Language desk
< November 30	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 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.

December 1[edit]

Pronounciation[edit]

We have a question regarding pronounciation of a character word. The character word is spelled "Egor", the humpback slave character. How do we correctly pronounce the name??? Is it "eee-gor" or is it "i-gor". We are having a family fun time with this and any response is appreciated. Thank-you in advance,

Bart and Brooke and Kathy. Blessings —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.127.5.49 (talk) 02:03, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The conventional spelling of the hunch-backed assistant to a mad scientist is "Igor (fictional character)". The name itself comes from Eastern Europe (see Igor (given name)), and is usually pronounced "eee-gor". This convention was notably changed in the film "Young Frankenstein", where the character Igor (Young Frankenstein) tells Dr. Frederick Frankenstein that his name is pronounced "eye-gor", after Fredrick pronounces his last name as "Fronkensteen". -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) See Igor (given name). It's always pronounced with an "ee" opening syllable by Russians, although I have heard the "eye" version spoken by Americans (a la "eye-ris" for Iris). Yegor, sometimes spelt Egor, is a variant of the Russian equivalent of George, and unrelated to Igor. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:22, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if anyone said "eye-gor" prior to the film Young Frankenstein. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:34, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cognate[edit]

What are some false cognates (words that look similar but not etymologically related) that are similar in meaning between English and any other language (especially the languages with less contact with English). I'm excluding the obvious "mama" and "papa" and probably "nana" too. 24.92.78.167 (talk) 03:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See False cognate, oddly enough... --Jayron32 03:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Might the false cognate be in some sense equivalent or similar to the biological Convergent evolution? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:33, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would say no, because in convergent evolution the gross similarities between the two phenotypes (which are expressions of rather different genotypes) are selected for by the similarities in their environments, whereas in the case of false cognates their 'linguistic environments' are quite dissimilar and the resemblances are down to sheer statistical chance. Dissenting assessments welcome, of course. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:38, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for a word[edit]

Me again :) I'm looking for a word that means "time right before" or "prelude" as in the time right before a war. I'm thinking it has *fore in it. 24.92.78.167 (talk) 03:12, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On the eve of X. See [1] and [2]. Oda Mari (talk) 05:15, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Vietnamese help[edit]

How do you say "Logo of the Houston Independent School District" in Vietnamese?
The image that needs the description is at: File:HoustonISDVietnameseLogo.PNG
"Houston Independent School District" in Vietnamese is "Khu Học Chánh Houston"

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:54, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of Poston (Japanese American internment camp)[edit]

What is the pronunciation of the Japanese American internment camp "Poston" used in World War II? 99.13.195.179 (talk) 05:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rhymes with "Boston", the city in MA. Roger (talk) 09:35, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So then /ˈpɔstɨn/ (/ˈpɑstɨn/ˈpastɨn/ with the cot-caught merger)?—msh210℠ 16:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Who or what was it named for (or after)? The actor Tom Poston pronounced his name like "postin'". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. 99.13.195.179 (talk) 22:15, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mail Administrator's grasp of English, or mine?[edit]

I keep getting emails from someone called Mail Administrator stating that "This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason". Surely it is not necessary to use both the words "due" and "reason". Why not just "This Message was undeliverable due to" or "This Message was undeliverable because"--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"This Message" — or, better, "message" — "was undeliverable because:" works pretty well, but "...due to" doesn't if what follows is, for example, a clause. (E.g., "... due to: The user could not be found" is comprehensible, certainly, but bad English.) Even better might be "undeliverable. Reason:". As for the original, "...due to the following reason", it sounds stilted and is certainly redundant, as you say.—msh210℠ 15:59, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See http://web.ku.edu/~edit/because.html. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not particularly good English, but is there any doubt as to the meaning? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Due to' is a preposition, and needs a noun. 'Reason' is the noun. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:13, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But it's not undeliverable due to a reason, as though a reason came along and jammed the mail queue. There is a reason x it's undeliverable, and it's undeliverable due to x. Marnanel (talk) 18:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The following sentence is the reason, of course, and the word 'reason' tells us it's the reason. I really have no problem with this. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Change it to ""This Message was undeliverable for the following reason"? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's good, though, again, with a lowercase message.—msh210℠ 22:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Doh! Quite right: lowercase message. I blame case-sensitive computer programming for this - A 'Message' is something entirely different to a 'message' in Java for example. This tends to encourage unthinking retention of case when copying prose... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm stunned that any of you expect great English from the kind of nerd who usually exercises the power to create such automatically generated messages. HiLo48 (talk) 22:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good grief: what an insulting piece of prejudice. Marnanel (talk) 23:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's a job I have done myself. With all due humility, I know that I had a much better grasp of good English expression than a lot of others I encountered in similar roles. It may be a bias based on my location in Australia, where a high proportion of people studying and working in IT are relatively recent immigrants of south east Asian background. Great IT skills, but not a great knowledge of idiomatic or formally correct use of English. Pure OR being displayed by me here, so feel free to ignore it. HiLo48 (talk) 08:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My father, an electrical engineer, has made the same observation about his colleagues' writing skills. It's not utterly ridiculous to suppose that verbal eloquence and technical competence are quite often inversely proportionate, if only because modern educational methods encourage the development of the one at the expense of the other. LANTZY ^TALK 02:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

