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February 1

Claudit semper fenestram antequam cenat

Does anyone know the where and when the oft-quoted multiple Romance language translations of the above Latin sentence, meaning "She always closes the window before dinner," appeared first? The German article has a notice that they are unsourced. 41.114.142.71 (talk) 00:23, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Google Translate omits the "she". Apparently it needs illa in front of it.[1] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:25, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No it doesn't. Latin is a pro-drop language. You wouldn't use illa unless it you wanted to emphasize that it was her specifically, or unless it were otherwise unclear whom you were talking about. --Trovatore (talk) 02:25, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That would be the key question - the context. If all you have is Claudit semper fenestram antequam cenat, and no context, can you determine the gender of the subject? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:40, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Illa as a pronoun means "that one" with female grammatical gender. It's ea which is the closest Latin counterpart to "she" (though it would usually be omitted as verb subject, except to provide disambiguation, or to express slight emphasis). And no, the verbs claudit and cenat don't express gender of subject (verb forms inflected for person never do in older IE). By the way, the most basic simple declarative word order in Latin would not have claudit coming at the beginning... AnonMoos (talk) 10:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Given the low number of results for this on Google, and because ultimately they all seem to come back to our article, and because there are no results on Google Books or anywhere else, and because of the oddness of the word order as AnonMoos mentions, I'm wondering if it was invented by Wikipedians. You can see that the initial list was added here on December 29, 2007, by FilipeS (talk · contribs) who said he took it from the Portuguese language article, although the list of languages and translations has expanded since then. In the Portuguese language article, back in June 2007 this list of phrases only had Portuguese and closely related languages, then some anon added Latin (or something Latinish), which was changed to the current form not long after. So, looks like it was invented on Wikipedia and spread to the rest of the Internet. These days, if it's on Wikipedia we assume there must be a source, but this is from the wild old days where we could just add anything without a reference. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just a couple of hours ago, I discovered a similar case of "citogenesis", outlined at Talk:Handball#Citogenesis. No such user (talk) 12:06, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The link to Google Books which I provided earlier has a quote from something called What the Nanny Saw. Unless you think that author copied it from Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That is 100% what happened, given the list of languages mentioned in the book, and the fact that it was published in 2011. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:13, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to have been added to the Wikipedia article in 2012 or later. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If only someone would come along and post specific links showing when it was added to two different articles in 2007! Who will this hero be? Adam Bishop (talk) 02:28, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Portuguese and Spanish examples were first added to the Portuguese language article (with cierra misspelled as cerra) on 7 June 2002 by PierreAbbat (talk · contribs). On 27 January 2006, Jorge Stolfi (talk · contribs) added the French and Italian examples, giving diner instead of dîner, with a comment "SOMEONE PLEASE CHECK" on the French. Galician, Catalan, and Romanian later were added over the course of that year, and Asturian, Occitan, and Latin were added in the next. 41.114.218.222 (talk) 04:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent! Adam Bishop (talk) 13:48, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ack! I have a book that lists about 20 romance reflexes of this sentence, but I can't remember which one! I will take a look when I have a chance, hope to answer by Friday if no one else comes up with it first. μηδείς (talk) 19:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This may be in From Latin to Romance in Sound Changes, but I fear I have put that in storage. μηδείς (talk) 02:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is a searchable preview of that on Google Books (assuming you mean "From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts"), but this phrase does not seem to be there. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:41, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @Adam Bishop:, I was just googling this and couldn't find it, and you have the correct title. I just put a bunch of books in storage in preparation for a move, if I come across the list elsewhere I'll give the reference. μηδείς (talk) 00:22, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Guitbass

