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December 31

Placement of adverbs in transitive-verb, English clauses. [Revisited]

Hello, again!

Some time ago, I found myself puzzled by the writing advice of usage commentator Wilson Follett apropos placement of adverbs in the present subjunctive. Alas, after posting on this reference desk, I was left with more questions, than answers.

Now, after much thinking—and re-thinking—I feel as though I've encountered a rule far superior to either my earlier one, or to Mr. Follett's. Viz., It may very well seem that (in present subjunctive clauses) one must distinguish between different types of adverb. Allow me to demonstrate with the following, collapsed sets of examples:

Since "not" and "constantly" fall under (3) and (1), respectively, this would adequately explain why—in my prior post—one would split the latter, but not the former. What do you think, out of curiosity? Can we (finally) lay this question safely to bed?

EDIT: I just fixed an error in the tables. Pine (talk) 00:40, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

My talk page

What does this mean? I figure it may have something to do with the section above it about the airports. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 11:44, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I imagine it has something to do with this page, which you protected a few days ago. Perhaps the IP is questioning whether Kwak Jung Wook really is a former artist. --Antiquary (talk) 12:34, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. The IP was from Indonesia so I just figured it was the airport. CambridgeBayWeather (mobile) (talk) 22:44, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

5 Sentences in English I find difficult. Help me out and I might just learn something today.

I have collected a few English words I am unsure about... or rather what I am unsure about is whether I use them correctly in the sentences shown below. So a little help would be appreciated, so I might learn. If English is your mother tongue, that would be great. Learn from the native speakers and all that ;) Bear in mind that I am not looking for explanation as to the meaning of the words (for that there are dictionaries), just whether I am using them correctly in these sentences, and if I am not, then which words would be better to use in the 5 given examples? The words I am unsure about is written in CAPITAL LETTERS.

1. “He MIGHT/MAY yet live to see our age.”

"He MIGHT/MAY indeed."

(In the first comment both variants seem correct to me, even though "Might" is supposedly paste tense of "May". In the reply to the first comment "may" seem correct to me, while "might" seem wrong. But the words seem to often be used interchangeably... So I'm not sure if both words can be used.)

2. But the horses had mostly scattered about the area during the commotion, and had to be REELED IN first.

3. The two newcomers seemed uncomfortable, no doubt feeling the other men’s resenting STARES/LOOKS/GLARES ON/AT them, but they sat down, putting on gloomy faces.

4. STRAPPED/BUCKLED TO the stranger’s back was a round metal-shield. / SLUNG OVER the stranger’s shoulder was a round metal-shield. (Here it is assumed that the shield in question has a belt so that the shield can be carried across one shoulder, so technically it won't actually be fastened like "strapped" or "buckled" might suggest. Very unsure about this one...)

5. They were for the most part spared by their conquerors, but still forced to assimilate INTO/TO their societies/culture. (Are both "into" and "to" correct, or only one of them?)

Thanks in advance for any help ;) 2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:8054:C572:DEBB:DF66 (talk) 14:17, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

1) Grammatically, both "Might" and "May" are possible, but I would prefer "might". It has the same meaning as in the title of this section - "perhaps"

2) "To reel something in" is what you do to a fish after you have caught it on a fishing line. You turn the "reel" (wheel) of the fishing line, and pull the fish towards you. Here it is being used metaphorically, but still implies that you have to fight the horses, and pull them to the correct location using a rope

3) I would use "stares" but no "at/on" and no "them" ("The two newcomers seemed uncomfortable, no doubt feeling the other men’s resenting stares, but they sat down, putting on gloomy faces.") "To stare" is when to look intensively at something (either looking continuously, with interest; or alternatively looking blanking at something, without doing anyything). "To look" is neutral. "To glare" implies a degree of anger.

4) I'll pass on this. "Strapped" and "slung over" sounds OK to me, without a contradiction.

5) Using "into". They are entering the new culture, so "in" is appropriate.

I hope that this helps. Bluap (talk) 14:29, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

@Bluap - Alright, "Reel in" as you say is like when you draw a fish up in your boat with your fishing pole, which is kind of why I've been unsure about using this word. I wasn't intending to imply that the horses would resist. I suppose "collect" or "gather" might work better if I rephrase the sentence. On 3 "glare" might be the best option, I guess, as there is anger and contempt involved, and I like the sentence better the way you presented it, with no "at/on them." Simple, but better. I guess I should learn to sometimes use fewer words. Your answer on 5 is a little confusing. I interpret it as you saying "into" would be your choice, but that "in" also works. Thanks 2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:8054:C572:DEBB:DF66 (talk) 14:50, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

The usual term in sentence 2, rather than "reeled in", would be "rounded up". Deor (talk) 15:19, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

As a native English speaker, I would say:

1. Slight preference for MAY.

2. ROUNDED UP is good whereas REELED IN is surely wrong.

3. resentFUL would be better. STARES or GLARES are better at being resentful than LOOKS. Although one stares/glares/looks (verb) AT, you want ON here because the new men are feeling the glares (noun) ON them (though you could drop the ON THEM entirely if you wished).

4. If the strap is a permanently attached part of the shield then SLUNG OVER is best

5. INTO

--catslash (talk) 16:40, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, guys. You're a helpful bunch ;) 2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:8054:C572:DEBB:DF66 (talk) 17:24, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

1. They can be used interchangeably, but due to one of may's meanings being "to be allowed to", might is usually preferred.

2. I've never heard anyone say reeled in when referring to a horse. Hypothetically, if you were writing poetry, you might be able to say that, but I would avoid it in common discourse.

3. Err... I would rephrase that sentence in one of a few ways, rather than directly answering your question:

• The two newcomers seemed uncomfortable, no doubt feeling the other men’s resenting looks, but they sat down nevertheless, putting on gloomy faces.
• The two newcomers seemed uncomfortable, no doubt feeling the resenting glares of the other men, but they sat down nevertheless, putting on gloomy faces.
• The two newcomers seemed uncomfortable, the other men staring at/looking at/glaring at them resentfully. Nevertheless, they sat down and put on gloomy faces.

Perhaps it's just my dialect of English (remember, by the way, that no dialect of English is better than another, and that there is no such thing as truly "Standard" English when push comes to shove. Someone will probably think that you sound funny no matter where you go. You just have to pick which dialect of English you wish to cater to and run with that.) but "glare on", "stare on", and "look on" sound strange. The only one that sounds remotely reasonable is "look on", but even so it sounds a bit strange in this context.

• I suppose that you could use either strapped or buckled in this sentence, but personally, buckled sounds better to my ears in this case. Still, it's up to you. Slung over in this case sounds a bit odd, though nevertheless still "logical" in and of itself. However, if I were to read that line in a book somewhere, I would stop reading for a moment and say "...What?" in confusion.
• Into, not to. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 17:41, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

"assimilate to" is generally more common in British English (per OED), but I can see the argument for using "into" in this context. The "into" preposition following assimilate used to be rare on both sides of the pond, but overtook "in" in America in the 1970s. ngrams Dbfirs 21:48, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I see. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 22:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

In case my answer was unclear: I agree that one would not glare on or stare on somebody. I was interpreting the glares here are nouns, which one would feel on oneself as one would feel the wind or the rain or the sun. I would consider "I felt the sun at me" very strange.