due is an adjective which needs a noun, and the only one available is message — but the message is due to the (intended) recipient! —Tamfang (talk) 00:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do these emails have links in them? Do they have your original text in them? Because they sound like they could be spam to me. Spammers often try to make their words sound like good English but fail to do so, and they also try to make their emails look like they are something they're not. Just a thought, --Viennese Waltz 08:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything wrong with it, at least grammatically. Sometimes British speakers object to due to in the sense of because of, but it's an unremarkable construction on this side of the pond. If you substitute because of, getting "... was undeliverable because of the following reason:", you have an unnecessarily ponderous piece of prose, but that's a style issue, not a grammar issue. --Trovatore (talk) 02:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For me (BrE), "due to the following reason" and "because of the following reason" are equally bad. It should be "for the following reason". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.36.106 (talk) 20:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly agree that that solution is better stylistically. But there's nothing wrong grammatically or even logically with "because of the following reason". --Trovatore (talk) 17:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's not strictly ungrammatical, but I would argue that it's illogical because the word "reason" already encompasses the notion of "because". 86.135.25.44 (talk) 21:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That just makes it redundant, not illogical. --Trovatore (talk) 02:49, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

discovery of biblical greek[edit]

Hi, I read somewhere (I think it was in Teach yourself Biblical Greek) that once upon a time (before about the turn of the last century) Biblical Greek was unknown outside an ecclesiastical context, and it was conjectured that the dialect was specially developed for scriptural purposes. The reference claimed it was only after the discovery of early documents that scholars saw the language was actually the common language for all administrative matters, and was used by the Biblical and early patristic writers in order to reach the masses. This does not look at all consistent with the article, and sounds a little strange. Is there any truth whatsoever in such an assertion? Thanks in advance, It's been emotional (talk) 10:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The text of the Greek New Testament was certainly known, but it was thought that it was in some respects an "artificial dialect", and the systematic differences between the Koine of that time and earlier classical Attic Greek were not entirely understood. It was discoveries of Koine letters, contracts etc. in Egypt which threw new light on the subject. It's rather notorious in some circles that the American Standard Version Bible translation "improved" on the KJV by applying strict classical Attic tense rules to its English translations, only a few years before papyrus discoveries cast strong doubt on whether such rigid translations were valid... AnonMoos (talk) 12:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. See also the suggestions I made two years ago at Talk:American_Standard_Version#Criticisms... AnonMoos (talk) 12:26, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Following up on AnonMoos's correct answer, note the articles Koine Greek. Unfortunately there is little discussion of this interesting issue (both historical consideration of mistaken understandings about varieties of Greek at this time and current insights into the relationship among these varieties). The article does say, "There has been some debate to what degree Biblical Greek represents the mainstream of contemporary spoken Koine," and does give a 2nd century BC Roman decree as "Sample 1," though, so check it out. Inscriptions and papyri are our main source of insight into non-Judeo-Christian Koine Greek. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have a good article (I can find) on the language and society revealed in Greek documentary papyri of this period found in Egypt. I would recommend the Duke Papyrus Archive, with its several articles, as the starting point to learn more. Wareh (talk) 16:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for those interesting answers. It's been emotional (talk) 20:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

addressing and closing a letter to a British ambassador in another country?[edit]

Hi,

I've seen some advice (specifically here: http://www.usgs.gov/usgs-manual/handbook/hb/431-2-h/chap4.html) on addressing a letter, and closing it, as it pertains to a foreign ambassador in your country. Would it be the same for a British embassador or is there a special style a British ambassador would prefer? If so, what is it - how should the letter be opened and closed?

