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April 10

hundes ars in tino naso

It's an insult in old German, meaning 'hound’s arse in thine nose'. Does it have a common equivalent in English? Thanks. Omidinist (talk) 07:25, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's not its meaning, but a translation. If you can say what it means, or when it might be used, then that might be helpful. Bazza (talk) 08:36, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I knew the answers to your questions, I woudln't bother you. Omidinist (talk) 10:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As Bazza 7 implied, context is everything. Hopefully a German speaker will drop by shortly. I cannot think of an "equivalent" in a literal sense, but there are of course plenty of less canine insults that might well be used in the same sort of context. Unfortunately Wikipedia does not yet have a List of insults.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:52, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect the expression has fallen into disuse sometime in the last twelve centuries, and I have no hope an Old-High-German speaker will drop by any time soon. --Lambiam 12:06, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the context: https://philobiblon.co.uk/?p=4927. It's at the end of the first paragraph. Note the use of the word 'meaning'. Omidinist (talk) 11:02, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Omidinist: It's not a bother, but you may not have understood my comment. In any case, a quick Google search revealed that it refers to a Burgundian Law which required someone convicted of stealing a dog to kiss a dog's anus. It's referenced on P28 of Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, edited by Guy Halsall, ISBN 0-521-81116-3. There is no direct English equivalent of the phrase that I can immediately think of. Bazza (talk) 11:20, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Solved. Thank you very much. Omidinist (talk) 11:28, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. Omidinist (talk) 11:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Next to the injunction not only to kiss the pooch's posterior but also to do so in public (jubemus coram omni populo posteriora ipsius osculetur), the convict under Burgundian Law also had to pay the dog owner five solidi. Although the punishment under Burgundian Law and the Old High German insult use the same imagery, I do not think there is a direct connection. As to the hundes ars, the phrase was earlier reported as Hundes ars in dínero nasó^[1] or Vndes ars in tine naso,^[2] from an early 9th-century Old High German glossary, glossed in Latin as canis culum in tuo naso. We can only guess for which occasions this used to be deemed an apt insult. Was it used as a reprimand for someone who was too inquisitive? Or was it used similarly generically as calling someone a fuckface? The uncertainty makes a search for equivalents too speculative. --Lambiam 12:06, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good Points. Thank you. Omidinist (talk) 13:53, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Makes me think of the similar old Dutch insult hondsvot. (Roughly "dog's cunt / arse".) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:10, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And of its cognate German insult Hundsfott. (Roughly "dog's cunt.) --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 10:26, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's also the old Swedish variant "hundsfott". I wonder whether the Swedish and High German variants might have been derived from Low German. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:02, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

April 11

What is this wide U-shaped symbol? (Transliteration of Hebrew)

At the bottom of this page, they transliterate מקום (with niqqud: מָקוֹם) as [måUqom]. Except it's not quite a U. What does this symbol represent and what is its Unicode encoding? Is it there because of the kamatz, or does it indicate a stressed syllable, or what? 70.172.194.25 (talk) 02:10, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That bit was copied from our article Root (linguistics), in which we read:

"Similar cases occur in Hebrew, for example Israeli Hebrew מ-ק-מ‎ √m-q-m ‘locate’, which derives from Biblical Hebrew מקום‎ måqom ‘place’, whose root is ק-ו-מ‎ √q-w-m ‘stand’."

Apparently, some code mismatch mishap occurred in the copy-paste process from Unicode to some Unicode-ignorant document preparation system, resulting in the appearance of a random character. --Lambiam 10:25, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Unicode symbol with the closest appearance is the LOWER HALF CIRCLE ◡ (U+25E1); see Geometric Shapes (Unicode block). Depending on the font, it might also be UNION ∪ (U+222A) or N-ARY UNION ⋃ (U+22C3). Less likely, it is the SMILE ⌣ (U+2323). --Lambiam 10:37, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is it meant to symbolize the niqqud, or just a confused error? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:03, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The linked article spells Biblical Hebrew words in square brackets with primary stress marked. The word you pointed out, [måUqom], has the "U" where the stress marker ought to be. So they presumably intended [må'qom], but the vertical tick indicating stress somehow got typeset as a different character that happens to look like a "U". --Amble (talk) 16:26, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, is å used in transliterated Hebrew, or is it meant to be another character? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:15, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See ISO 259. (I don't know if other systems use it; it seems to be consistent in the OP's linked source.) --Amble (talk) 22:28, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Putting it between IPA-style square brackets is confusing, though; in IPA notation a small ring denotes voicelessness. --Lambiam 22:59, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It’s also confusing because they use totally different systems for Biblical Hebrew and modern Israeli Hebrew so that it’s hard to see the connections the article is talking about. —Amble (talk) 01:56, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wazir e-azam