Is Guitbass really a word? Is it in any way different from bass guitar? -- SGBailey (talk) 15:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of hybrid instruments that have been made and named by specific people. The use of the word "guitbass", AFAICT, is unique to the person who designed it; it refers to a specific kind of string instrument inspired by and a hybrid of a standard electric bass guitar and a standard 6-string guitar. It looks to be hand built, and I don't see any in commercial production. There have been other such hybrids which have not been called "Guitbasses" (see for example Baritone guitar or Fender Bass VI). There are hybrid instruments with portmanteau names which HAVE become more wide-spread, like the banjolele and guitjo which are in mass production and can be commercially purchased. My father-in-law has a 1920s era Gibson Banjolin which is pretty sweet. --Jayron32 15:21, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I notice our banjolin article is lacking in sound samples. Maybe you or he could make us one? SemanticMantis (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly, it isn't currently playable. It got cracked in a move, and when he took it to a local luthier (my father-in-law didn't know exactly what he had), the luthier said 1) it could be fixed and 2) he wouldn't touch it himself because his insurance wasn't good enough. Apparently the instrument was rare and expensive, and the luthier said that the only people who should fix it would be Gibson themselves. Barring a trip to Nashville, it'll be a conversation piece and little more for the foreseeable future. --Jayron32 00:06, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Jayron32: Well that's a shame! I can easily see how that could be worth many thousands of dollars, even broken, given the rarity and age. Oh well, looks as though at least it is being preserved in relatively good care :) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:24, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why do Canadians sound like Americans?

