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.
Il avait peu à peu développé un septième sens. Son corps entier participait de la réception des sons et captait ce qui avait échappé à l'oreille.
The English translation renders it thus:
He had developed a sort of sixth sense: it was as if he listened with his whole body and heard things that went unsaid.
According to Wiktionary, the standard French version of 'sixth sense' is the expected 'sixième sens', not 'septième sens', which means 'seventh sense'.
The sixth sense is what we call intuition, and the seventh sense is what we call the superego, the one that serves as the gateway between your consciousness and the universe.
Then this site talks about eighth, ninth and higher senses. So, although we tend to confine our attention to the canonic five senses and the sixth sense as a special category, it seems others are not unknown in the literature. But my questions are:
did Guedj really mean the seventh sense, and if not, what did he mean?
why was it translated as sixth rather than seventh sense? -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries] 07:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the whole sentence by Guedj he would almost certainly have meant what we call the sixth sense ("his entire body took part in the reception of sounds, and caught that which had escaped (his) ears)". Lectonar (talk) 07:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know the answer but I'll add the observation that the 1945 scifi short story "Uncommon Sense" was translated into French as Le Septième Sens. Similarly for a book by Rupert Sheldrake ("The sense of being stared at" becomes Le Septième Sens : les pouvoirs de l'esprit étendu; this postdates Guedj's novel). This could indicate a pattern. --Wrongfilter (talk) 07:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The film title The Sixth Sense ("I see dead people") was translated in French as (Le) Sixième Sens. The French Wikipedia defines sixième sense as "an expression referring to extrasensory perception, that is to say, not coming from the five physiological senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell". Perhaps Guedj's use of septième was intended to avoid the interpretation of this gradually developed sense as ESP. Not being canonical, it is a free for all to assign a real or imaginary sense of one's choice to the higher ordinals. --Lambiam 11:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
German TV taught me that the seventh sense was connected to being a better driver. —Kusma (talk) 12:02, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And the german article about it actually has it a bit the other way round: "the title has led to "seventh sense" occasionally being used for the "sixth sense", i.e. the other senses outside of human perception. As Lambian said: it's a free for all. Lectonar (talk) 12:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ultimate purpose of the italicizing is to improve readability. Adding italics to many instances of a term within the body text, like in this example, can hurt readability. Temerarius (talk) 15:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is vubbing a word? People tell me it's the sound your mobile makes when you've set it to "vibrate only" and you get a text. 86.170.222.118 (talk) 17:53, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If people are using it and understanding one another when they do, it's a word. I would argue that the same applies to a word invented and used for the first time, if hearers understand it, but others would consider that it has to become more widely adopted first: How widely? – there's where opinions differ.
English is not officially regulated by any organisation (in contrast to, for example, French). Dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive, and necessarily take some time to become aware of and include new(ish) words. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.107.217 (talk) 20:31, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to this, this and several other web resources, "vubbing" (presumably from "video" and "dubbing"), is a process whereby an actors lip movements can be made to match a dubbed soundtrack in another language, or to replace inappropriate words or phrases. But it's not unknown for English words to have two unrelated meanings. Alansplodge (talk) 23:27, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More likely from "visual dubbing",[1][2][3] itself shortened from earlier "audiovisual dubbing".[4][5][6] --Lambiam 10:24, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, that makes sense. Alansplodge (talk) 13:57, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195 @ Dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive, ... : I would love to see a proscriptive dictionary, one that lists the infinitude of words that we must not use. :) -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries] 21:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@HistoryofIran: Hi all. Zolghadr is OK, but the <oo> diagraph in "Sohibanoo" would appear to me what less ridiculous languages than English might transliterate as <u>.11:10, 11 February 2024 (UTC) Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 11:10, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps so, but "-oo" is how the English-language references spell it, so we go with that in accordance with Wikipedia:COMMONNAME. Farsi I can't help you with: anyone? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.107.217 (talk) 14:20, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, forgot to reply to this. I’m not sure, there are sometimes some, I guess “unusual” English transliterations for Iranian names. HistoryofIran (talk) 23:21, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any dialect that pronounces English word hear as /hiːr/? Is it so that in most major accents, /iː/, /uː/, /aɪ̯/, /eɪ̯/ and /oʊ̯/ cannot appear directly before /r/, instead a schwa should come between them.