Looks like Prime Minister of Pakistan has a mistranslation of its Urdu name, wazir e-azam, Grand Vizier of Pakistan. Probably should be wazir e-Pakistan, because Quaid-i-Azam is translated as "Great Leader". Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 18:31, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The full name of the office (the transliteration of the Urdu given) is wazīr-e-āzam pākistān. Wazir = vizier, azam = grand, Pakistan is, well, Pakistan. 70.172.194.25 (talk) 20:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The term "Grand Vizier" and its various Arabic, Persian, and Urdu versions all appear to basically mean the same thing as "Prime Minister". Vizier/wazir/etc. just means "advisor" or "minister", and "e-azam" could be translated as great/grand/prime which all mean roughly the same thing. --Jayron 32 11:19, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

April 13

Latin for lava or magma

I'm trying to figure out or invent a possibly acceptable Latin term for "lava" or "magma". According to Merriam-Webster, Oxford English Dictionary/Lexico, and Dictionary.com, the word lava comes from Italian (specifically a Neopolitan dialect), which in turn is descended from the Latin lābēs ("a fall or sliding down"), lābī/lābor ("to slide"), or lavāre ("to wash"). However, Wiktionary (and Online-latin-dictionary.com, but I chiefly searched in Wiktionary) seems to suggest that there is no native Latin word for "lava", and that the borrowing of lava from Italian is considered part of New Latin. It even considers a latinisation of the ancient Greek ῥύαξ (rhyax) as a possible synonym. The same case is for "magma", in which it was simply borrowed directly from the ancient Greek μάγμα (mágma, "paste/kneaded material") and carried over the literal meaning. I tried looking at "igneous", but in Latin the equivalent word simply means "fiery" or "on fire" and is no different from ignifer.

So what I want to ask is, if I were to literally describe "viscous molten rock" as a Latin term, what would be acceptable or at least passable and somewhat understood? I guess if I want to be really simple-minded and literal, I could say rīvī ignium ("rivers of fire"), rīvī Vulcānī (Vulcanus's rivers), fluvius ignifluī/flūmen igniferī ("burning current"), or perhaps igniferī argentum vīvum ("burning mercury", since mercury is a liquid metal in its natural state, and lava/magma in a sense is literally liquid metal and rock)

Any suggestions would be nice. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 00:45, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here’s one idea: take the term that Pliny the Younger used in his famous description of the eruption of Vesuvius in a letter to Tacitus (6:16 here), even if it’s not quite unambiguous that the intended word was lava. I believe the phrase that might work is in the sentence “Jam navibus cinis incidebat, quo propius accederent, calidior et densior; jam pumices etiam nigrique et ambusti et fracti igne lapides; jam vadum subitum ruinaque montis litora obstantia” where one source at least translates igne lapides as “burning rock”. Now there are lots of actual Latin speakers here, however, so hang on to see if one of them corrects this translation - and they can probably get it into the right case for you too. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 02:11, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's ambusti igne lapides ("rocks burnt with fire") that is probably being translated as "burning rock". Igne lapides ("rocks with fire") makes no sense by itself. Deor (talk) 03:01, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In Book 1, line 473, of the Georgics, Virgil uses liquefacta saxa ("molten rocks") for what flows from Etna. Deor (talk) 02:52, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cassell's New Latin Dictionary says of English lava, "render by phrase", giving examples "massa ardens" and "saxa liquefacta". By the way in the passage from Pliny, "igne lapides" is not actually a phrase -- it refers to rocks which have been broken and burned and blackened by fire, and the words "igne lapides" correspond to "rocks...by fire" in this. AnonMoos (talk) 03:11, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The most likely parsing, I think, is to read the noun phrase as ((ambusti et fracti) igne) lapides – rocks ((burnt and broken) by fire), while nigri, not a perfect passive participle in need of an agent, modifies pumices. --Lambiam 08:44, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My Dutch-Latin dictionary (Montijn, published in 1939) translates lava as: (as a liquid mass) saxa liquefacta (-orum, neuter, plural; lit. liquefied rocks); massa ardens (-ae, feminine; lit. glowing mass); (as a dry mass, after solidification) massa sulphurea (-ae, feminine; lit. sulphuric mass, which is scientifically not very accurate, as, although volcanoes are often associated with sulphur deposits, the sulphur is concentrated around vents of gas and hot water, not in the lava). I'd use saxa liquefacta.