I can't distinguish Canadian and American English as much as I can't distinguish Australian and British English. Those variants sound very similar. Are they really similar, or is it just me? 107.77.195.67 (talk) 15:49, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All such accents tend to fall on a spectrum, so while there are distinct differences you may well get a Canadian and an American who sound very similar. In my experience, it is less offensive to call an American Canadian, than to call a Canadian American. Similarly there are many Australians with accents quite close to English - and others than a native English person would find difficult to understand at all. If English is not your native tongue, distinguishing accents will be more difficult. Wymspen (talk) 16:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent point. Among linguistic taxonomists, Lumpers would tend to note that both are varieties of North American English and Splitters would tend to highlight the differences between them. Canadian English does share a lot of common pronunciations with certain varieties of American English, some with General American and some especially with North-Central American English and Inland Northern American English, which makes sense as those are from the parts of the U.S. that are closer to Canada. However, Canadian English does have it's own unique vowel system that does not appear in any other known dialect of English; this vowel is a clear marker of Canadian speakers (and frequently gets mispronounced by those who try to goof on Canadian English). Wikipedia has an article on Canadian raising, which covers it as well. Interestingly, that same Atlas Obscura article I cited above also notes the California vowel shift as happening in Canada, which is slowly changing Canadian English. --Jayron32 16:43, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As for Canadians: That's because both Canadian phonology and American phonology share many similarities, of which the most noticeable one is probably the rhoticity. For more details, see our article: Canadian English#Phonology and phonetics.
As for your question about Australians and Brits: Yes, their accents are really very similar: not only because they both are non-rhotic, but also because of many other factors. For more details, see our article: Australian English phonology. HOTmag (talk) 16:52, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Similar to you, maybe, but British and Australians have no trouble sorting one out from the other. Bazza (talk) 17:06, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I've literally never hear anyone say British and Australian sound the same. Australian is one of the most characteristic accents out there. Vastly different from British, and I'd say more different than say New England vs Texas. 131.251.254.154 (talk) 14:18, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but we Britons struggle to distinguish Australians from New Zealanders, much to their annoyance. Alansplodge (talk) 17:43, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There are very distinctive shibboleths, with which you can easily spot New Zealanders. You do not need to wait for long till they say words with the KIT, DRESS and TRAP vowels, and when you hear KUT, DRISS, TREP you'd certainly know. Particularly their DRISS is very noticeable, there are very few if any accents with such a shift. As for Australians they greet each other with "Good die, mite!". In general to distinguish dialects one had better listen them on the first place. Knowing some theoretical nuances is one thing, but after having heard New Zealanders a couple of time I suppose I'd be able to recognize them. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:35, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Don't ask a New Zealander to say "deck" in polite company! Alansplodge (talk) 19:11, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not to me. They are objectively similar, yet not identical. I too have no trouble sorting one out from the other: To my ears, the most noticeable difference, is in words like eight, cake, aid, et cetera. HOTmag (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The IP's close proximity to Detroit might have resulted in a blend of the two. But I recall being in Detroit some years ago and going across the river to Windsor, and the difference in the accents was quite noticeable, at least to my ears. There are many, many British accents, but I can usually tell an Aussie by the extreme vowel pronunciations, which are kind of like Cockney but not exactly. While watching an Aussie cricket match on TV recently, these differences were obvious. As an example, to my Midwest American ears, "lake" sounds like "like" and "like" sounds like "loik". The long e and long o also sound quite different than where I come from and how the average Brit says them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:06, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
People tend to hear differences better the closer they are to those differences. For example, as a native New Englander, I can easily distinguish not just that you are from New England, but which part, and often which specific city or area. I have on multiple occasions met a New Englander in another part of the U.S. and nailed the city they are from (I once met someone in Chicago, and could tell he was from Dracut, Massachusetts). OTOH, someone from the Southern U.S. may just be able to identify someone as just having a "Boston Accent" or even more generally "From the Northeast". --Jayron32 17:23, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You are henceforth to be addressed as "Professor Higgins of the Reference Desk".  :) -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 21:05, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The rain in Braintree falls mainly on the plaintree? --Jayron32 00:20, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Or perhaps planetree. Alansplodge (talk) 00:49, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If Jayron ever decided to go on Jeopardy!, he could break the bank. He'd make Ken Jennings look like Mortimer Snerd. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:20, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I lived/worked in the US for 5-10 years, and only once did somebody spot me as being from the Great White North. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Living in Detroit, I sometimes hit Canadian radio stations when changing channels. I can be fooled by them until I hear an "oot", "zed", or they start talking "aboot" MPs (the military police ?). :-) StuRat (talk) 00:51, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
MP usually stands for member of parliament. --Theurgist (talk) 09:55, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The military police in Canada are abbreviated CFMP. Alansplodge (talk) 15:45, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
They are informally referred to as just MPs as well. Matt Deres (talk) 01:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm US, but I worked in Canada for two years and 2 daughters went to McGill. Two dramatic differences: 1) Americans pronounce been as "ben" and Canadians pronounce it as "bean". 2) Canadians frequently add "eh?" (pronounced "A?") to the end of a sentence. Interesting, eh? -Arch dude (talk) 02:45, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I'm not sure which I use. I grew up with the pin–pen merger inherited from my mother. I later eliminated it (non-prestige feature), but "been" is normally unstressed, so I don't think about the distinction much. Maybe I use a reduced /ᵻ/?
In any case, either /bɪn/ or /bɛn/ would strike me as unremarkable, but /bi:n/ would definitely sound "foreign" — could be Canadian; could be British. --Trovatore (talk) 07:43, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by: "eh? (pronounced A?)"? Is it pronounced like the vowel of "egg", or like that of "aid" (being a diphthong)? Or maybe you meant the vowel of "add"? HOTmag (talk) 07:47, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
How do you pronounce "A" by itself, as in A E I O U? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:51, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
He means /eɪ/. --Trovatore (talk) 08:48, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's how the Canadians (rather than the Brits) pronounce "eh". HOTmag (talk) 10:26, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I (a Brit) have always pronounced "eh?" as /eɪ/. (The pronunciation guide in Wiktionary looks wrong to me.) Bazza (talk) 11:30, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Are you asking me? I've only quoted Arch dude, and asked them about what they'd meant. HOTmag (talk) 10:26, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"A" as in the vowel sound in "aide" or "played". Sorry, I'm not a linguist, so I would miss any subtle distinction here. Canadians very frequently add this word with a rising question-mark sound to the end of a sentence. It seems to mean something like "don't you agree?" "It's a bit warmer today, eh?"-Arch dude (talk) 17:34, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) In the UK, "eh" is pronounced to rhyme with "hay", in fact it is a homophone to us Londoners who tend to H-drop. The well-worn Cockney response to someone saying "eh?" when they haven't heard what has been said is: "Yeah, 'ay is wot 'orses eat!". Alansplodge (talk) 17:44, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I'm not in the habit of thinking of "eh" as "really a word", whatever that means exactly. I always thought it was just a transcription of a sort of vocalization, as much of a word as "mph". It would have been spelled "ay" except that's already reserved for /aɪ/. --Trovatore (talk) 06:19, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To me, the Canadian "eh?" sounds like a long "get" vowel, not they "play" diphthong--their doesn't seem to be a yod offglide that you would here in standard American or RP. μηδείς (talk) 18:09, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Watch this piss-taking video and you'll get the idea (skip towards the end for the "eh"s). Alansplodge (talk) 18:19, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
 
By "long get vowel", do you mean as in the German word geht? To me geht sounds much more like English "gate" than like English "get", notwithstanding that the vowel is a monophthong. --Trovatore (talk) 06:43, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oh really? Now I'm thinking about how the Brits - with their non-rhotic accent - pronounce "air", and I wonder if you really mean - that to you - "eh" sounds much more like the British "air" than like "hay" (while dropping the h). HOTmag (talk) 16:40, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, I didn't say that at all. I said that German geht sounds more like "gate" than "get". --Trovatore (talk) 09:13, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, but we aren't. Canadians don't like to be called American. They don't mind being called North American; actually they use the phrase "North American" much more than Americans do. (It doesn't seem to include Mexicans, AFAICT, physical geography notwithstanding.) --Trovatore (talk) 07:31, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just realized that could be misread. "We aren't" speaking Spanish. I am not Canadian. --Trovatore (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2017 (UTC) [reply]

February 2

Sweet Dreams are made of...?