Is there any Germanic language that allows /h/ in coda?
Can click consonants be geminated?
Did Latin not have reflexive verbs?
Can verb have be used like I have not a cat, without do auxiliary?
Is there any language in Europe which has many non-compund words with two consecutive long vowels separated by hiatus, like nonsense Czech words nééku, maáva, laóa and ókóís? Would these words be actually possible in Czech?
Can in Polish, /s/, /z/, /t͡s/, /d͡z/ and /n/ appear directly before /i/, or are they always palatalized to alveolo-palatal sounds?
Is there any Romance language that has non-open back unrounded vowels, /ʌ/, /ɤ/ and /ɯ/?
Can palatalized consonants appear at the end of word in Lithuanian?
Is the skulle + infinitive is Swedish a conditional mood? In Finnish, conditional is definitely a mood.
1. Some Scottish accents don't diphthongise vowels in words like hear.
4. What is a reflexive verb? In English we can say "I confused myself." Is that a 'reflexive verb', or just a verb with a reflexive object? You can certainly use these in Latin.
4. I guess that would be verbs using a reflexive pronoun, such as Spanish se, German sich or even Russian -sya (although in Russian -sya is not used independently). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:21, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
5. When I was young, fifty or sixty years ago, have did not normally take "do-support" in British English, even when a full verb. I haven't a pen. and Have you any cheese? were perfectly normal, though in colloquial speech "got" was usually added: I haven't got a pen, Have you got any cheese. Phrases like We don't have and Do you have were Americanisms (unless they were being used in a habitual sense). This has changed somewhat, and most people do say We don't have and Do you have, but you still hear the older forms, especially with "got". (Note that I haven't got any nearly always means I don't have any, not I haven't been to get any: "got" is effectively an invariable particle in the construction). The particular construction in your question, however, has never been common in my experience: I haven't a cat or I've/I have no cat, but not I have not a cat. I think you'll find it in nineteenth century writing though. ColinFine (talk) 21:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, here we go: W. S. Gilbert, Ruddigore (1887), Act I: Sir Despard: "I have not a heart of that description". ColinFine (talk) 21:39, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another example (of many): "we have not the faintest recollection of ever encountering any thing of the kind".[7] --Lambiam 15:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@ColinFine: "I've an inkling that I've not the faintest idea what you're on about." Bazza (talk) 15:23, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any dialect that does not use do-support at all, and where Lee eats not apples is grammatical? --40bus (talk) 21:38, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aware of a present-day dialect of that description. ColinFine (talk) 21:40, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Lee isn't / Lee's not eating apples" is correct, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:22, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not lacking do-support, but not requiring it either, the sermonese dialect of English: "We celebrate not the day of birth, since it is the entrance to sorrow and all trials".[8]Their eyes are veiled, so that they see not their misery by sin, and as being without Christ".[9] "If you believe not what I say, I shall not wonder if you laugh at me".[10] --Lambiam 15:34, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Latin had inflectional passives and especially deponent verbs which served some of the functions of modern Romance reflexive verbs... AnonMoos (talk) 23:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
7. In loanwords it can happen, e.g. sinus, though I haven't checked if there's an example for all the consonants you mentioned. Double sharp (talk) 23:30, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can think of examples for /t͡s/ (cirrus) and /z/ (Zanzibar). For /z/, you can also have a loanword with a native Polish prefix, as in zidentyfikować. I can't think of any examples for /d͡z/, but they might exist. As for /n/, however, I don't think you could find any; even in loanwords,〈ni〉would always be pronounced /ɲ/, /ɲi/ or /ɲj/. — Kpalion(talk) 10:15, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Question 11