Rephrasing to avoid a construction of which you are uncertain (or which is subject to disagreement), is a good strategy, but that aside, the original phrasing was fine. --catslash (talk) 22:47, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I guess I misunderstood what you said before. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 00:08, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

On reflection, I see that the sentence can be parsed in two ways:

...feeling {the other men’s resenting glares at them}

or

...feeling {the other men’s resenting stares} on them

The OP's English seems good enough (forgetting sentence 2), that his/her opinion is as valid as ours on these issues. --catslash (talk) 00:39, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again for all answers. To be clear, I'm well aware that I could have simply chosen to rephrase the sentences to begin with, but that would have been avoiding the things I was unsure about. I would have learned nothing. But now I feel I did. Cheers. 2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:4D05:9E71:B18A:9AA7 (talk) 12:08, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliæ

Ranulf de Glanvill's Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliæ (1780 edition)

OK, so I'm not even going to try translating this Latin book title into English, so any help you can provide would be much appreciated! It's Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Angliæ, tempore regis Henrici Secundi compositus, justiciæ gubernacula tenente illustri viro Ranvlpho de Glanvilla, Juris Regni et antiquarum Consuetudinum eo tempore peritissimo. Et illas solum leges continet et consuetudines secundum quas placitatur in Curiâ regis, ad Scaccarium, et coram justiciis ubicunque fuerint. Cum MSS. Harl. Cott. Bodl. et Mill. collatus. (According to "Tractatus of Glanvill", "MSS. Harl. Cott. Bodl. et Mill." refer to the Cottonian, Harleian, Bodleian and Doctor Mille's manuscripts of the work.) — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:16, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Did you try Google Translate? It says, "Treatise on the laws and customs of the Kingdom of England, which, compared with the time of King Henry the Second, held it the righteousness of the government of the illustrious man, Ranvlpho de Glanville, the right of the kingdom, and to the ancient custom at that time, so skillful. And it contains only the laws and customs of those according to which plead in the court of the king, to the Exchequer, and before the justices, wherever they may be. With MSS. Hari. Cott. Bod. and Mill. bestowed." Does that make sense? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:10, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Er, not really ... I'm looking for a more accurate translation. — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:44, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

How would you know? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:41, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

A good translation should read as if it were written directly in the target language by a native speaker of that language. Infelicities of expression such as "held it the righteousness of the government", and "to the ancient custom at that time, so skillful" should be reworked till they read less clunking and more naturally. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

What he said. And also because the Google Translate version just doesn't make complete sense to an English speaker. — SMUconlaw (talk) 09:42, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Probably because most people have more sense than to stick something into Google Translate then sit back and think that was a helpful response. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:22, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, at least I did something, which is more than the OP did. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:49, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

He asked a good question and some competent people answered it. I know it's confusing, since that's not how it usually works when you're around. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:04, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

And I gave an answer based on Google Translate. If he didn't want something from Google Translate, he could have said so. Now, what's confusing to me is why you expect your personal attacks on me to improve anything. Or do you just attack me for fun? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:46, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's a tip. No one will ever want an answer based on a Google translation. Ever. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's a tip. You have no basis for that claim. And/or since I do use Google Translate myself, you have just called me nobody. Thanks for yet another personal attack or joke or whatever it is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:50, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't really care what you do personally do with Google Translate. But let's look at what happened here:

- SMUconlaw asked a question about a language you don't know (this isn't the first time you've tried to Google translate Latin)

- You can't believe that he rejected your answer, because how could he possibly know if it was wrong?

- You chastise him for not doing his own work and translating with Google in the first place, even though your own results didn't make any sense

- So not only do you not know anything about the source language, you don't even know why the translation was bad

- You think this counts as doing something

Obviously, any idiot could plug some text into Google. It might be significant when people prefer to ask a human here. But why bother even telling you, again, that you don't have to answer every question just because it's there. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:39, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

If the OP had given any indication that he had already tried Google Translate, obviously I wouldn't have posted it. The OP indicated he didn't want to deal with translating the whole thing, which suggested he can't. But even a flawed translation is better than nothing. It leaves the OP only to tweak the parts that don't quite make sense in English. If I were in the OP's shoes I would have been very happy to receive even a flawed translation. I was acting in good faith, which according to you, makes me an idiot. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:36, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Let me try an even simpler explanation of this: A Reference Desk poster (could be anyone): "Can you help me translate this?" Baseball Bugs: "Sure, here's some crap!" *beams proudly*

Google Translate sucks, especially for Latin. No one will ever be expected to try that first, and there's no reason to try it for them. Who cares if you acted in good faith? Whatever that means. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:28, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Let me try an even simpler explanation: Something is still better than nothing. And Wikipedia does care about acting in good faith, even if you don't really care about it personally - or, as it seems, have never heard of it. How long have you been here??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it's safe to assume as a general rule that anyone Internet-savvy enough to find their way to the Reference Desk is already aware of the existence of Google Translate. No harm done by posting one anyway in my opinion (though it's very unlikely to be helpful), but challenging them when they say they're looking for something more accurate is more than a little silly and patronizing. -Elmer Clark (talk) 13:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Perhaps it wasn't clear that this section was related to an earlier question that I asked above (see "#Translation of the title of De legibus & consuetudinibus Angliæ"). I'm not that familiar with Latin but I did try translating that shorter and simpler book title with the help of Google Translate (and think I managed to get most of it right), but I was quite sure that website would not be sufficiently helpful for this much longer book title, which is why I said I wouldn't even attempt a translation. And, as I mentioned above, what I was looking for help for was an accurate translation and not just a rough gist of what the title says. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

"Treatise on the Laws and Customs of England" is indeed the usual translation; see Duhaime.org - Legal Dictionary quoting Holdsworth, William, A History of English Law, Vol. 2 (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1952), page 186-192. I couldn't find a full translation online, but I 'spect there is one somewhere. Alansplodge (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Google Translate is pretty amusing for Latin. Partial marks for plucky effort, I guess. It knows certain set phrases, and this title is rather famous, so it gets that right at least. For the full title, how about "Treatise on the laws and customs of the Kingdom of England, composed in the time of King Henry II, while the illustrious man Ranulph of Glanville, who at the time was the most experienced in the law and the ancient customs of the kingdom, held the position of chief justiciar. And it contains only those laws and customs according to which pleas are made in the court of the king, at the court of the exchequer, and before justices wherever they may be. Collated from the Harleian, Cottonian, Bodleian, and Mill manuscripts." Adam Bishop (talk) 18:33, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Much obliged! Happy New Year, everyone. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:50, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

January 1

Opposite adjectives in English

Hi there,
Sometimes, when I write English Sentences, I notice that there is an "anti-order" adjective.
Example: This subject is English only topic. vs Only English has this subject as a topic.
My question is, how-come both are acceptable?
I assume that English in the 2nd sentence is a noun vs the first sentence, on which it is an adjective?Exx8 (talk) 13:54, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think "This subject is English only topic." is a sentence which makes sense as written. Do you mean to use 'English-only', with a hyphen? I think "This subject is an English-only topic." makes reasonable sense. It's typical in English to put the noun first and the adjective second when forming compound adjectives. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:58, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Isn't it zero-marking? I speak about a category of topics, not on a specific one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-marking_in_English
like:Happiness is contagious?
Suppose you are right:
This subject is an English only topic. vs Only English has this subject as a topic.Exx8 (talk) 15:36, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

The hyphen Alex mentioned in compound adjectives is important, or one will run into ambiguity. μηδείς (talk) 16:57, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Guys, the OP originally left 'an' out of "This subject is an English only topic", which half of us (including me) silently read into the sentence and found it fine. 212.96.61.236 (talk) 17:10, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

So, you're not only Hungarian and sexist, you also read minds but you don't read actual questions posted here, and you assume others share the same faults you do as well as your gender? μηδείς (talk) 22:12, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

• Same shit, different year. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:31, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

• Leaving out the article might betray non-native English, or it might just be typo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:08, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I just finished reading an article on this exact topic: Post-positive adjective. Weird timing. Mingmingla (talk) 23:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Comparative Phonemes

Where can I find a comparative research that shows which phonemes of which languages are absent in which languages? Comments would be appreciated. And BTW, happy new year. Omidinist (talk) 15:10, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

A semi-classic work is Ian Maddieson, Patterns of Sounds (1984)... AnonMoos (talk) 18:13, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

January 2

Chinese poem

Hi everyone. I need to make sense of the following poem: http://blog.udn.com/quietdharma/8963422. The English translation given on that page doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, and it seems to be an automatically generated one. Could anyone explain me the meaning of part two (starting with 我聽見音樂)? Thanks a lot! MuDavid (talk) 01:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

我聽見音樂 is "I hear the echo". The Chinese text is below the translation. I do see what you mean about verse two - I don't know if it's a machine or a translator trying to be clever. I make it out to be something like -

我聽見音樂，來自月光和胴體
I hear the music, from the moonlight a feeling of peace in my guts.
輔極端的誘餌捕獲飄渺的唯美
My greatest stability, bait to catch my vast whirlwind, simply beautiful.
一生充盈著激烈，又充盈著純然
Lifelong full of ardour, and full of simplicity
總有回憶貫穿於世間
All I own; memories of what I have experienced in the world
我相信自己
We trust each other
死時如同靜美的秋日落葉
Death-time like our still and beautiful fallen leaves of Autumn
不盛不亂，姿態如煙
No abundance, no confusion, passing like smoke
即便枯萎也保留豐肌清骨的傲然
Quickly withered, our ample flesh driven from a clean skeleton - a proud boast
玄之又玄
Profundity of profundity.