The song title indicates that it's "this" (as at Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)), but Annie Lennox is pretty clearly saying "these" every time the word gets used. Has she or Stewart ever commented on this? They wrote the song themselves, so it's not like they were twisting someone else's words to provide assonance with "disagree" and rhyme with "seas". Do folks from Aberdeen just pronounce -is as -eez? Matt Deres (talk) 17:19, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is not uncommon to alter the pronunciation of words in poetry or songs to force a rhyme. This song is hardly unique in that regard. Consider "Anarchy in the UK", where John Lydon rhymes "Anarchist" with "Antichrist" by pronouncing the first "an-ar-KAYST". English poetry has a long history in this regard. --Jayron32 17:23, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I follow; why alter the pronunciation of "this" when you could just say "these"? Matt Deres (talk) 00:36, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Because it rhymes with seas. --Jayron32 02:03, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think Matt meant, why not make the official lyric "these" instead of "this"? It seems like a reasonable point; the referent of "this" is vague enough that it seems like it could just as well be plural. But maybe the lyricist thought there was a clear referent. --Trovatore (talk) 19:18, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For decades I thought it was "these". It's actually more like "thee-is". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:30, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've just listened to it, and I think she's just dragging out the vowel. It's more successful the second time around, but as Bugs says, the first time it appears to have two distinct syllables. Alansplodge (talk) 18:12, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if she has ever commented on this? You'd think someone would have asked her in an interview. μηδείς (talk) 21:49, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I read a few articles on Annie Lennox, after Jodie Foster she was one of my first big crushes, and that seems to be a majority topic when you search that song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMFqkcPYcg). Listening to the song, my impression is that Bugs and Alan are correct, she simply lengthens the "ih" vowel of this (i.e., IPA /ðɪ:s/ which does not exist in American English, and is hence interpreted by naive (in the sense of untrained) listeners as /ði:s/ (> /ði:z/). μηδείς (talk) 02:29, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If I were in her shoes, I'd be a bit miffed that people are more interested in her pronunciation of that word than in the rest of the song. I wonder if you're old enough to remember when phone operators would pronounce "please" like "plee-uhz"? The other question is whether it "should" be "this" or "these". Does it refer to the singular "something" everyone's looking for, or does it refer to the plural list of those "somethings"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:45, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the song's title and lyrics both say "this" and the group obviously did this intentionally. Also, it corresponds to "everybody's looking for something"; not for looking for things.
As to operators, we had 1FR service, not a party line, and operator calls were far too expensive. I routinely carried a dime for payphonable emergencies. I never used one until the early eighties, when I made person-to-person collect calls from college via payphone, then hung up before the call was put through. (This was a signal simply to call me back directly at the same payphone, whose number my family knew.)
I do, of course, remember Lily Tomlin's shtick. μηδείς (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One further point is that there is a slurred change of note during "this" (F to E), see the sheet music, which may account for it sounding bi-syllabic. Alansplodge (talk) 17:32, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Annie Lennox is, of course, Scottish and this pronunciation is normal for her. TammyMoet (talk) 19:22, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Er, what? This is not a typical feature of the Aberdonian accent. Matt did ask about this above, and the answer is no. HenryFlower 19:59, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well it chimes with what I've heard of her speech. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:54, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Resources for writing style