Plinius may have been referring to volcanic bombs. Plinian eruptions produce a lot of gas and ash, but not so much lava. The Romans would have known about lava, as quite a lot of it is produced by Etna and Stromboli. They were not familiar with the internals of volcanoes, so no word for magma. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:48, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But is the query for Classical or Modern Latin? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:05, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The query is to invent a possibly acceptable Latin term. What would distinguish "a possibly acceptable Classical Latin term" from "a possibly acceptable Modern Latin term"? --Lambiam 16:00, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Less things for modern speakers than hypothetical Romans, arguably. But the point might be moot. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:12, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Any kind of Latin would do, really. I figured most of the differences between classical and ecclesiastical or contemporary use Latin would be found more in speech patterns and enunciation than in the written form. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 19:48, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Did you dislike rhyax (as in rhyolite)? There are plenty of Latin terms derived from Ancient Greek, so if you don't mind indulging in alternative history, rhyax could have been one of them. Literally it means "stream" with "stream of lava" as an extended sense. (Not sure why we aren't just latinizing lava itself.) Card Zero (talk) 20:40, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Latin wikipedia has la:Lava, and provides a reference from 1738 (this may, however, just give the word from the Italian vernacular, dunno). But the OP asked for a "native Latin word", so it is not clear whether they're satisfied with that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:50, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The same article also mentions rhyax, as above, I see. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:58, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Could this word be considered a slang term?

I saw this term pureblood in people who did not get the vaccine meaning that they are vaccine hesitant. I do not see the definition of pureblood being related to vaccination status in any dictionary or any reliable sources of information. I saw the definition of pureblood being relating to being unmixed ancestry only in dictionaries. According to Wiktionary, pureblood means A person or animal of unmixed ancestry. Would the term pureblood be considering a slang and/or jargon term when they use it to mean being unvaccinated? 47.145.106.209 (talk) 03:51, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Pureblood" has most recently been prominent as a negative term in the Harry Potter novels; not sure why people are eager to associate themselves with the Malfoys... AnonMoos (talk) 03:55, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If the noble term pureblood seems negative in the Harry Potter novels, it is because they have been written from the biased point of view of a mudblood lover. --Lambiam 23:30, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. We have an article Limpieza de sangre which is also something that most people would not be eager to associate themselves with... AnonMoos (talk) 04:02, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's a term being usurped for political posturing. I wonder how many of those "purebloods" also escaped normal childhood vaccines against polio, smallpox, etc. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:55, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It is absolutely being used as an insulting term, directed at those who themselves are vaccinated. The term "pureblood" with regards to people has always been a term with clear racist overtones; that a person with pureblood had an ancestry unsullied by mixing with lesser races. Make no mistake that when the antivaxxers use the term, they are using it with very similar insulting meaning directed at people who are vaccinated; who are not "pureblood". --Jayron 32 11:51, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, and various anti-Jewish conspiracies also spring to mind. Sounds pretty nasty. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:49, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly if one is persistent or tries hard enough, virtually any word can be reinterpreted, misconstrued, or made into a slang term with negative connotations. The rabid nature of the internet makes the task easier than ever. But on to the topic, I have seen my share of fictional works where "pureblood" is an insistent term spoken by characters who practice some form of eugenics. Daleks are one example that comes to mind. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 19:48, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Expletives rooted in religion

It's quite common, in at least Anglophone Western societies, for people use words such as "Jesus", "God", "Christ" or derivations as expletives - despite the injunction against it of the second commandment. Is this peculiar to English speakers from predominantly Christian backgrounds or is it more widespread? Are "Mohammed", "Buddha", "Krishna", etc. (or derivatives) used as expletives in Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc societies? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:27, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's an approved Arabic sentence A`udhu billahi min ash-shaitani r-rajimi which calls on God to protect against Satan. We used to have a separate article "Ta`wwudh" on this, but most of the articles on Islamic expressions were merged into other articles, which were then heavily edited, so I really couldn't tell you where, if anywhere, this sentence is discussed on Wikipedia now... AnonMoos (talk) 20:17, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Here's a link to the last version of the Ta`awwudh article before it was merged out of existence... AnonMoos (talk) 20:21, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Even when interpreting the term generously, I fail to see how the phrase could be used as an expletive. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:01, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Biblical command is somewhat more specifically not to take "the name יְהוָ֥ה‎, your God" in vain. "God" is not the Hebrew (or English) name of God. It is not obvious to me what "to take a name in vain" would have meant to a Hebrew speaker 25 centuries ago. The expression also occurs in Psalm 139, but again with the name of God as the object taken in vain. --Lambiam 23:24, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