Why Korean has not switched to Latin alphabet like Vietnamese did? Are there any plans to switch Korean to Latin-only writing? --40bus (talk) 21:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is that when Chinese characters were felt to be inadequate for purposes of modern mass literacy, both languages had a pre-existing alternative to fall back on -- Korean had the 15th-century Hangul quasi-alphabet, and Vietnamese the 17th-century missionary Latinization system. Why would Koreans give up a writing system carefully tailored to the characteristics of the Korean language for a Latinization scheme which would involve digraphs and trigraphs and diacritics? AnonMoos (talk) 23:25, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, from what I can see, Hangeul is perfectlu suitable for Korean with a logical orthography. As native literacy is widespread, there would be no actual reason to replace the alphabet. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:33, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it's just me, but these "why doesn't language x use the Latin alphabet" come across as insulting and xenophobic. It sounds as if you are saying that the Latin alphabet is the be-all, end-all, god-king, best ever writing system and that any language that doesn't use it is backwards and deficient. If that is not what you mean to imply, you should seriously rethink your phrasings. Aside from that, the answer to ALL of these questions about a lack of script changes in languages, is that the people who speak, read, and write those languages don't feel the need to. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:47, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The section you linked to says nothing about scripts, so I'm not sure what point you are making here. And, "following local and regional politics" (up to and including being forced at gunpoint) would still seem to fall under the speakers feeling the need to change.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:14, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Feeling the need" is a true answer for lots of "why" questions, but it is usually not helpful or enlightening. In the case of why Central Asian languages changed script several times, explaining local and regional politics would be more useful. --Error (talk) 11:53, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that what Error is alluding to in this case is the freedom to ditch the Cyrillic script (which was forced at gunpoint) and replace it with something else (with the Latin script being at least one of the alternative options). — Kpalion(talk) 10:36, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Various central Asian languages were switched from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet in the early Soviet Union, then switched to Cyrillic under Stalin. After 1990, many of them switched yet again... AnonMoos (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Veronikahonkasalot"
This is a direct copy of the article fi:Jumalan teatteri on the Finnish Wikipedia, citing Jari Halonen in an interview:
tänä päivänä kaikki nämä veronikahonkasalot ja kaikki, ne on niin provokatorisia kuin olla ja voi
This literally means "today all these veronikahonkasalos and everybody, they are as provocative as they can be".
Now Jari Halonen was not literally talking about Veronika Honkasalo. Instead he used her name as a sort of "generic trademark" meaning all people like Veronika Honkasalo. Because of this, the word is spelled with a small initial letter and as a compound word.
How would this be done in English? JIP | Talk 21:09, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You would just use the name directly, without any special marking: "all these Veronika Honkasalos and everybody, ...". --Amble (talk) 23:24, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Examples: "A fierce—but not always silent—struggle has been going on for more than a year among the Quislings of the occupied Netherlands."[11]"It gave the bare facts about the sentence belatedly passed on one of the little Eichmanns of Germany."[12]“Prepare, Prepare, Prepare”: Why Didn’t the World Listen to the Coronavirus Cassandras?[13] Grammatically, using a proper noun this way turns it into a common noun, which may also lead to its losing its capitalization (as seen, e.g., in svengali and quisling). --Lambiam 15:04, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can you think of any examples where the full name loses its capitalization? --Amble (talk) 16:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've seen "mickey mouse operation" before, but even that is uncommon.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 23:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I find the word jamesbondish used many places (like here), sometimes with lower case 'j', sometimes with capital 'J' (and a few times also with capital 'B', 'JamesBondish'). --T*U (talk) 14:14, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Surely I can't be the only one to have parsed this as Veronika honks a lot. --Trovatore (talk) 23:47, 12 February 2024 (UTC) [reply]
I have to stop myself from reading it like that everytime. GalacticShoe (talk) 01:59, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
LOL. "Veronika Honkasalo" literally means "Veronika Pine-Wilderness" in Finnish. JIP | Talk 08:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In my part of the world (Southern England) there is a family, several of whose members were/are Solicitors or in other law-related occupations, whose surname is Pine-Coffin. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.107.217 (talk) 05:57, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
February 12
Place names
A few questions about pronunciations of place names.
Why "Sault" in Sault Ste. Marie (both in Michigan and Ontario) is pronounced as /suː/ and not as /sɔːlt/?
Are there any places named Greenwich that are pronounced /griːnwit͡ʃ/?