Especially, I'm interested in prescriptive rules that can be applied to unit above sentence level, like paragraphs, or even whole texts. For example, using topic sentence, lead paragraph and so on. --Llaanngg (talk) 18:53, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For journalistic writing, there's News style. Also, see all the wikilinks in Rhetorical mode. Loraof (talk) 20:59, 2 February 2017 (UTC) Also, Thesis#Structure and presentation style. Loraof (talk) 21:09, 2 February 2017 (UTC) Also, Essay#Forms and styles and Introduction (writing). Loraof (talk) 21:19, 2 February 2017 (UTC) Also, Dramatic structure#Freytag's analysis. Loraof (talk) 21:31, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And writing style. Loraof (talk) 01:24, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Elements of style has fans and detractors, but all will readily agree it has prescriptions that can be applied above sentence level. Chicago manual of style too. But there's nothing entirely general. A guide to writing an essay (e.g. [2], [3]) is probably not a good thing to follow when writing a screen play. That format has its own style guides, e.g. [4]. If you have a specific type of writing in mind, let us know, and we can probably offer better, more targeted resources. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:21, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Visit the the website of the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As SemanticMantis points out, there's no one style of writing, it varies depending on what you're writing (e.g. an academic paper or a news article) and then varies further depending on the exact details (e.g. philosophy and physics papers vary widely, as do Financial Times and Buzzfeed). And to make matters even more complicated, a lot of traditional rules (e.g. don't use "I" in academic papers, don't use contractions in news reporting) are currently changing. The more I look into the topic the less convinced I am that there are many hard rules on how to write beyond the core of: know your audience, know how they think, know what they expect from the kind of writing you are performing, and match those expectations. If you want to write academically, genre analysis studies can help you understand the usual expectations in the area you plan to write. English for Academic Purposes has some good, basic information. Daduzi talk 12:10, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

February 4

Why is there a city called Nyala in Sudan

A Nyala is an antelope native to East and Southern Africa. The country of Sudan has a city called Nyala. I'm trying to find out/ figure out if the city was named for the animal or the other way around, or neither? Thanks if you can point to references that answer the question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.210.155.173 (talk) 12:07, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

According to our articles, they're unrelated. Nyala, Sudan says the town's name is from Daju, meaning "place of chatting" or "theatre", whereas Nyala says that the name of the antelope is of Bantu origin. So they would appear to be accidental homographs, like English flat and Latin flat. Deor (talk) 12:36, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. It was right there for me to read, but I didn't see it. Asked and answered... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.210.155.173 (talk) 12:39, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Explain a joke

Could someone explain this joke - https://www.davesjokes.com/?joke=chan ? The punchline is "Boy-foot bear with teak of Chan." This seems to be a pun on a well-known phrase or saying, but I can't work out what the original is. Thanks. 212.105.160.248 (talk) 14:04, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is the "barefoot boy with cheek of tan" by John Greenleaf Whittier. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:15, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c) There is a now quite obscure (at least to me - I'd never heard of it) piece of verse by John Greenleaf Whittier - full text here - which starts with the lines "Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy with cheek of tan!..". The joke relies on people knowing that line, and noticing the spoonerism. Was it a well-known piece of verse at some time? Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:17, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently it became something of a "cultural touchstone" in the US being featured in schoolbooks such as McGuffey Readers. [5] (Diane Ravitch, Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform, Simon and Schuster, 2001, p22). The poem is recited in the film Barefoot Boy too (which I've never seen). ---Sluzzelin talk 14:34, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It was enormously popular during a period before television, when people amused themselves and others by memorizing poems and giving public recitations. John Greenleaf Whittier, James Whitcomb Riley, and Robert Service were favorites. Other poets were one hit wonders, like Felicia Dorothea Hemans Casabianca (poem)- Nunh-huh 15:02, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I had no idea that Hemans (and not Noel Coward) also had coined the phrase "the stately homes of England" in "The Homes of England" (1827) (a pun of which appeared in the 1965 musical Baker Street: In Moriarty's song "I Shall Miss You, Holmes" the villain dreams of the day "when the stately Holmes of England is no more"). ---Sluzzelin talk 05:11, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Where I come from, the "l" in "Holmes" is enunciated, though in other parts of the English-speaking world it's often pronounced like "Homes". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:01, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sheldon Harnick (of Fiddler-on-the-Roof fame) wrote the lyrics of that particular song. He grew up in Portage Park, Chicago. ---Sluzzelin talk 07:53, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone for the answers. I hadn't heard of Whittier before now. 212.105.160.248 (talk) 16:11, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I first heard that joke over 50 years ago. And I recall in a Lost in Space episode where Dr. Smith affectionately called Will a "barefoot boy with cheek of tan." Though much of the public (including me) wouldn't necessarily have known who wrote it, it was still part of the public consciousness. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:38, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Malay phrase "sikit sikit lama lama jadi bukit"

What is the similar phrase in English (and other languages)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.75.45.70 (talk) 17:37, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

wikt:many a mickle makes a muckle --81.96.84.137 (talk) 18:41, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Or this. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:42, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why website not English version but company and product names still in English?

