Language desk
< July 31	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 2 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 1

Chinese translation

What is zh:帛金 in English? Or, how is it best translated into English? Many thanks, --HappyCamper 02:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From what I gather in the Cantonese version of the article, when a person dies, his friends give money in envelopes to the deceased's family to show respect for the dead, as well as his family. The first character means "silk", and refers to valuable material. The second word means "gold" - self-explanatory. So I guess one way you could call it is "funeral money." Pandacomics 03:21, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Purely fictional money given to the dead is sometimes called "hell banknotes"... AnonMoos 15:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, "funeral money" (or "funeral succor/relief"?) is real money given to the families of the deceased, not to the deceased. The term seems only occur in the southern dialects (Cantonese, Hakka), and has no standard translation.--K.C. Tang 01:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A Chinese co-worker of mine recently died, and we collected money in the office to give to her family. When my father in the U.S. died, though, what friends of the family brought us was food (things that were easy to freeze and re-heat later), which was probably more useful. None of us was really in any condition to cook. —Angr 21:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

How do you pronounce: Temescal ? Choices: TE-mes-cal, Te-MES-cal, etc.

Please post the answer, somewhere, in the Temescal entry.

Thanks.

Only a local answer is likely to help you. You could try calling the Temescal Branch Library in Oakland, California, on 510 597-5049. Xn4 10:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kenyon and Knott has the stress on the last syllable: [ˌtɛməsˈkæl]. --Cam 01:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: [ˌtɛməˈskæl]. --Cam 01:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note to Xn4 that we ('Merkins) make calls at a certain number, not on one, just as we live on such-and-such a street, not in it (unless, oddly enough, we happen to be homeless). +ILike2BeAnonymous 07:19, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I used to live in Malibu, California, where there is a Temescal Canyon. We always said "te-MES-cal"--for whatever that's worth! I have no idea if that is the "correct" pronunciation.--Eriastrum 17:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Marked nouns in English

Our article on Marker (linguistics) includes the following example of markedness (which is of course a different notion):

"A marked form is a non-basic form, such as the singular of nouns in English (e.g. 'cat' versus 'cats')."

It seems to me that the singular is decidedly unmarked in English. Am I being dense? Tesseran 03:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In that sentence in the article I've replaced "marked" by "unmarked" and "non-basic" by "basic". --Lambiam 05:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What are Delation and Zele

These are a couple of words in the article on Indignité_nationale (a legally defined offence, created at the Liberation of france during WWII in the context of the "Épuration légale"). I found this definition of Delation on the French Wikipedia, but I don't read French. From the Article:

La délation est la dénonciation faite dans le but d'en retirer un avantage personnel (ou inspirée par un motif méprisable, selon la définition du Robert). Un délateur est une personne pratiquant la délation.

Dans le langage courant, délation paraît de plus en plus utilisé pour une simple dénonciation. Cette assimilation trouve sans doute son origine dans le cas de délation le plus connu : les dénonciations pratiquées sous l'occupation par les collaborateurs.

I was also thinking Zele may be a French spelling for Zeal?

Thanks, --Czmtzc 13:39, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"La délation is a denunciation made with the aim to draw a personal advantage out of it (or inspired by a contemptible motive, according to Robert's definition.) A délateur is a person practicing délation.

Colloquially, délation seems to get used increasingly for a simple denunciation. This assimilation, without doubt, finds its origins in the best known case of délation : the denunciations under occupation made by collaborators ."

WordReference.com has zeal for "zèle", and "good will" for "bon zèle", but "zealous", "officious", and "eager beaver" for "zélé". For "délation" it has "denouncement" and "tattling", while "délateur (dénonciateur)". is translated as "canary (informer)" . ---Sluzzelin talk 14:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect! thanks! Czmtzc 14:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pottery translation

Can someone please identify/translate the symbols found here. (sorry for the low quality pic. the symbols were pretty faded as is.) They were found on the inside of the bottom of a broken piece of pottery. 69.123.113.89 18:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I might be wrong, but I think it's either running script or grass script. Please see East Asian calligraphy. The first character is probably 京, [capital] city. --Kjoonlee 18:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The second character vaguely reminds me of 汚 (wikt:汚), but I'm not at all familiar with cursive scripts so don't take my word for it. The last character reminds me of Hiragana ら a bit, which was derived from 良 (wikt:良), but again, I could be totally wrong. --Kjoonlee 19:19, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I photoshopped it a bit, adding cyan lines to show the characters (parts were too faint to scan properly). It can be viewed here. 69.123.113.89 19:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But are you sure they're Chinese characters at the first place?--K.C. Tang 02:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They are definitly characters of some kind, but I don't have the slightest idea if they're Chinese. 69.123.113.89 19:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Manual

I pronounce manual differently depending on whether I mean something like a manual gear stick (sounds like manyil) versus an instruction manual (sounds more like manyul). Is this a recognised difference, are there other words like this, does this phenomenon have a name?

Aaadddaaammm 22:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No idea, but I pronounce both the same, and different from both of your pronunciations: "man-yu-wool" in three syllables. —Angr 22:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I pronounce it as "MAN-yu-al". You didn't give any stress markers, so I'm not sure, but you could be using a self invented Initial-stress-derived noun, where "manyil" is your adjective and "manyul" is your noun. HYENASTE 00:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Certainly there are other words like that. In American usage, "offense" and "defense" are often accented on the first syllable when referring to one of the two sides of a conflict, as in sports, but on the second syllable in other senses such as "an offense against human decency" or "a defense against viruses" (see e.g. at www.m-w.com). I'm not aware of a name for the phenomenon. --Anonymous, August 2, 2007, 04:03 (UTC).

In both the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and in the American Heritage Dictionary (both on line), "manual" is given only one pronunciation for all meanings: "man'yoo-el". As an American, I don't recall hearing any difference in the pronunciation of the word for different meanings.--Eriastrum 16:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OR, but I pronounce Manual in the same manner as AAAdddaaaammmm. For reference, I'm from Texas. -Czmtzc 19:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting! Thanks for all the info. I'm from Noo Zealand FYI and I think the initial stress derived noun could be what's at play here. Keep it coming, if you have more to contribute. Aaadddaaammm 21:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]