Why "Sioux" is pronounced /suː/ (same as "Sault") and not /suːks/? --40bus (talk) 17:04, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1. The lt is not pronounced because of the French (this can be seen from the original Les Saults de Ste-Marie.) As to why it became /su:/ and not /so:/, I am unsure. GalacticShoe (talk) 18:13, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why l is not pronounced in Sault, despite letter L is normally pronounced at end of word in French? --40bus (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure someone can answer with more specifics, but it's worth noting that sault is, in Modern French, written saut, with a corresponding lack of a pronounced consonant at the end. I imagine that in older times, sault may have been pronounced similarly. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:03, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While the old spelling "sault", reflecting the word's Latin origin, was still used at the time the place was named, it was already pronounced with the final two letters silent. French orthography was only simplified some years later, with a lot of these extraneous letters being dropped, but the old spelling was retained in this instance. Xuxl (talk) 14:09, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Item 2: wikt:Greenwich"(town in Massachusetts, town and village in New York): (US) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹinwɪt͡ʃ/". --Amble (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
3. Because of the French. wikt:Sioux has it as a shortening of the original Nadouessioux, which our article on the Sioux suggests is from Ojibwe naadawesi plus French pluralizing -oux (which I would assume is largely equivalent to -eaux, save for pronunciation.) GalacticShoe (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Using "x" instead of "s" is a common way of forming the plural of words that end in "ou" (e.g. hiboux, choux, bijoux, etc.), even if by rule "s" should be used. In all cases, the x is silent. Xuxl (talk) 14:12, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense, would you happen to know how if there are rules that determine what ending to apply for a word of foreign origin? e.g. -oux in the case of naadawesi. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The name was given by explorers before spelling rules were set in stone, not by linguists. As I mentioned above, the most common French words that end in "ou" tend to form their plural with "oux", even if the current rule states that it should be "ous". Xuxl (talk) 13:53, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe there are only a few French plurals in oux, including choux, hiboux, cailloux, genoux, joujoux, poux (these are listed in dialogue in Le Bouclier Arverne, Astérix № 11). Many more in aux, as plural of al (cheval, chevaux, etc.). —Tamfang (talk) 19:10, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, these are the exception to the general rule (i.e. un clou, des clous), but the exceptions represent some of the most common words to end in "ou". In the past, French schoolchildren had to memorize such lists of exceptions, hence they would have immediately understood the joke in the Bouclier Arverne. Xuxl (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
/ji/ and /wu/
Is there any language where diphthongs /ji/ and /wu/ are common? Many languages forbid them, but why? And Chinese seems to have them, as there are ⟨yi⟩ and ⟨wu⟩ in pinyin, but in reality it does not have them, since they are used only in beginning of word, and are merely equivalents or ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ at beginning of word, and are pronounced /i/ and /u/. And why does French not also have combinations /ɥy/, /jy/ and /wy/? --40bus (talk) 21:13, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In some languages (including early Indo-European) [i], [j], and/or [ji] and/or [ij] are allophones of a single phoneme (and similarly with [u] and [w]). Some linguists would ascribe prohibitions against [ji] or [wu] to the workings of the Obligatory contour principle... AnonMoos (talk) 22:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In Maltese many verbs have conjugated forms starting with /jɪ-/: jikteb 'he writes', jipproduċi 'he produces'.