Apple has website in Chinese (http://www.apple.com/cn/), Russian (http://www.apple.com/ru/) and Thai (http://www.apple.com/th/) but names like Apple, AirPods and iPad Pro all in English. Same for Google and other websites. Same if set computer or phone to other languages. Why? Only make website and computer harder to use. Is fine for languages which use English letters (like German or Malay) but Chinese, Russian and Thai all not use English letters, already have good translations like 苹果公司. --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 17:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Chinese, Russians, and Thai are quite familiar with and comfortable with English letters and English words. Those websites that are written in Chinese are written by educated Chinese speakers, and the Chinese themselves decide on how to write and display these names. It is the same with Russian pages and Thai pages. —Stephen (talk) 20:14, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It may also have something to do with trademark law. — Kpalion(talk) 11:44, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The people who write the websites must be good in English and the other language. Is really most people who use the Chinese, Russian and Thai websites also know English letters and enough English words? If Samsung website in English still use 삼성 then the English people will say is nonsense. Maybe is trademark law but can tell me more about trademark law? Cannot translate trademark or make trademark in other languages? --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 14:24, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

English is the global language of business. Name and symbol recognition are important. Trademarks might not translate well. Here's a picture of a McDonald's somewhere in China.[6] I'm guessing the Chinese characters are either a transliteration of the three syllables in "McDonald's" or some expression that indicates a place you can get burgers. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:35, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Languages borrow words from each other all the time. Even English has words for items which come from other languages. If you are eating chocolate (nahuatl) on your croissant (french) while watching an opossum (powhatan) scurry across your lawn, then you should recognize that. That other languages incorporate English words is not surprising nor unusual. --Jayron32 14:47, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

February 5

Possible Murray-Merry and Kerry-Curry merger or reversal

I enjoy listening to a radio talk show host who often speaks about political topics in the USA. He has what sounds to me like a very peculiar accent (he grew up near Philadelphia). To me, it sounds like he pronounces John Kerry's last name exactly like most people I know would pronounce the name (or the food) "Curry". Similarly he pronounces the name of libertarian Murray Rothbard like most people would say "Merry" or even "Mary" Rothbard.

Is this a known dialect of American English, or more likely just a quirk of this particular person's speech?

I lived in the Philadelphia area for a few years and never noticed anyone who talked like this, but I can be inattentive when it comes to language and dialects. --Captain Breakfast (talk) 06:43, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard anyone pronounce "Kerry" like "Curry". Steve Kerr is like "cur", but John Kerry is like "carry" (except for northeasterners who might pronounce "carry" with a very short "a".) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:59, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure there's a difference between this speaker's Kerry and Murray? If his pronunciation of both is between the two, then when you're expecting –er– it is likely to sound to you like –ur– and vice versa. (This is how we get the stereotypes that the Japanese swap r with l – do people still make that joke? – and Brooklynites swap oi with er.) —Tamfang (talk) 07:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rat-arsed

My neighbour he say he always get rat-arsed on a Friday down pub. What is origin of expression "rat-arsed" - I am thinking it mean "very drunk"? 109.144.219.137 (talk) 17:17, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, saying someone is rat-arsed means that they are very drunk. In Words in Time and Place: Exploring Language Through the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (p54) David Crystal links the phrase to the American don't give a rat's ass, but suggests that the link is not at all clear. The first use of the phrase is from 1984. It may be linked to ratted from 1982 (which has pretty much the same meaning) and probably comes from the earlier as drunk as a rat or as pissed as a rat. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would comment further, but ceebs, tbh. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:54, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very surprised the first use is from 1984 as I was using in the 1970s at university! But I guess nobody was transcribing my speech and publishing it then.--TammyMoet (talk) 17:45, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did my best to transcribe it, Tammy, but it was rather blurred and I couldn't find a publisher. Sorry. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:52, 6 February 2017 (UTC) [reply]

How can IPA represent general nasalization?

