you get contrastive [m], [n], and [ɲ] word-medially before vowels, a bunch more allophones before consonants (but they don't contrast with each other), and in word-final positions only [n] (at least, according to this WP article). rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
American/British English differences? BBC UK's use of "with"...
A caption from this article reads "It is unknown how long the couple had been in Tenerife, a popular place with British holidaymakers." That immediately struck me as odd. I would have phrased it "...a place popular with British holidaymakers." As written, to my American eyes it is synonymous with "...a popular place that also happens to have British holidaymakers as an accessory worth noting." That's a bit over the top, but you get my point. Does the original text seem strange to anyone else? Is this an editorial goof, my own regionalism, or a American/British divergence? The Masked Booby (talk) 07:11, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a balance between two awkwardnesses, the one you noted versus the uncolloquial sound of following a noun with a modifying adjective. You wouldn't (in the last couple of centuries) say "a place popular" ("Let's go there, it seems to be a place popular"), so it sounds odd even when it's a contraction of "a place that[or which]is[or has been or has become]popular with British holidaymakers". I think it's just that different English-speaking communities (and people in different contexts) handle the difficulty differently. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One stray sentence in a single travel article should not be given undue weight as representing the prevalence any particular usage, good or bad; sometimes, as we wiki-editors know too well, you just screw up and get careless with the keyboard, ya know?
However, for the record, a simple google search reveals:
947,000 results for a general web search of "a popular place with"
109,000 results for a general web search of "a place popular with"
33 results in 19th century books for the phrase "a popular place with"
0 results in 19th century books for the phrase "a place popular with"
163,000 results in 19th century books for the phrase "popular with"
Can someone tell me how to say "the miracle of the pope's return" in Latin? I'd appreciate it. It's for a short story I'm writing. Explaining the context is too involved.--162.84.161.15 (talk) 08:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mirabile recursi Papae. Or Miraculum regressi Papae. Take your pick.
When some shocking event (murder, rape, take your pick) happens in a relatively small place, the media will invariably describe the community there as "tight-knit" or "close-knit". But why is it that communities are never so described in the good times? Or in tourist literature? Or in encyclopedias?
If they really were so "close-knit" as claimed, surely this would apply all the time. And be worthy of mentioning not only in the bad times. No? OK, maybe they're suggesting the community responds to the crisis and rallies to support the most grievously affected families or whomever. That's a nice image. But they don't become "tight-knit" only at that moment; they were always "tight-knit", but when the occasion demands, they're "tighter-knit".
Is this amenable to logical analysis, or is it just one more of those journalist cliches, like the way every funeral is described as "a moving ceremony" (as if that would surprise anyone, or be worthy of mentioning, as if to suggest the usual funeral is cold and unemotional). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh Jack, in this mortal life it's always a mistake to say "never." Here's just a few articles I googled with "tight knit community" that contradict your assertion:
And the list goes on; those are just from the first page of 580,000 search results - some negative situations, yeah, but plenty of positive ones too. Textorus (talk) 09:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with those comments. However, in my experience "tight-knit" can also sometimes be used by the press as a euphemism for "keeping their business to themselves", and not willing to talk to outsiders, journalists or (perhaps) the police. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:08, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It can mean anything. This from our Bob Dylan article: "Dylan’s parents, Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community."Bus stop (talk) 11:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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