In fact even English has /wʊ/ (wood), /wuː/ (womb), /jiː/ (yeast), and even /jɪ/ in not-so-common words like yip. --Theurgist (talk) 08:32, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
/ji/ is common in Ukrainian, e.g. Київ /ˈkɪjiw/. — Kpalion(talk) 09:14, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Swedish has /jɪ-/ and /jiː-/ (and also Norwegian, I believe), although they more or less only appear at the beginning of words and aren't strictly diphtongs. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:13, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Polish /w/ is always a consonant and it may even be syllabic, as in jabłko 'apple', pronounced either [ˈjabwkɔ] or [ˈjapkɔ]. Sol505000 (talk) 14:03, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There a no syllabic consonants in Polish; jabłko is always two syllables, either /ˈjabw.kɔ/ (careful speech) or /ˈjap.kɔ/ (normal speech). --Kpalion, 17:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Jabłko" clearly has three phonetic syllables in careful pronunciation, a syllabic consonant in the middle and an initial stress. "Starowiślna" (a name of a street in Cracow) also has a syllabic approximant, a syllabic [l̩] not dissimilar to the one in Czech Vltava. This is a major omission in all descriptions of Polish phonology and it shows that not all native Polish words are stressed on the penultimate syllable - syllabic consonants can disturb that pattern (also Brda sounds awfully like [br̩ˈda], with two syllables and a final stress, another thing that supposedly does not happen in native Polish words. Well, it clearly does). Sol505000 (talk) 20:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, maybe "jabłko" is up to debate - after all, a syllabic [w] is [u] and we don't say "jabuko". But in older pronunciation ([ˈjabɫkɔ]), [ɫ] is syllabic. However, the reason we don't hear it as "jabuko" might have to do with the mandatory initial stress. Sol505000 (talk) 09:53, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If these 'exceptions' are brought about by the 'syllabic' consonants everywhere where the latter occur, then they are not really exceptions, and the consonants are not syllabic, at least not in phonological terms (though phonetically they might be like that). Hence the stress placement, also in examples like centymetr [tsɛnˈtɨmɛtr] and Przemyśl [ˈpʂɛmɨɕl]. This contrasts with Czech and Slovak, where such are full syllables in all senses. --Theurgist (talk) 09:57, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
February 13
Japanese - sounds like EE-ZA-JIN-JO-NI-SHOV A
Google translate can't decipher [14]. Help will be appreciated. Zarnivop (talk) 19:20, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it is 'īsa-jin jō ni shōbu'. Didn't get far enough in my studios to come up with guesses of the meaning. Context and source? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:22, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
いざ尋常に勝負: "now, let's have a fair match" GalacticShoe (talk) 19:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kudos, both of you Zarnivop (talk) 23:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
'iza jinjō ni shōbu', apparently. Slightly different from what I heard. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
February 14
Can you assist me to translate some decoration names?
I would like to translate the name of decoration from Korean to English. Can someone assist me with this? Thank you!
2002년 체육훈장 맹호장 수훈 --> Korean Order of Sport Merit
2018년 베트남 3급 노동 훈장 수훈 --> Vietnam 3rd class of Labor Order
2018년 베트남 우호 훈장 수훈 --> Vietnam Friendship Medal
2018년 아시아기자협회 선정 올해의 아시아인상 -->
2018년 대한기자협회 올해의 인물상 -->
2020년 베트남 2급 노동 훈장 수훈 --> Vietnam 2nd class of Labor Order
Back when I was a teenager, my family played Boggle. My younger sister used to just used to right down a lot of "words" just to have the chance that they might be in the dictionary. At one point, simply to reduce this, we added a rule that no words with iw, iy or uw could be used. This was for places where they would be dipthongs, something equivalent to Kuwait would have been fine. Are there any words in modern English with any of these as dipthongs? Naraht (talk) 16:07, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by "as diphthongs"? ⟨uw⟩ in Kuwait doesn't represent a diphthong, just a vowel and a semivowel with a syllable break in between. English phonotactics prohibits a semivowel from ending a syllable (unless it's the second component of a phonemic diphthong) and ⟨iw, iy, uw⟩ aren't normally found without a syllable boundary (even though some accents retain /ɪʊ̯/ distinct from /juː/ and it's sensible to analyze /iː, uː/ in many accents as /ɪj, ʊw/) so it's indeed unlikely. Nardog (talk) 16:45, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Naraht -- There's the Welsh name Huw and any number of names with the Arabic nisbah/"gentilic" adjective suffix whose feminine and plural forms are often transcribed with "-iyy" (Ibn Taymiyyah etc), but there aren't too many acclimatized English words with those sequences. Some forms of Middle English actually had a phonetic [iw] diphthong, but it wasn't usually spelled with the letter "i". According to an old book I have here, "Historical Outlines of English Phonology and Morphology" by Samuel Moore, the spellings "eu" and "ew" in Chaucer nearly always represented phonetic [iw], and there were only about ten words in which such spellings represented phonetic [ew]... AnonMoos (talk) 00:29, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