If a variant of a language is generally nasal (for me, that would be some NY accents), how can the IPA represent this? --Hofhof (talk) 18:18, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nasalization--William Thweatt TalkContribs 21:59, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That seems to represent a nasalization of a phoneme. But how you indicate that the whole intonation is more nasal than in other languages?--Hofhof (talk) 22:07, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think that Hofhof is probably thinking of something like Fran Drescher's manner of speaking. Deor (talk) 16:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nasal voice has some related information (but not about IPA). Loraof (talk) 17:55, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise Hypernasal speech. Loraof (talk) 17:58, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Short translation

I'm looking for translations of these two phrases, which I believe are identical or nearly so:

πολλαὶ μὲν θνητοῖς γλῶτται, μία δ'ἀθανάτοισιν

multæ terricolis linguæ, cœlestibus una

Thanks! DonFB (talk) 20:41, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Both mean, roughly, "the inhabitants of earth have many languages; the inhabitants of heaven have one", as a simple Google search would have told you. For the Greek, "mortals" and "immortals" would be more literal translations than "inhabitants of earth" and "inhabitants of heaven". Deor (talk) 21:37, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A simple Google search did not produce fully intelligible results, but thanks for helping. DonFB (talk) 21:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See Samuel Bagster the Elder#Firm Motto. -- ToE 23:09, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, that's the edit I made after confirming the translation here and elsewhere. DonFB (talk) 03:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ha! Thank you for your work on this and other articles. -- ToE 14:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

February 6

Crocide

I came across the word crocide in a review of a biography of the poet Les Murray, who apparently coined it in reference to his having being relentlessly bullied at school. That's all I know of it, as I do not know which poem it's from, and Google has been somewhat reticent.

I'm trying to get a handle on the possible etymology of the word. Can anyone assist? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 04:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If that were a misprint for crucide then I suppose the first element could be irregularly formed from Latin crucio, "to torment". Admittedly Google offers no more evidence for this reading than for crocide. --Antiquary (talk) 10:29, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
He's Australian - could it have anything to do with croc(odiles)? Wymspen (talk) 14:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Poets and other writers are known for inventing nonce words and Nonsense words. Lewis Carroll for example, in the poem Jabberwocky, is among the most famous. But many authors, from William Shakespeare to James Joyce have done so. Les Murray would not have been the first. --Jayron32 15:45, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, certainly not. Poets are famously laws unto themselves (Murray has Aspergers to boot, so he's maybe twice removed from the rules). But words still have to mean something (Finnegans Wake notwithstanding). If an author creates a -cide word, readers would expect the first part to come from an English word or some Latin or Greek root, for it to have any obvious meaning. Otherwise, the author would have to explain the word within the text, and that defeats its own purpose, unless the word is used repeatedly. Maybe it is used repeatedly; maybe the context makes it clear; without the poem, I have no way of knowing. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 21:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This claims it's a variant of Latin crosis, possibly referring to one of the Catchfly plants. —Stephen (talk) 23:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's just listing a Latin declension, where crocide would be (I think) the ablative case. That seems sort of unlikely as what Murray meant, but who knows. --Trovatore (talk) 01:30, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah ha! I have the answer. It was a typo for "erocide". See here:
  • This is partly a reference to the bullying Murray encountered on entering high school soon after his mother's death, a bullying in which the participation of girls was more hurtful than that of boys, and for which Murray later coined the term "erocide" to indicate its morbid effect on his sexual development.

Resolved
As the six-fingered man said to Inigo Montoya, I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard. Well, maybe not literally. But anyway, thanks so much for that little happy note in my day, Jack :-/ --Trovatore (talk) 09:00, 7 February 2017 (UTC) [reply]

asshole

Why is ‘asshole’ an insult?

I know that it’s impossible to know for sure, but I’d like to see the hypotheses. I read that Rictor Norton proposed one, but I can’t find a direct citation. — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 05:32, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean 'Why is it considered an insult?' or 'How did it enter the English language as an insult?' ... ?
In any event, you might be interested in Geoffrey Nunberg's latest book Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years. If you can't get a hold of it, check out these interviews with the author: "A Linguist's Serious Take On 'The A-Word'" (NPR) or "Who You Callin’ A**hole?" (Slate).
Some quotes from these sites which might address your question (and I still believe you might wish to clarify it a bit):
"['Asshole'] originated during World War II as a GI's term for an officer who thinks his status "entitles him to a kind of behavior — to either abuse his men, or makes him more important than he really is." When GIs came home, they brought the word with them, and movement radicals began to use it."
"I think the literal meaning of the word is hovering around it. I mean, we use it to refer to somebody who's contemptible and the idea of something small and foul and dirty and contemptible—which is the conventional view of the anus, though there are some who will take exception to that—still pervades the word, even when we use it to describe a person."
---Sluzzelin talk 14:35, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