Of course, poetry isn't going to have a single simple translation, especially from somebody like me with rudimentary Chinese, but this ought to give you something to work on. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 00:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks a lot in any case. It makes much more sense this way already. :-) MuDavid (talk) 08:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Why are the s, sh, and th phonemes so prevalent in English?

In Shakespearean English, the th phoneme is insanely abundant. Yet, there are traditional names like Esther and Theresa, both of which are pronounced with a t phoneme instead of the th. "Ophthalmology" has a ph and a th, but I often hear the ph taking precedence. Somehow, modern English has significantly less th phonemes than Shakespearean English. In the speech of non-native speakers, I often hear replacements like z, sh, or s. Instead of "the", one may pronounce it like "de" or "ze". Instead of "three", one may pronounce it like "shree". Instead of "betrothal", one may pronounce it like "betrosal". When I listen to an English-language song and do not know the lyrics, I am readily able to identify the hissing sound so prevalent in the singing. Is the hissing sound common in the germanic languages? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 04:38, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Good singers will try to soften the sound of the "s", to avoid that "hissing snakes" phenomenon. I have seen those names spelled Ester and Teresa. I've never heard "betrothal" pronounced "betrosal". That would be weird. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

71.79.234.132 -- Current-day English does not have fewer consonant phonemes than Shakespeare's English did (and has even added one that did not exist in Shakespeare's day: [ʒ]). Some varieties of English still had [x] and its allophone [ç], but probably not most London speech ca. 1600. Vowel phonemes are a little harder to calculate, but there's only been a modest reduction (if you count the [ʊə], [ɪə] etc. "centering diphthongs" of non-rhotic dialects as separate phonemes, then maybe no reduction at all in the number of vowel phonemes in those dialects). "Th" is more prominent in KJV or Shakespearean English because it was then the usual third-person singular present verb ending. A lot of frequent English function words with initial "th-" (the, this, that, these, those, they, them, their, then, there) trace back to an early Indo-European demonstrative stem to-, in which the "t" has become "th" through the application of Grimm's Law. "Esther" and "Anthony" were traditionally pronounced with [t] rather than [θ] because those names were borrowed from French with a [t] sound, and the letter "h" was basically inserted as a classicizing spelling correction (like the "b" of "debt" and "doubt")... AnonMoos (talk) 06:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

That was informative. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Many English speakers have difficulty with th. In Irish English th is often merged with d/t. In African American Vernacular English, Caribbean Englishes and Multicultural London English, th is often replaced with d (dat ting). By contrast in Cockney, Estuary English and some other varieties in England, th is replaced by f/v. "Fings ain't what they used to be." Itsmejudith (talk) 18:24, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Do they really say vese fings? I'd somehow expect dese fings. —Tamfang (talk) 02:17, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

An ess-like phoneme is one of the most common consonants in world languages, those like Hawaiian that lack it are rare. A /s/ phoneme is the only fricative we are sure that the Proto-Indo-European language possessed, although the laryngeal theory has variations that assume an /h/ or other fricative like sound.

The sh- sound in English comes from many sources. The -sk- sequence in Proto-Germanic regularly develops to sh in English. Hence skirt and skip (which we borrowed from other Germanic languages) natively developed into shirt and ship. Also, the -ish ending develops from a PIE -isk- suffix. Then there's a host of words through French like Chicago and machine, and original /sy/ sequences like pressure and mission and other -tion words that have developed sh sounds. There's even a common feature of American English where sequences like "I'll miss you" become "I'll mishoo". μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

After a person sneezes, another person may say, "Bless you." But it sounds like "Blesshoo" and rhymes with "tissue". 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Despite fear of the QI klaxon, I shall say that that particular usage is from the Black Death, as sneezing was one of the symptoms. Tissues hadn't been invented yet. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 21:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

There are some statistics [1][2]. I wouldn't say that sibilants of any sort are prevalent in English. Although English /s/ is the forth place, but some languages like Greek, Latvian or Lithuanian, where /s/ is very actively used in morphology, will win over English in this respect.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:44, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

That's sometimes false if the subject's topic's plurals. μηδείς (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Is 'plural' a verb? How come no-one told me this? I would have used 'pluralizes' which contains two sibilants. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

My example sentence doesn't use plural as a verb, it suggests perhaps the topic about which the subject is speaking is plurals: "That is sometimes false if the subject's topic is plurals."

Final ess in English can be inherent: "miss", adverbial: "anyways", genitive: "its", and the related possessive: "The queen of England's hat", plural: "cats", possessive plural "the horses' stables", an abbreviation of is: "he's hilarious", and an abbreviation of has: "He's already said that twice." (BTW, "twice" is an adverbial use of -s, originally spelt "twies".} μηδείς (talk) 18:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you play Scrabble? You'll find that 's' is one of our most common letters, which is why it only gets one point. It's in the name of the language, for God's sake! :) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 20:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Latvian still wins.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:11, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be talking about the number of sibilant or fricative letters. I am talking about the number of uses of final /s/ in English. μηδείς (talk) 19:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there a word for this phenomenon?

One man may take one woman as his wife, and then take other subsequent women as his concubines or mistresses. And his concubines and mistresses give him children. In the animal kingdom, if a male animal mates with several females, then it's not considered monogamous. But we're talking about humans, and humans have this concept of "marriage", and "monogamy" in humans usually means "one marriage", not "exclusively one sex partner". Also, one partner in marriage may consistently and secretly engage in sexual acts outside of marriage. Um . . . would such a partner be polygamous because he is engaging in procreative acts with multiple mates or monogamous because he has one culturally-recognized marriage? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 06:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Anything "-gamy" or "-gamous" has to do with marriages, not concubines. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Polygyny seems to include having concubines (see the China section). I guess "having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too-ism" is too long. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

The word "polygyny" was intended to mean "many wives".[3] Polygamy means "many marriages", but is typically used as a synonym for "polygyny". An obvious example of the OP's scenario would by Henry VIII, who only had one wife at a time, but often one or more women "on the side". The proper term might be "promiscuous" or "unfaithful". A more polite term could be "open marriage", although that usually implies approval by both spouses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:29, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

So, in humans, the cultural usage of -gamy is taken precedence over the biological usage of -gamy. Okay. That's all I need to know. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

It's more that the usage was taken over from anthropological usage to biological usage in general, not that it was used first in biology and then later culturally. The same has happened with altruism (biology) which was taken over from ethics by analogy, and now does not mean quite the same thing in biology as it does in ethics. μηδείς (talk) 18:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Animals do not marry. If some species are called "polygamous", it's because no one was clever enough to come up with a better, accurate term. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Unless you watch 101 Dalmatians. There is a scene in which Pongo and Perdita have a wedding ceremony. It looks goofy and cute at the same time. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:57, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

And "Lady and the Tramp" were "married" also. And it was gross. Animals do what they do, and marriage is not on the list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:00, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

You should try 'origamy' - that's when your marriage on paper folds :) (cue drum roll) Happy New Year everyone! KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 21:26, 2 January 2015 (UTC) (Captainbeefart (talk) 12:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC), long ago condemned to a life of levity, salutes you).

How about Polyamory? It seems to suggest knowledge and consent of all parties which would preclude it being secret from the wife (or husband or whoever), but it doesn't require marriage. Mingmingla (talk) 23:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

That could work. It may be being used to imply mutual consent of all concerned, but there's nothing inherent in the word that requires that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:18, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Meaning of the term "collect prayer"

What does the term "collect prayer" mean, in regards to the Roman Catholic religion/Church? I have never heard the term before. Then, in the past day or two, it arose in three separate incidents. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

See Collect. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:34, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I searched under "collect prayer". I did not even think to search under the generic word "collect", simply assuming that it would be about the everyday verb (e.g., to collect coins). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:57, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; that's now fixed with a redirect. The next person to search for "collect prayer" will have more luck than you ;) --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:19, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Good idea. That's very helpful. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

January 3

About Draft:Asociación Latinoamericana de Parques Zoológicos y Acuarios

Señors y Señoras y people who queer up the gender binary, could you possibly have a little look at this draft article? It would seem to assert some significance. Though I hoover up vocabulary in Germanic and Romance languages, I can't speak a word of Spanish. Your thoughts? --Shirt58 (talk) 12:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The organization may or may not be notable enough for an article, but I've deleted the draft as a copy/paste copyvio of the organization's Web site. (Even if it had been completely translated, the translation would still be a copyvio.) Deor (talk) 14:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, bloody hell. Seriously considering changing my username to User:Mister Stoopid Head. Yet again. Pete "substantial body of evidence that suggests user should change his user-name to Mister Stoopid Head" AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:19, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Languages that have formal or polite terms borrowed from foreign languages