February 16
Categorization issue
Father of Bossa Nova is claimed to be an epithet and categorized as a nickname (rather than under Category:Epithets), but I don't think either applies. Honorary title comes close, but isn't a perfect match. Is there a category (or should there be one for such things (e.g. Father of the Nation)? Clarityfiend (talk) 15:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Such things are covered by the article Sobriquet. I'd be inclined to change "epithet" to "sobriquet" in the description on the dab page but leave the page in Category:Nicknames (where Sobriquet also appears). Deor (talk) 16:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, the subcategory Category:Nicknames in music is probably better. The page doesn't need to be in the parent category when it's already in the subcat. Deor (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
February 17
wanking
Particularly in UK English, can anyone tell me if this is a male specific term, or does it apply reasonably equally to both genders? Is there a gender neutral term that is similarly concise and evocative? Something that is slang, not the multisyllabic clinical term. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:3E6:D4AA:3598:E59B (talk) 09:24, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Afaik, it's a male-specific term. I've heard "frigging" being used for lady-wanking. That said, if you've ever heard the Sex Pistols' song "Frigging in the Rigging", most of the masturbating pirates in that are male. So, maybe it's not universal. Iloveparrots (talk) 09:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Jacking? I would have interpreted frigging as a euphemism for fucking, though... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I'd heard the term frigging but not in that female sense. I had thought jacking was male (maybe derived from ejaculation), and the female counterpart was jilling. I'm still looking for a gender neutral monosyllable. Hmm, does "cum" (as a verb) denote both male and female orgasm? Maybe I can use that. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:3E6:D4AA:3598:E59B (talk) 13:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, are you looking for a specifically female term, or a unisex term? I think jack can be unisex, such as in the Prince song 'Jack U off'. Cumming is orgasming, not masturbation. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:31, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pleasuring [oneself]? Not sure if you'd classify it as slang but it's concise and quite evocative: "she was caught in the greengrocers pleasuring herself with a cucumber". I too think of frigging as fucking, wikt:frigging has both uses. --2A04:4A43:906F:F3A7:8C7A:FE6F:89F9:AE8C (talk) 13:27, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I remember that the ribald webcomic "Sexy Losers" frequently used the onomatopoeiae 'fap' for male masturbation and 'shlick' for female masturbation, which somewhat caught on to get some usage outside of the strip. (For simplicity's sake, disregarding the old trans discussion as genitalia for identifying an individual.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I was just wondering whether "fap" was gender neutral and I guess it's not, oh well. Some version of "pleasuring oneself" is ok in principle (informal enough) but too long. I'll think of something, maybe a different approach. I'm trying to prank someone with an NSFW poem, so I have some flexibility with the imagery, but the scansion constraints are proving kind of hard. Thanks everyone. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:3E6:D4AA:3598:E59B (talk) 15:02, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My impression was that women who talked about such matters, often would appropriate traditionally male terms, since more traditionally female terms such as "pleasuring / caressing oneself" often come across as rather pompous and cheesy... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd think "frigging" should work well for either gender. At least, it served that purpose in Victorian pornography. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 19:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sid Finch (2016) suggests, among others: "muff-buffing" and "playing the clitar". His etymology is a bit weak, though. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1. How do the diphthongs υι and ου augment in verb tenses that augment the beginning of the word (i.e., the imperfect, aorist, and pluperfect)?
2. Some verbs with stems ending in plosives have an -αν suffix (exclusive to the present stem), which is commonly accompanied with a nasal infix inserted before the plosive in question (more specifically the nasal infix is ν before τ/δ/θ, μ before π/β/φ, γ before κ/γ/χ). [Reference is Complete Ancient Greek by Gavin Betts and Alan Henry, page 58.] Both this suffix and the nasal infix are deleted everywhere outside the present stem (though the imperfect tense tends to keep present stem suffixes). Since the aorist of these verbs also removes content from the middle of the stem, does that mean that all verbs that have this suffix and the accompanying nasal infix are strong aorist?