For reference, what I am using now is from the section "Foreign Ambassador in the United States" :

[Address on Letter & Envelope]
His Excellency (Full Name)
Ambassador of (Country)
Washington, D.C. (Zip Code)

[salutation:]Excellency:
[closing:] Very truly yours,

Thanks! 88.182.221.18 (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. the person is an ambassador in a European country, not America. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 20:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at the website of Debrett's, specifically the page entitled How to address a British Ambassador (accredited to a foreign country). You will have to do some research here to find out if the recipient's title is "Mr", "Sir", "the Rt Hon" or if he is a peer. Xenon54 (talk) 20:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much, I was looking at that page and getting so confused! I thought it just wanted my own title or something (which would be Mr.) I had for some reason assumed that being an ambassador totally supersedes anything else you might be. Oh dear. I think I'll just call them tomorrow and ask the secretary! 88.182.221.18 (talk) 21:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful about using US guidance in a European context. While "Very truly yours" is (apparently) common in the US in professional and formal contexts, it would be regarded as either odd or even rude (Valediction#Yours truly, has an explanation) in the UK. For an ordinary letter, British usage prefers "Yours sincerely" if you know him (or at least you know his name) (and it sounds like you do). Use "Yours faithfully" otherwise. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese sounds[edit]

Common schemes for transliterating Japanese into the Latin alphabet indicate sound changes like:

sa, shi, su, se, so
ta, chi, tsu, te, to
etc.

I guess this is based on how the sounds are perceived by Western (primarily English-speaking?) people, but do native Japanese speakers perceive the same differences? Or do they perceive the first sounds in these syllables as being the same? 86.173.36.118 (talk) 21:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Well, "sh" and "ch" sounds can also occur before a, o, and u vowels, so it's hard to say that s/sh and t/ch are simple allophones. In handling recent loanwords from foreign languages, there are ways to write sequences such as [ti], [si] etc. See Katakana#Table_of_katakana... AnonMoos (talk) 22:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. Is it possible that しゃ, しょ etc. are perceived as "si-(y)a" and "si-(y)o" etc.? Also, I've read that sounds in loanwords tend to be pronounced as the nearest native sound, irrespective of the attempt to reflect the source language pronunciation by inventing new Japanese syllables in the spelling. However, your knowledge of this may well be greater than mine... 86.173.36.118 (talk) 23:35, 1 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

You seem to mix up mora (linguistics)#Japanese with syllable. Japanese sound system consists of moras, not syllables, and Japanese pitch accent. One hiragana/katakana is one mora, except Yōon. They are the combination of one and half hiragana/katakana and one yōon like sha/しゃ is one mora. See Japanese phonology. You can listen to Japanese moras here. [3] and [4]. But the woman's pronunciation of sha is not good. Oda Mari (talk) 06:44, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While the mora plays an important role in Japanese phonology and poetics, it is not the case that the syllable plays no role in Japanese at all. According to some versions of moraic theory, onset consonants are not part of the mora, which means that [sa], [te], etc., are monomoraic syllables but not moras. And even according to the versions that do include onset consonants in the mora, [sa], [te], etc., are both moras and syllables, rather than being only moras. Either way, the OP is not wrong to describe the sequences in question as syllables. —Angr (talk) 11:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

86.173.36.118 -- It's very common in language borrowing situations that old loanwords are more fully nativized and assimilated into the language's phonology, while more recent loanwords remain somewhat anomalous. It's very likely that at one time [s]/[š] and [t]/[č] in Japanese were purely positionally-conditioned "automatic" allophones without any distinctive phonemic status (like English aspirated and non-aspirated stops), but that doesn't seem to be fully true in current modern Japanese. Analyzing [ša] as /sya/ is a kind of abstract phonological analysis which linguists have been fond of off and on during certain periods (see generative phonology etc.), but I'm not sure whether it would cast much light on whether Japanese perceive [s] and [š] as the "same" or "different" sounds... AnonMoos (talk) 11:22, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any references, but I think studies have found that older native speakers conflate "chi" (チ) and "ti" (ティ), while younger speakers don't, because of the recent introduction of ティ as a separate syllable for loanwords. Certainly to a Japanese speaker (even a non-native speaker like me), the morae are really "si", "tu", etc., even if they're pronounced more like "shi", "tsu", etc. (just as "forty" is pronounced more like "fordy" in my dialect of English). -- BenRG (talk) 11:19, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]