In English, Latin-derivative terms are perceived to be formal or polite, while Germanic-derivative terms are perceived to be impolite, less formal, crude, less technical, or just part of casual speech. In Japanese, Chinese-derivative terms are perceived to be more formal than indigenous Japanese terms. Are there other languages that share this characteristic? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Note that it's not always a single language to borrow formal terms from. In English, for example, in addition to Latin, formal terms may also be borrowed from French, such as "crudités" ("veggies with dip" in regular English). StuRat (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

My mentioning of a single language does not imply that the influence is only from one language. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

For the opposite tendency, most Israeli Hebrew swearwords were borrowed from Yiddish or Arabic! -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:32, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Hm, maybe Sindarin imported cusswords from Orkish or Adunaic. —Tamfang (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I would guess that prestige terms tend to come from Chinese in most of East Asia, from Classical Arabic throughout the Muslim world, from Sanskrit in the Hindu world, and from Greek in Eastern Christendom. — Next question: which literary languages do not have a ‘Latin’ from which they can import words fairly freely? —Tamfang (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Perfect example, "Snot". That's vulgar in English, so refined people say "Mucus". But that word was vulgar to refined Romans, so they said "Pinea". Alas, the Greeks weren't similarly respectful of the older Phoenician, Babylonian or Coptic cultures, so they were stuck with their own snot. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Read our article on prestige languages [[4]]. Right now, English is the main prestige language, and lots of languages are adding English terms or calques of English terms to their vocabulary. Also, the scope of a prestige language can vary. In the middle ages, Low German and Dutch were prestige languages in many northern European languages, including English, which borrowed a lot of nautical terms from them. Sometimes, instead of borrowing the term from the prestige language directly, the recipient language makes calques based on the original word. A good example is the Greek word "episkopos", based on "epi" (over) and scopos (look), which originally meant a foreman, before it became used to refer to a bishop. Latin borrowed the term directly, and also made a calque, "supervisor", which was borrowed into English. French Also inherited the term from Latin, which is the source of the English word "surveyor". Germanic languages also borrowed the Greek work, which came into English as "bishop". English also uses the direct Latin borrowing as the root of the word "episcopal". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Providing the formal term is helpful. It's better than describing the concept. :P 71.79.234.132 (talk) 03:53, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Slavic was a prestige language in the eastern Balkans at the time, leaving a significant influence on what would later be known as Romanian, usually (but not only) in high-register vocabulary. WHAAOE: Slavic influence on Romanian. No such user (talk) 09:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

decedent hamburger

Is there a burger called 'decedent hamburger', or it is just some mistake in the text? What is it really, and how it may be called in Russian? Thank youSeaweed71 (talk) 20:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

"Decedent" is legal terminology for someone who has died. Are you sure it wasn't "decadent"? -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a spelling mistake for decadent; "Luxuriously self-indulgent", not a phrase that springs to mind in McDonald's, but perhaps such a thing exists. Perhaps in the Soviet era, the hamburger was thought to be an example of the decadence of Western Civilisation - who knows? Alansplodge (talk) 21:14, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed it does. "Decadent hamburger" gives us lots of Ghits, prominent among which is a burger served by "The Old Homestead Steak House" in New York - 20 oz (!!!) of Kobe beef, costing $41 in 2003. See this website, for example - most other references to it are in far-right publications (Free Republic, the Daily Mail, etc), for some unaccountable reason. This may be the burger the OP is referring to. Tevildo (talk) 21:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Might have been trying for "decent hamburger". It'd be a strange word for an advertiser, but a common search for consumers. Google searching found this review up top. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:27, January 3, 2015 (UTC)

"Decedent hamburger" might be a good way to describe Steve Buscemi's character, at the end of Fargo. :-) StuRat (talk) 23:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Jokes apart, obviously it must be "decent". In Russian приличный.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps the OP could point us to the whole sentence, so that we could see the context? Alansplodge (talk) 14:48, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that Mr Google has found it for me... "The food was good and cheap but they never could make a decedent hamburger. They used homemade hamburger buns that just couldn't compete...". It's from A Hot Time in the Cold War, Moscow 1967-68 by Sam Warren, former attaché staff specialist assigned to the US Embassy in Moscow, USSR. So "decent" it is then; well done Lüboslóv for giving us the right answer above. Alansplodge (talk) 14:55, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Border between simple and progressive

Hi
While I was trying to test my understanding of English, I thought about this question.
Theoretically there should be a lot of verbs and action, that their being continuous or non-continuous should be subjective.
I thought about that example:
Obama is serving US.
Obama serves US.
On the first sentence, I can say that Obama, since he was elected, is continuing to be the president as long as no one-else becomes the president. While in the 2nd sentence I can say that his serving begins when he enters the office and ends when he leaves.
Can anyone fix me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.228.134.152 (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

If you are using "US" to mean the United States, then you need a definite article (Obama is serving the US). The meanings of your sentences are very similar because serve is usually a stative verb in this context, though it can also sometimes be used as a dynamic verb (e.g. serving a meal). I wonder if this is the distinction you are looking for. Dbfirs 22:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually I thought the "the" was included in the shortcut. Though, I haven't understood why you decided that "to serve" is a stative. When I wrote the Obama is serving, I meant that Obama is the whole time acting as the president of the United States. I thought about like that: if I say it in the past it can be like this: Obama was serving his country between 2008 to 2016 when an airplane got lost in the ocean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.228.134.152 (talk) 01:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

It is a little hard to understand your question, but I think the answer is "yes". Don't get hung up on whether the action is "continuous" or not (whatever that may mean): the difference is how we are thinking about the action for our present purposes, or perhaps what aspect of it we are focusing on. If we say that "Obama is serving the US", we are referring to an event that is happening now: it doesn't say anything about how long or continuously that action takes place. If we say that "Obama serves the US" we are making a general or habitual statement, that may or may not be relevant at the present moment. If he goes on holiday (US: 'vacation') then you could say that during that time he is not serving the US, but but that would have no bearing on whether he "serves" the US. --ColinFine (talk) 11:28, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

How do the French spell "Tricolour"?

Our Tricolor page says "Le Tricolore" which sounds a bit Italian to me. Our Tricolour (flag) article isn't a model of clarity. Alansplodge (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia uses "tricolore", and that is the way I have always seen it spelled in French. Also, "le" is not an Italian article (in that language it is "il tricolore").—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Just by the way, le is in fact an Italian article. It's the definite article, feminine, plural. Obviously wouldn't apply to tricolore, which is masculine singular, though. --Trovatore (talk) 23:03, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

On another note, we usually don't call it "le tricolore". It's "le drapeau tricolore".--Cfmarenostrum (talk) 11:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

True. French people talking about "Le Tricolore" would without doubt mean something else, like for example the name of a ship, the name of a restaurant... In France the flag is always named "Le drapeau tricolore". Akseli9 (talk) 19:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

It's an adjectival noun. French also uses the adjectives unicolore and bicolore (not unicouleur, bicouleur, or tricouleur). ---Sluzzelin talk 22:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Aha! Thanks all. Alansplodge (talk)

Resolved

Singular versus plural noun and verb

On the Entertainment Reference Desk, I just posted the following comment: In fact, at the beginning of the game, the player has to open several cases (not just one; I believe it's five) before the first offer is made. My question concerns the phrase "I believe it's five". Why is it exactly that we have a singular noun/verb and not a plural noun/verb in that phrase (which, in effect, is a stand-alone sentence)? The pronoun "it" is singular. The appositive (I think?) is "five" (plural). And the singular pronoun "it" refers back to the plural noun "several cases". Yet, clearly, it is perfect acceptable to say "It is five." What's going on here, grammatically? Something doesn't seem right; something doesn't "add up" for me. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

You could have expanded your reply to say "I believe the number required is five", and "number" is singular. Dbfirs 23:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Five isn't plural here. Five is a singular term, one that in this example describes the size of a set. The set is singular (there is only one set of five items), comprising plural units (the items themselves). (EDITed to note I just realized that I meant the size of the set being singular, not the set itself. "Five" describes the set). In this example, the set is five cases that need to be opened. So, the plural you would use would look like this: "I believe that there are five cases that need to be opened." Here, you are discussing cases. The singular you are using is: "I believe it's five" where you are discussing the size of the set, not the cases themselves. Mingmingla (talk) 23:15, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Note that "Five" is singular in the famous sentence "Five is right out".