Primal Groudon (talk) 16:21, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ad 1.: My grammar book (Bornemann & Risch: Griechische Grammatik) notes that augments for verbs with initial long vowel and ου remain unmarked. The example given is οὐτάςω with imperfect οὔταζον (hope the spirits breathings are correct, I find it impossible to tell them apart even after increasing the font size...). My dictionary has no verb with initial υι, so that part of the question is likely moot. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you meant to write οὐτάω. The spirits are good, but the flesh is weak. --Lambiam 17:13, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nope (sort of...), the book has οὐτάζω, except that I clicked on ς instead of ζ... The dictionary has it as well, see [15] (I'm using the latest edition of that one). I'm still beginning... --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:28, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The only verb I could find that starts with υι is υἱόω ("make into a son"), but I don't know its conjugation. --Lambiam 17:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Questions
Can English sentence a glass of beer ever be pronounced with fully stressed [eɪ̯ glæs ɒv bɪə̯r] rather than having at least either a or of unstressed?
Do numerals constitute a distinct part of speech in English?
Are there any words in English that end in /h/ sound?
Conversely, are there any words in English that have /h/ before consonants?
Is there any Germanic language that allow /h/ in coda?
Can in English be said in the following way: In Finland is drunk lots of coffee. In this sentence, lots of coffee is the subject. This would mean same as Lots of coffee is drunk in Finland.
Why Icelandic does not use letter Þ in the end of word?
Is there any Western Romance language that uses more than one consonant diacritic?
Are there any instances in French where more than one silent word-final consonant becomes pronounced in liaison?
Are there any singular nouns in French where silent final consonant becomes pronounced in liaison?
--40bus (talk) 20:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
--40bus (talk) 20:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's on the right side of the pulmonic consonant chart, the voiceless glottal fricative. It's the sound usually represented in English orthography by the letter "h", the first phoneme in "hat". CodeTalker (talk) 04:19, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can't think of any actual standard English words that end with this sound but I can imagine someone pronouncing /x/ like this in a word like loch (although I would also imagine that /k/ would be a lot more common.) GalacticShoe (talk) 04:52, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not in the article as /h/, which is confusing. As to its use at the end of a word, the closest I can think of is the sound one makes when breathing on one's glasses to provide some mist before wiping them. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 04:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little confused about the distinction between [...] and /.../, but [h] is mentioned in the sections "Typography and iconicity" and "Pulmonic consonants". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
4. Just like with 3. I can't think of any actually solid examples which are definitively /h/ before another consonant, but I can imagine someone pronouncing the voiceless labial–velar fricative (which appears in certain dialects of English for words containing wh, elsewhere pronounced /w/) in a manner somewhat similar to /hw/. Note though that our article on the aforementioned fricative explicitly states that it is not the same as /h/ + /w/. You can see more at Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:07, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
6. No, but In Finland, lots of coffee is drunk would make sense. GalacticShoe (talk) 21:12, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It makes grammatical sense, but Lots of coffee is drunk in Finland is the better way to say it. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 01:14, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
7. I believe it contradicts Icelandic orthography and phonotactics. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:01, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
40bus -- English has had a whole thing going for centuries of destressing and restressing of function words. For example, the form of the pronoun "I" without a final "ch" consonant likely originated in a destressed form, which was then restressed, so that the dropping of the consonant extended to all contexts. In American English, if "of" is restressed, then it can only have a central vowel. In some forms of UK English, a back rounded vowel was apparently possible in emphatic forms of "of" into the 20th century, but I couldn't tell you how common it is today. AnonMoos (talk) 04:21, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1. 40bus, in reply to the (unlikely) question "Would you like some glasses of beer", one wanting only one glass might reply "A glass of beer." (Unlikely because glasses of beer would rarely be so offered, but the grammatical construction and answer would be routine for items more often offered in multiples: e.g. "Would you like some chocolates?" "A chocolate.") {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.24.45.226 (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As an extraordinarily contrived example, I can imagine someone emphasizing "a X of Y" when "X Y" (or "Xs Y") is normally associated with a plural. Like "a federation is many states' union, while rule under a federal government is a state of union." GalacticShoe (talk) 10:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In a noisy pub, where a speaker has difficulty making themself understood, they might naturally enunciate each word separately and clearly, and therefore schwa-free. --Lambiam 10:39, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
February 18
Seal of whom?