February 7

Adjective to describe event that didn't happen

I'm looking for an adjective that, when applied to a putative event in the past, means that said event did not in fact happen. But the adjective should not impute any particular intent to the reporter of the event. So for example "fictional" and "fictitious" are wrong, because they imply that the reporter knew the event did not happen. The best I've been able to come up with is "nonexistent", but it sounds very strange; while you can take the philosophical position that the past continues to exist in some sense, it is very unusual in English to speak of events in the past as "existing". --Trovatore (talk) 06:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Mythical" or "legendary", at least in some circumstances. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:45, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but neither of those works. I want an adjective that says it didn't happen, but is completely neutral about why anyone anyone might have said or thought that it happened. --Trovatore (talk) 07:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have an example? Also, "apocryphal" is sometimes used. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:39, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It came up in relation to the so-called Bowling Green massacre. "Apocryphal" isn't right either; it suggests ancient writings, or by extension a story that has been widely believed for a long time. --Trovatore (talk) 07:56, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I had a hunch that was the one you were thinking of. "Nonexistent", as the article says right now, is factual. Conway may well have misstated herself, rather than purposely lying, but either way the event she referred to is nonexistent. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:01, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's factual to the extent that it makes sense to speak of an incident as "existent" or "nonexistent". I mean, people can work out what it means. But it's a very unusual adjective to put with "incident" in English.
To see the problem, consider the question, does your fifth birthday exist? It's a serious metaphysical question (see presentism and block universe for opposing viewpoints), but it's just a weird question to ask at all (much less answer) in the English language. --Trovatore (talk) 08:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
But nonexistent can be used to mean "never existed" - e.g. describing the dinosaurs as nonexistent would not be accurate, and describing unicorns as nonexistent does not leave open the possibility of extinct unicorns. MChesterMC (talk) 09:51, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
How does unhistorical grab you? "Not possessed of a historical character; not having actually occurred" (OED). --Antiquary (talk) 10:43, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nonhistorical (or non-historical) also exists Wymspen (talk) 12:35, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hypothetical? Theoretical? HOTmag (talk) 10:50, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Counterfactual": "relating to or expressing what has not happened or is not the case"?--William Thweatt TalkContribs 12:46, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Imaginary". "Supposed". Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As a non-linguist, I am kinda worried most of these elegant, nuanced words will go over a lot of people's heads. They will see a bare faced lie being given the benefit of the doubt, and decide there's no smoke without fire. Seems pretty clear that's what Conway intended. --129.67.119.186 (talk) 13:43, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alleged? Martin. 212.178.135.35 (talk) 16:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Italian proficiency certificate

If a non-Italian applies for a professional job in Italy, is a test or certificate of ability in the language considered important? Or would it be enough to write a good application and speak fluently at the interview? If certificates are useful, which is the best one to get? I am aware that the job market in Italy is generally bad, but for now lets assume the existence of a suitable job please! --129.67.119.186 (talk) 13:21, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Different professions have different requirements - you need to be more precise. There is some general information at this EU site - http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=25 This is more specific about Italy - https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/working-abroad/work-in-italy Wymspen (talk) 15:43, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Love the song, but what does the word "drove" mean? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:42, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

It's the past tense of "to drive". --Viennese Waltz 13:47, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That word has many meanings, none of which makes much sense to me in the context of this song, especially in companionship with "...down". --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:10, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The song is about the defeat of the South in the American Civil War. The title means that the North drove down, i.e. crushed or defeated, the South. --Viennese Waltz 14:13, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One meaning of "to drive" is "to push with force", such as driving nails [down]. When the forces were gathering around President Nixon in 1974, there was an editorial cartoon of Nixon singing to himself, "The night they drove old Dickie down..." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:21, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cyrillic translation please

In this Russian ballet video at 14:44, what do 1) the sign over the doorway at left, and 2) the banner unfurled at center mean in English? Blooteuth (talk) 15:19, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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