On the other hand, it is common for "is" to connect a singular and a plural; in such a case it simply agrees with the subject. "Five people without tickets were a problem" but "the problem was five people without tickets". --65.94.50.4 (talk) 05:31, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Makes sense. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

January 4

English subtitles for Ukranian(?)

Hi there. We were discussing File:Donetsk Regional Admin (City Hall) - Barricades and Balcony.webm for WP:FPC and were wondering whether anybody would be able to provide English-language subtitles (or at least a translation of) what is being said in the film. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:05, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Ukrainian has never been spoken widely in Donetsk and I hope it'll never be. They speak Russian. I've made a transcription and translation just for the sake of those poor people.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:11, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

January 5

Beaver Cleaver

The question about Peter Parker on the Misc Desk has a comment about the name Beaver Cleaver getting past censors on American television. This got me wondering, when did 'beaver' become a slang term for vagina or a woman's pubic region in general? Dismas|^(talk) 01:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

1927, according to the Online Etymological Dictionary [[5]]. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:38, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

The OED Online also has 1927 as the earliest cite for this usage. They relate it to an earlier sense (1910) that referred to a bearded man or his beard itself; but the etymology of this is shown as unknown, i.e. they don't know whether it relates to the animal or not. The 1927 use, by the way, is in an anonymous collection of erotic American poetry, songs, etc., titled Immortalia. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 05:43, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Harry "Beaver" Cleavage escaped Right to Censor by debuting the previous June. Like one of those Pre-Code sex films, only with no artistic merit whatsoever. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:43, January 6, 2015 (UTC)

Followup to Like how does "medicus" become "miège"?! It's a crazy language.

Adam Bishop asked in a thread above, how does "medicus" become "miège" in French.

It's an example of the general rule, Latin -aticus > French -age. (More generally a final -VDicV- sequence, where V = a vowel and D = d or t. I have also left out most indications of stress and accent.)

For example, Late Lat. formaticus "cheese" > Fr. fromage and viaticum > voyage. The change sequence is -aticus > [adijə] > [addjə] > [addʒə} > [a:ʒ]. This also happens with -edicus, hence pedica "snare" > piège and medicus > miège. μηδείς (talk) 18:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

PS The source is From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts, Peter Boyd-Bowman, p 21. μηδείς (talk) 18:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I have a little book Les Noms de Lieux by Charles Rostaing, and radical transformations are by no means rare. So Epomanduodurum becomes Mandeure, Nemetodurum becomes Nanterre, Gratianopolis becomes Grenoble, Aureliacum becomes Orly, Sabiniacum becomes Sévigny, Blesae Vicus becomes Blévy, Forum Julii becomes Fréjus, etc. The Latin word Oratorium (referring to a kind of church) can become Oroux, Ouroux, Le Loroux, Le Loreur, Auroir, Aurouer, Oroer, Orouer, Ourouer, Orrouer, Ouzouer, Louzouer, Ozouer, Ozoir, Oradou, L'Oradou, and Lourdoueix in various different areas of France... AnonMoos (talk) 23:48, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I think my favourite French word is actually "selon", which is (possibly) "secundum longum" where most of the syllables disappeared. Adam Bishop (talk)

I should mention by the way that I did know how medicus turns into miège (in some dialects it actually became simply "mie"), I was just being a bit facetious in the other thread. But once in awhile I still come across a weird word and it reminds me of that extremely frustrating period when I first started to learn the language. I might start talking to the text itself, telling it "no, Old French, that is ridiculous, this word cannot be." It's like reading modern French chatspeak sometimes. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:24, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

So all that work, and now he tells me!

BTW, my favorite French word is "outrage". μηδείς (talk) 19:11, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

January 6

Japanese preference for purintā over purinta, etc

In Japanese, monita (for computer monitor) is common, but monitā (ditto) is also common. My impression is that when an English word is Japanesized, it's more normal for an unstressed final schwa of English to become bimoraic in Japanese than for it to be monomoraic. And ditto for word-final vowels other than schwa. This has long puzzled me. Sometimes it can perhaps be explained by the Japanese preference for four-morae words, but this doesn't work for five-mora purintā (for English "printer"), for example.

I looked for an explanation in the article gairaigo. Nothing there, but I did encounter this:

Another example of the Japanese transformation of English pronunciation is takushi (タクシー), in which the two-syllable word taxi becomes three syllables because consonants don't occur consecutively in traditional Japanese, and in which the sound /si/ ("see") is pronounced /ʃi/ ("she") because there is no /si/ in katakana.

As you'll have gathered, I'm no phonologist; but (so) this struck me as horribly confused. (Example: whether or not something exists in katakana is merely by the way; /si/ certainly does exist in Japanese phonology but the /s/ here happens not to be realized as [s].) Amazingly, the writer(s) do(es)n't even seem to have noticed that the Japanese word is not takushi but takushī. Here's my rewrite:

Another example of the Japanese transformation of English pronunciation is takushī (タクシー), in which the two-syllable word taxi becomes three syllables (and four morae, thanks to long ī) because consonants don't occur consecutively in traditional Japanese, and in which the sound [si] ("see") of English is pronounced [ɕi] (which to monoglot English speakers will sound like "she") because /si/ in Japanese is so realized.

I hope I haven't screwed that up. Anyway, it still doesn't answer the question: why/whence the extra mora? (Why takushī and not takushi?) -- Hoary (talk) 01:57, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Because in Japanese the 'i' in 'shi' is very often almost silent, especially at the end of a word or before a voiceless consonant. In English, it isn't. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 02:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Loanword phonology does some weird things that aren't always explained by a language's phonology. For example, Huave kàwíy comes from Spanish caballo. The consonantal differences are understandable (Huave doesn't have [β] or [ʝ]) but the vowel changes don't make much sense, considering that Huave has all of the vowels of Spanish (and more). Another example is Mele Kalikimaka, which comes from Merry Christmas. It all makes sense when we consider Hawai'ian's different phonology, except the second e in mele. Why isn't it i?

It may have to do with how common a particular sequence is in the language in question. Even if word-final -ta is a possible sequence in Japanese, it may much less common than -tā. The sequence -ta could also resemble a particular morpheme that speakers are trying to avoid. It's also possible that certain sounds or sound combinations are associated with classes of words. If Japanese speakers perceive a word as being foreign, they may apply certain rules to it that they don't apply to others. But this is kind of guesswork. A native speaker can probably fill us in on any of this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:06, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

There are indeed many oddities in the assimilation of foreign (in recent years mostly English) words within Japanese. Some of it looks like the influence of spelling. ¶ Word-final /ta/ is pretty common in Japanese. (It's particularly common in surnames and personal names.) By contrast, if we put aside obvious loanwords, we needn't limit ourselves to word endings or /t/ onset to see that /aa/ (ā) is very rare. It appears in a number of interjections (mā, sā, etc) that are similar or at least comparable to the English "well" of "Well, I'm not sure". It appears in okāsan and obāsan ("mother" and "grandmother" respectively) and their variants (kāsan, okāsama, etc). And that's all I can think of. It is of course common in loanwords, in derivatives of loanwords, and in Japanese combinations of loan morphemes. (A favorite is byūrā, aka airasshukārā.) But my uneducated guess is that you could be on to something; that there's an unconscious idea: "/purinta(a)/ is a foreign word. As such, it is fitting that it should sound foreign (just as we can ensure that it looks foreign by writing it in katakana). Tā sounds more foreign than ta; therefore let it be /purintaa/." But again, this is mere speculation. -- Hoary (talk) 05:38, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Hope this helps. ja:長音符#長音符の省略. Without chōonpu, you cannot tell the difference between Silva and Silver. Oda Mari (talk) 09:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Japanese commonly distinguishes between original [ɜːr]/[ɜː] vs. [ɑːr]/[ɑː] in loans from English, so lumping original [ər]/[ə] with [ɜːr]/[ɜː] might not be too large a step. By the way, Silva and silver are pronounced the same in non-rhotic dialects of English (with the exception of possible "linking r")... AnonMoos (talk) 09:38, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

In my dialect, both are pronounced exactly the same, and both would have a linking r before a following vowel, even though the 'r' in 'silver' is not otherwise pronounced, and there isn't even one in 'silva'. We had a similar discussion over Christmas about this. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:08, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, in my dialect too. -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Mari, but all that says is that these words come with or without the final "ー", not why the final "ー" is very common. ¶ Incidentally, I've just thought of a Japanese name with ā: アラーキー ("Arākī"), a name used (I think rather jokingly) by Nobuyoshi Araki. But I think that the joke depends on its deliberate resemblance to the loanword アナーキー ("anākī", i.e. "anarchy"), and if so then it's a kind of honorary loanword. -- Hoary (talk) 14:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