I added this to a List of inscriptions in biblical archaeology but I dithered on the spelling. I think the letter orientation necessitates reading bovistrophedon from the upper right. smyad alyqm. Maybe the aleph in the first line is an r. Petrie spells it Shimeah here and Shemya there. Doesn't explain much more that I could find in Gerar. So what's the name? Shem Yrd El-Yaqim? Does that sound right to you? I don't know if that sound right to me. Does anybody else refer to this thing? The screen shot is from Petrie Israel and Palestine.Temerarius (talk) 01:29, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The decipherer identifies Smya(d) with the Shimeah (שִׁמְאָ֑ה) mentioned in 1 Chronicles 8:32, in a verse that is repeated in 1 Chronicles 9:38, except there the name is given as Shimeam (שִׁמְאָ֑ם). The proposed decipherment of the seal hinges on both lines being read right-to-left: smyad mqyla, in which mqyla is identified with Mikloth (מִקְל֖וֹת), the father of Shimeah/m. I don't think anything is known about this biblical figure beyond what is mentioned in these verses. There is also another biblical figure whose name is transliterated as Shimeah (but written in Hebrew as שִׁמְעָה), a son of Jesse and thus an older brother of David, --Lambiam 10:33, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where are you getting boustrophedon? The letters on both rows are consistently mirrored because it's a seal, and you want them to be the right way around when you make an impression. That implies both rows should be read in the mirrored direction, that is, left-to-right. The caption in the source image instead reads both rows from right-to-left, suggesting that whoever made the seal made a mistake. That gives "sh-m-y-r-d m-q-y-l-a". You could instead insist on reading it left-to-right, as it should be for a seal, and get something like "d-r-y-m-sh a-l-y-q-m". But I don't see any reason to suggest it would be boustrophedon. The individual characters have a consistent orientation in both rows, and boustrophedon would be unusual for a Paleo-Hebrew inscription. --Amble (talk) 16:26, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In old stuff the "bull marches forward" or the Alef points toward the direction of writing, typically. Especially an A and an L right next to each other like that at the beginning of a line, it's an indication by the writer that doesn't get disturbed when mirroring is involved. The A and L like that are distinctive. The first line just doesn't read the other way, and since it was written first it set the "global" directionality of the Ms and such. The earlier A doesn't look like it's going the same way. Not interpreted that way by the illustrator anyway. I'm going to take another look at Gerar and see there's a photo of that thing. Temerarius (talk) 17:30, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Petrie's first attempt at reading the seal, later reversedTemerarius (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The aleph on the second line is mirrored, yes, just like all the letters on both lines are consistently mirrored, because it’s a seal. So there’s still nothing in the orientations of the letters to suggest boustrophedon. —Amble (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying the conventions of the time would render that A and L tremendously confusing if at the end of a line. Do you see how "forward" is not disturbed by the seal's mirroring? Temerarius (talk) 00:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None of that gets you to boustrophedon. The orientations of the letters are consistent across the two lines. If we trust those, and the usual conventions for writing Paleo-Hebrew, we'd read both lines from left to right. --Amble (talk) 00:36, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which way does the first A go? Temerarius (talk) 23:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure there is any aleph in the first row. Are you trying to read the seal as boustrophedon based on taking that one character as an aleph, when every other letter is going the other way? That would not inspire confidence. --Amble (talk) 01:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are two more seals of Shema(s) in "Ancient Hebrew Seals," 1948.[1] The first is spelled שמע. There's another seal of another El Yaqim too. Same spelling.[2]
^Klingbeil, Martin G.; Hasel, Michael G.; Garfinkel, Yosef; Petruk, Néstor H. (2019-05-01). "Four Judean Bullae from the 2014 Season at Tel Lachish". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 381. University of Chicago Press: 41–56. doi:10.1086/703122. ISSN0003-097X.