wikt:हे tell us that हे भगवान (he bhagvān) is a phase meaning "oh my God" in Hindi. Presumably Krishna is often implied, although without any need to get specific. Mandarin has wikt:天啊, which I think is literally "heavens huh!?" but also wikt:喔麥尬, which is just a loanword from English, "omaiga". More at wikt:oh my God#translations, which is only the tip of the iceberg of oaths and misses expressions such as wikt:Dio santo, wikt:perkele, and the curious Australian expression "bloody oath", which means "yes". Which reminds me of strewth (God's truth), zounds (God's wounds), and the rest of wikt:Category:English minced oaths. English went through a phase of producing quantities of these in the 16th c., which might have set our attitude to blasphemy on a unique course, i.e. we find it fun. Card Zero (talk) 01:00, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ពុទ្ធោ (Puttho) is a common Cambodian exclamation expressing disbelief, sorrow, regret, etc., used much like English "my god!". It is derived from the Pali (pronounced according to Khmer phonology) nominative singular of "Buddha". Thai also has พุทโธ่ (Phuttho), used similarly.--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 01:29, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As well as the perkele noted above by Card Zero, Finnish also has the expletive jumalauta, lit. God help me. BbBrock (talk) 11:53, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

April 14

⍼

I was just reading U+237C ⍼ RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW and wondered whether someone here might be able to come up with an answer; what is ⍼ meant to represent? Where did it originate from? Also see this redirect.

Fun fact: " & # x 2 3 7 C ; " and " & # 9 0 8 4 ; " (without the spaces) render as ⍼ and ⍼ even if you wrap them with code or nowiki tags. 76.216.220.191 (talk) 04:21, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are many Unicode characters whose purpose is a mystery, and this is one of them. In the unlikely case that I need a symbol as a warning that a pole that was supposed to be vertical is actually not, I might use this one, but then I will need to explain its meaning to anyone perusing my notes. You can display an HTML character reference such as ⍼ by using & to represent the character &. --Lambiam 08:28, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

According to xkcd its meaning is Larry Potter.^[3] --Lambiam 08:34, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So Randall Munroe has it down as a "math symbol" of some kind. I think it has Unicode character property "math symbol", but I don't know where to look that up definitively. It's listed as such on codepoints.net. Oh, this is in the OP's link, I now see. Card Zero (talk) 09:17, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I need to use U+2368 a lot more often. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:23, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Caution: pole dancer descending, do not tip." Martinevans123 (talk) 11:12, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pull your finger out

What is the origin of the phrase "pull your finger out"? Does it have anything to do with that legendary Dutch boy fingering a dyke? Thank you. 86.188.121.114 (talk) 09:41, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be unknown. A naval origin has been proposed, although it sounds unlikely. I had basically always assumed it was short for "... your arse/ ass", possibly related to terms such as uptight, anal, stick up one's ass. (Also the origin proposed on Wiktionary, although no sources are given.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:20, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, the American analogue is ""Get your thumb out of your ass" [4].

A famous but more polite use of the phrase was in 1945 by prisoners of war awaiting liberation from a prison in Rangoon, who wrote on the roof JAPS GONE - EXTRACT DIGIT. Alansplodge (talk) 10:52, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jackspeak: A Guide to British Naval Slang & Usage (p. 173) suggests that it was part of the procedure for reloading a muzzle-loading ship's cannon, where one of the gun's crew was required to hold his thumb or finger over the vent-hole while the gun was cleaned out reloaded, to prevent oxygen entering the chamber and igniting the new charge. Our Cannon_operation#Renaissance_to_early_19th_century article suggests that the sequence was more complicated than the source above suggests, and anyway, many other sources have it's origin in the RAF in the 1930s or 1940s. [5]

However, Dictionary of Catch Phrases (p. 291) quotes Kingsley Amis:

The full reading is take your finger out and get stuck in and has to do with a courting couple.

Alansplodge (talk) 11:33, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]