There's also the word ā (of the kō/sō/ā triple), but that may be the only other one. Also supporting the long-a-looks-foreign theory is the fact that mājan and rāmen, despite being on readings of Chinese characters, are often written in katakana or with ー instead of あ, presumably because they look like they should be. -- BenRG (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Good catches. I'd forgotten about all three. (As for rāmen, I'd long thought that it was merely Japanese pseudo-Chinese, akin to the English pseudo-Chinese of "lapsang souchong". Er, hang on: WP tells me that the latter is from real-world Cantonese. OK, I know nothing about etymology.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Ramen comes from Mandarin 'lamien'. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 10:06, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps that puzzling final e in Mele Kalikimaka comes from an English dialect that allows final /ɪ/. (As a child I was puzzled on finding that – written ‘ĭ’ – in dictionaries, but I've since heard it in some British speech.) —Tamfang (talk) 10:59, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes,I was wondering if this might be the difference between a borrowing from British and American English. μηδείς (talk) 21:04, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

What are examples of 轉注 reciprocation meaning on Chinese character systems

I am not sure which other Chinese characters are derivation cognitive besides 考 and 老. Is there any other examples besides 考 and 老 or only those two. That is what the article said, they didn't present any others. How many characters fit in that category, more than two?--107.202.105.233 (talk) 02:15, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean by "derivation cognitive", and which article is it that you are referring to? -- Hoary (talk) 05:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Probably "derivative cognate", see Chinese_character_classification#Derivative_cognates or Doublet_(linguistics)#Chinese. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:05, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Letter C in German

In most of East European languages (except for Romanian) the letter ‹c› has the value of /ts/, it is believed this came from the German tradition, which in turn had come from the Carolingian France where Old French ‹c› before front vowels had such a pronunciation. But in modern German nearly all Latinate words are written with ‹z› instead of ‹c›. I suppose it has been a result of some deliberate spelling reform, but when did it occur and by whom was it done?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

See Middle High German. You will see there that the 'z' had a small tail on it from both Old High German to Middle High German, which represented the sound in question. It was standardised as a 'normal' z, in the beginning of the New High German period. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I know this but it has nothing to do with my question. And "tailed ‹z›" became simple ‹s› in the modern language by the way.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

By the way, in his first New Testament of 1522 Luther often used ‹tz› for /ts/ even in the beginning of words (for example, Mt. 1:1: »tzur tzeyt«; scan). But in 1546 he writes (or prints) consistently with ‹z› (»zur zeit«).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:53, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

It was a result of the German Orthographic Conference of 1901. Although the reforms did not abolish the use of ‹c› in words like "Centrum", "Accent" etc., the conference decided that new forms like "Zentrum" and "Akzent" were now also acceptable (source: German version of the article). If you look at Google Ngram (Accent vs Akzent Centrum vs Zentrum), you can see that the new forms became popular and had replaced the old forms by 1920 (the first spelling reform after 1901 occurred only in 1996). -Lindert (talk) 12:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! It turned out to be quite recently.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Letter Y in German

The very close question to above. In the medieval orthographies of East European languages ‹y› was used as an alternative for ‹i›. In Old Czech, Old Polish and Old Hungarian ‹y› was used as a "softener" for preceding consonants, this method is still in use in Hungarian and usually in transliteration of Cyrillic. In Slavics it has also been long used as a symbol for the vowel /ɨ/ (which has disappeared in Czech and Slovak but still exists in Polish). But in German, which had to have a great influence on the written tradition of "Latinate" East Europe, this letter means /y/ like in Ancient Greek. Obviously, it looks like an artificial restoration. When and by whom?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:33, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Your suspicion seems to be correct. According to the footnote on p. 28 of this text, the /y/ pronunciation was a product of classical philologists active in the German new humanism movement in the late 18th century. According to the same source, Johann Heinrich Voss was one of its chief protagonists. Incidentally, the /i/ pronunciation still seems to be current in Switzerland. Marco polo (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I am slightly confused, given my Americanism. Are we using /y/ here to represent the IPA [ü] or the IPA [j]? μηδείς (talk) 22:44, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

In the German context [y] is meant here, the close front rounded vowel. "Zyklus" is pronounced the way "Züklus" would be pronounced (if it were a word). Marco polo is correct that Swiss German spelling often uses "y" for a long close front unrounded vowel ([i]). For example "Fyrabig" or even "Fyyrabig" (the end of a workday, "Feierabend" in Standard German), and it is also preserved in Alemannic surnames (Huwyler, Wyss, ...), or place names (Pfyn, Kyburg, ...), but "Zyklus" would still always be pronounced with a close front rounded vowel in Swiss German, as would all Greek loanwords using the letter "y", just like they are in Standard German. For a confusing example: The mountain Gross Mythe is pronounced with a long [i], while the plural "Mythe" (as in myths) is pronounced with a [y]. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:01, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Medeis -- In official IPA, [j] always indicates the semivowel, [y] always indicates the high front rounded vowel, and [ü] doesn't exist except as the application of a little used centralization diacritic to basic [u]. The Africa Alphabet was defined as quasi-IPA with English values for "j" and "y" symbols.. AnonMoos (talk) 23:29, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I should either have used or said "in the IPA version of the German u-umlaut." Odd one would think I was unaware of the Americanist tension between /y/ and /j/ given that was my exact fickende question. Entschuldigen Sie mich, bitte, aber ich dachte dass die Frage klar waere. μηδείς (talk) 03:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. I remember seeing 'Y' used in 18th- or 19th-century German documents where modern orthography would have 'I' or 'J', but only in the context of diphthongs ('seyn' for 'sein') or between vowel ('Meyer' for 'Meier'). Did the use of 'Y' persist in some cases? הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 05:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! I am not sure if it's only me, but I cannot read the text on GoogleBooks with your link, so I changed your link with Archive.org if you don't mind.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:01, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

One thing still puzzles me. All around continental Europe ‹y› has had supposed to be equal to /i/ or something close to it (/j, iː, ɨ/). But in Old English and Scandinavia it meant /y/. Why did they use it in that way? If I'm not mistaken the notion that Greek ‹υ› must mean /y/ came during the Renaissance.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:21, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Greek Υ started out writing a [u] sound in early classical Greek, shifted to a front rounded vowel in later ancient Greek, and then became [i] in medieval Greek...

As for Germanic orthographies, when Old English was being written with the Latin alphabet, there were absolutely no established conventions for writing phonemic front rounded or umlaut vowels with the Latin alphabet, so those who were developing the Old English orthographic system were starting completely from scratch in that respect. In some early manuscripts, the front rounded vowels were written "ui" and "oi" ("ui" for the high front rounded vowel had some precedent in Anglo-Saxon runes), but during most of Old English, they were written "y" and "œ" as long as they remained distinct ("œ" merged fairly early with "e" in some dialects, including early West Saxon, the most "classic" Old English dialect). Presumably "y" and "œ" were chosen to make use of various existing letters and ligatures of the Latin alphabet to write Old English sounds (the same reason why the low front vowel of Old English was written "æ"). Old Norse orthography in its beginnings was partially influenced by Old English orthography (since Old English was written with the Latin alphabet earlier). AnonMoos (talk) 21:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

two thousand fifteen

Beginning in 2010 people started saying "twenty ten" instead of "two thousand ten." Frankly, I'm surprised a lot of people are still saying "two thousand fifteen." Is there any way to tell which way it will go in the end? Are there any surveys which have tracked the trend up to now? --Halcatalyst (talk) 12:58, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Obviously the trend is towards the shorter form, and "twenty fifteen" will gradually take over, as "nineteen fifteen" did a hundred years ago, but some of us will continue to say "two thousand and fifteen" until about "twenty-twenty" if my guess is correct. Google ngrams isn't helpful because the words are seldom printed out in full. A very small survey in 2013 (for that year) found that nearly four times as many people used the shorter form as used the longer. Dbfirs 14:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Other variants of English have the added benefit of "twenty ten" removing the "and" used in compound numbers such as "two thousand and ten". The 2012 Olympic Games in the UK were known only as "twenty twelve". I do not know anyone outside formal circumstances here (England) who says "two thousand and …" when quoting a date. Bazza (talk) 14:30, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm also in England, and hear "two thousand and …" a lot. For example, I was recently listening to the Reith Lectures, where the speaker was consistently introduced (by Sue Lawley) as "the two thousand and fourteen Reith lecturer" (OK, I suppose you might call that "formal circumstances") . I take comfort from the fact that I've never heard anyone say that the Battle of Hastings happened in one thousand and sixty-six. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, your reference is an example of what I meant by "formal". My observation concerned everyday speech — so my calendar is filling up with "twenty-fifteen meeting schedules", and reviews are being done of events in "twenty-fourteen". Bazza (talk) 16:01, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• The obvious difference here is that this is a "round" century in terms of millennia. One thousand nine hundred ninety-eight is something you wouldn't normally hear in English unless you were translating mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-huit. Two thousand XX is a lot shorter in morae than Twenty-hundred XX. But I agree with the above comment that according to precedent the shorter twenty-XX eventually win out. This is of course a request for prediction. μηδείς (talk) 22:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
  • It's fairly easy to observe anecdotally. Charles Osgood was saying "twenty-oh..." as early as 2001. It seems like society is catching up to him. It seems to have become much more common once 2010 hit, as the OP noted. It might be a matter of number of syllables: "two-thou-sand-fif-teen" (5) vs. "twen-ty-fif-teen" (4). Compare with "two-thou-san-one" vs. "twen-ty-oh-one" (both 4). I googled [how to pronounce year 2015] and got a lot of different speculations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

If it's "two thou-san one" it would also be "twe-ny fif-teen" in casual speech. The internal t of 20 would be dropped, and the phrase one mora shorter. μηδείς (talk) 22:56, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

When I was a kid, my brother asked me what I thought I would be doing in 'the year two thousand' - it was always 'the year two thousand' and never just 'two thousand' or even twenty-oh-oh. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 02:09, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

From this 1940s cartoon (sped-up, but still understandable) starting at about 1:00 - "...when you hear the sound of the gong, it will be exactly two thousand A.D." [6] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:28, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

From this 1990's comedy show, the existence of a mysterious race of NYC residents will be revealed... In the Year 2000. μηδείς (talk) 03:24, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Question about sexual interest

This has been bothering me for several years now. I don't know how to say it in English or in my native Finnish. What is a term for a man's interest towards a woman, or the other way around, specifically as a potential dating/sexual partner, that doesn't imply the speaker is only interested in immediate physical sexual intercourse with the addressed? I mean stronger interest than pure friendship, but not for pursuit of physical sexual intercourse alone. For homosexual/lesbian people, replace the above with "a man's interest towards another man" or "a woman's interest towards another woman". JIP | Talk 20:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

What's wrong with attraction? Attraction need not be purely or urgently sexual. Marco polo (talk) 21:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

The difference between homosexual and heterosexual won't matter in English. You seem to be looking for Platonic relationship. μηδείς (talk) 22:30, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the sense may have shifted somewhat since Plato's day, but any use of "Platonic" nowadays would actively exclude a sexual element[7]. The OP was asking about the interest of one person in another that is "not for pursuit of physical sexual intercourse alone" (my emphasis). Valiantis (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, then "affection". But we probably need some examples from JIP. μηδείς (talk) 22:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

The kind of interest that makes you want to hold hands, kiss, hug, etc. Things you wouldn't do to just a friend. As stated earlier, this includes actual sexual intercourse, but is not limited to it, not by far. JIP | Talk 19:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

"Romantic interest" or "interest in being more than a friend" would be two ways. You could also say that he sees her as a potential life long partner, as a potential mate, or as girlfriend material (adjusting as necessary for the actual genders involved).--Wikimedes (talk) 11:50, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Maybe "to have the hots for". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd go with "romantically attracted". That could mean either interested in love or sex or both. Just "attracted" could mean those, too, but could also mean "attracted as friends", as in "the kids were attracted to each other by their mutual love of soccer". StuRat (talk) 20:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Including "falling in love"? Being in love with someone would certainly bring all that? Akseli9 (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Comprehensive source on stress in America English for learners

I have a friend taking a college course in English who needs a good source for rules on stress in American English. (I.e., labORatry won't do.) I see tones of useless or very elementary websites, and our articles on English and English stress are very poorly organized, incomprehensive, and lacking in examples. As a native speaker I have never even considered looking for a source, as one gets it by assimilation.

Can anyone suggest a book with an online-text or more a comprehensive website that will help? Due to the student's circumstances, I will have to cut and past or attach the relevant information as an email. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 22:22, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Would plain old Webster's work? In the past, at least, I think they tended to favor American pronunciations, and then might give the alternate (such as your example) as "chiefly British" or whatever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

What's needed is a set of rules with examples to prepare for a test, not a source to look up new words at convenience. One big problem is that English has primary and secondary stress, and vowel reduction to schwa or schwi on vowels with no stress in multisyllabic words. (the student's language does not have secondary stress, and this is a source of confusion.) I need to provide a set of rules with examples on the order of a handful of pages long. μηδείς (talk) 22:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Seems to me the old Webster's had general pronunciation guides up front, or at least the unabridged versions did - providing general rules. Whether suitable for you client, I dunno. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I remember the very confusing vowel guides, I'll looknsee if an old edition had a stress guide as well. μηδείς (talk) 22:57, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

For those learning English as a second language, they can find it quite stressful. StuRat (talk)

• This looks pretty useful. It doesn't cover every possibility, but does have some general guidelines for how to place the stress within words. --Jayron32 23:52, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Jayron, that's along the lines of what I am looking for, although I've already sent three separate sources very similar that carry the -ic- and -tion- information, for example--covering everything that link covers. I think I'll have to get myself a scribd membership at this point. Or maybe I'm just overestimating the difficulty of the issue.My hope was that there was someone with ESL experience who could point to a more bookish than bloggish source. I suspect the student will do just fine, but I'd still like to give something both comprehensive and tradition bound. μηδείς (talk) 00:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Japanese grammar

On the Wikipedia page for kawaii, the Japanese characters for kawaii is かわいい. Using the Japanese-English dictionary, I see that the い is used as an emphasis. So, what's with the double いい? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 05:18, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Most Japanese adjectives end in 'i', and if the word already has an 'i', then it becomes a double 'i'. Nothing whatsoever to do with emphasis. It's just an adjectival ending. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 09:20, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay. Why does the original root form end in i then? Could it be that the general tendency to make all root words end in i's is causing the original Chinese term (可爱 kě ài) to morph into the ateji Japanese term (可愛い)? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

The original Chinese term ends in 'i'. The adjectival ending was added onto that. I must admit, this case is special, because most adjectives borrowed from Chinese are 'na' adjectives, and not 'i' adjectives. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:03, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Pinyin is a mid-20th century invention. The pinyin is merely a PRC's representation of the standard Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese characters. The original Chinese character has no Latinized i. Could it be that the Japanese borrowing of the term is a mid-twentieth century event? I can definitely see how the "kawai" part may be derived from the Chinese pinyin, but the extra i part that forms the adjectival may just be the Japanese tendency to add an extra i pronunciation to all adjectives? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

What is the origin of い as an adjectival ending? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know Chinese, but you seem to be saying that kawai is a reasonable approximation of the Chinese pronunciation, and if so then it's very simple: the Chinese word kawai is the stem, and a Japanese grammatical suffix is added to that. The suffix happens to be i for the dictionary form, but for the adverbial form it's ku and for the noun form it's sa and so on. You don't leave off the grammatical i just because the stem ends with the same vowel. The English word "toot" starts with "to" but the infinitive is still "to toot", not "to ot".

All I know about the origin of the i suffix is that it used to be two suffixes, ki when modifying a noun and shi in sentence-final position. Kawaii would therefore have derived from kawaiki and kawaishi. -- BenRG (talk) 22:27, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Chinese characters do not work the same way as English words. So, I would not say 可爱 (kě ài) in Chinese is a word in the same sense as English words, as there have been several examples where individual Chinese characters that are used to express whole ideas, as well as being paired up with an additional character for more specificity. I think it may be best described as a term. Kawaii is likely the Latinized pronunciation of the Japanese pronunciation 可愛い. I can't say whether or not Japanese terms work the same way as English words, or closer to Chinese terms. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

It's an adjective that has 'i' on the end, like many other adjectives. I don't see what the problem is or why you have difficulty grasping this very simple concept, which has been explained to you by myself and by another poster. Can you elaborate on your difficulties? We may be able to help, then. There is no such thing as a Latinized pronunciation of a Japanese pronunciation. Japanese uses hiragana to spell its words, in addition to kanji, and they can be alternatively written in romaji, which also displays the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. In both Japanese and Chinese, the term would be literally translated as 'can be loved'> loveable> endearing> cute. You can class it as a term or class it as anything you want, but it's still an adjective. Also, why do you say that Chinese characters do not work in the same way as English words? 'Love + Able' is exactly what 可爱 means. We add words together, too, you know. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 04:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

No, I already got the concept of the ending i. It's basically the adjectival ending. There is no reason beyond that, just like there is no reason why there is the -ly adverbial ending in English. It just is. But it's still interesting to see that Japanese has adjectival endings, while the original Chinese logograms don't, so you just have to remember that a particular term is an adjective and whatnot.

On your second note, I meant to say romaji, when I said "Latinized pronunciation of a Japanese pronunciation". Awkward phrasing on my part, but the central idea of romaji is that the Japanese pronuncation is transcribed by Roman characters instead of by traditional Japanese brushstrokes.

On your third note, I am aware that English does merge prefixes and suffixes onto the root word. Of course, in English, sometimes the actual root word must be modified in order to latch a prefix and suffix on it. An example would be "indefatigable". It has the root word "fatig" in there, but "fatig" is not a word by itself. "Fatigue" is. in- meaning "not" or "opposite" is a prefix, not a word by itself. But when you do use in as an individual word, it may be coupled with side to make inside or stand by itself as in meaning inside. Chinese combines individual logograms together, but the individual brushstrokes are not letters and do not compose the logogram like Latin letters. (I have noticed Korean does have brushstrokes that are like letters with vowels and consonants, though, but that's another topic.) 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

My impression (like KageTora's) is that cases like kawaii, where a loanword takes a Japanese grammatical suffix, are pretty uncommon. Shinu (死ぬ) may be another example (weirdly, it's also the only Japanese verb than ends in -nu). Daburu means "double" as both a noun and a verb, but when it's a verb the -ru is reinterpreted as a conjugating suffix, so the plain past is dabutta and so forth. It would be harder to do that with a Chinese loanword written in kanji, and I can't think of any examples. In English there's "to kowtow" and "to shanghai" (whose gerund/present participle is "shanghaiing" with a double i, for whatever that's worth). -- BenRG (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Bring back my Bonnie to me

I want to note that it seems odd that English has two words that seem of equal popularity in usage and that seem to mean the same thing: "ocean" and "sea". I notice that the song My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean plays with this two word duplication in the lyrics: "My Bonnie lies over the ocean, My Bonnie lies over the sea, My Bonnie lies over the ocean". The song does this twice more with variations on the words ocean-sea-ocean. Any insights into this? Bus stop (talk) 13:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Crudely speaking, Oceans (see first paragraph of lede) are bigger and seas are smaller, and often subdivisions of oceans. One traditional though inaccurate saying was "the five oceans and seven seas", or variations thereof. (There arguably are five oceans, but obviously far more than seven seas.)

Also, there is some overlap between the related meaning of sea = "seawater" and sea (or ocean ) referring to a particular area of the globe covered by seawater.

The near-duplication in the song you refer to is, I suggest, mere poetic licence. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you need to do the actions, to appreciate the full meaning? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:56, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Although to confuse matters, the Atlantic Ocean used to be called the "Ocean Sea", as a quick search of Google Books shows. Si Trew (talk) 15:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

The Salton Sea would never be called the "Salton Ocean"! -- AnonMoos (talk) 21:45, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

This is one of many cases where English has two words for a concept with Germanic (sea) and Romance (ocean) roots that have developed subtle differences in meaning. As the second of these links mentions, what we now usually call the North Sea used to be known as the German Ocean. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:56, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

While oceans is the term used to label large bodies of the world ocean (the continuous body of salt water that covers most of our planet's surface), and smaller bodies are labeled seas, the world ocean as a whole or any part of it may be called generically the sea, as the title of our article indicates. Marco polo (talk) 17:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Okeanos is actually Greek, the Romance reflexes are from the Latin mare and are cognate with the English mere, from PIE *mori- . μηδείς (talk) 18:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

As for the song, repetition is quite common in songs, however, using the exact same words each time get monotonous, so they often vary them slightly.

The part I found odd about the song is the "lies". To me that implies that she is dead and lying in the ground. However, the "bring back my Bonnie to me" part would then be about resurrection or at least exhumation, so I've concluded that "lies" is an archaic way to say "is located". We still use it that way when not talking about people, as in "Las Vegas lies on the dessert", but it would seem quite odd to say "My brother lies on the dessert".

The use of "over" to mean "across" also seems archaic. When I first heard "lies over the ocean" I pictured either her telling lies on board a ship, or perhaps levitating in a reclined position above the ocean. StuRat (talk) 20:18, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

The "lies" part means that she's on the other side of the ocean from where the singer is. Kind of archaic usage now, but not so when it was written. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

We die a little death every night, called sleep. If you're used to drifting off with a Bonnie beside you, it seems a good time to think about how she's not there tonight, and imagine she's lying alone, like you. Of course, that doesn't account for the time zones (or her need for la petite mort), but when you're almost asleep, your brain's sort of dead. Blurry, as another singer preoccupied with the oceans (plural?) in between us put it. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:06, January 8, 2015 (UTC)

Strange that we orgasm in French, but revert to English when we sleep. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Fear is the little death in English, not coming:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Surrender is typical of the Gauls, not the Saxons. μηδείς (talk) 02:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Napoleon didn't surrender - he was captured (twice) and on the second occasion after he died in exile, two old women cut off his balls. In WW1 they didn't surrender. They did quite well, actually. In WW2 they were defeated, but then became allies of the Germans, so the British were actually fighting them, as well (for a short time). Then their empire collapsed. Like all empires do. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Fear, death, drugs, sex, sleep, transatlantic flight...same shit, different pile. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:04, January 8, 2015 (UTC)

The phrase 'over the seas' only sounds archaic because in modern speech it is almost always contracted to 'overseas', a word in perfectly current usage, although of course here it wouldn't scan. Using 'lie' to describe where someone is might be more unusual, but compare it to the lie of a golf ball, which is the same usage applied to an inanimate. GoldenRing (talk) 03:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Or the famous (though maybe apocryphal) statement by one of Tony Curtis' characters: "Yonduh lies duh castle of my fadduh, duh caliph." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Not so very apocryphal, Bugs. He actually said "This is the palace of my father, and yonder lies the Valley of the Sun" in excellent Bronx. --Antiquary (talk) 11:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Dat's Medieval Bronx to youse. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to sea tomorrow. I'm totally at sea as to what to take with me. Now substitute sea with ocean and sea (sic) how that works out. 196.213.35.146 (talk) 07:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, though that is more about what is idiomatic rather than what is correct. GoldenRing (talk) 07:16, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Idiomatic and rhyming. It wouldn't be proper to mention the lotion or motion aspects of yearning. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:04, January 8, 2015 (UTC)

To my (British) ears, ocean is a geographic term only. The expanse of water I can see in front of me, and paddle in if I wish, is the sea, not the ocean, even if I am in Cornwall and it is part of the Atlantic Ocean. But (old) poetic usage is something else entirely. --ColinFine (talk) 08:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, in British English we have "the seaside", we swim "in the sea" and go "sea fishing" regardless of whether it's in the English Channel, the North Sea or the Atlantic. It's all sea water to us. Alansplodge (talk) 09:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

The seabed is "the bottom of the ocean". InedibleHulk (talk) 09:09, January 8, 2015 (UTC)

Yep, in UK English, "ocean" and "sea" are not mutually exclusive words. They're basically synonyms with some difference in nuance. And using the verb "lie" to refer to location is completely unremarkable. --Nicknack009 (talk) 11:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Sailors like to call themselves "seamen", including the ones who sail the ocean blue. I've never heard the term "oceanman", although "oceanographer" fits the style. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Can't call a sea cow an "ocean cow" without sounding stupid. And "ocean weed" seems to be all about the ganja (except for this "drinkable" beer). InedibleHulk (talk) 12:50, January 8, 2015 (UTC)

Anyone see Billy? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

This American has the same overlapping set of meanings for ocean and sea as his British colleagues. Note that I've lived near seacoasts most of my life. It may be that Americans who live inland perceive a sharp distinction between the two based on names they've seen on maps, but I don't think that this is strictly a difference between American and British English. Marco polo (talk) 16:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I was tempted to ask one of our editors who lives by Detroit if his infamiliarity with the sea colored his views on the ocean. μηδείς (talk) 21:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Identifying languages in the Charlie Hebdo "I am Charlie" PDF

http://www.charliehebdo.fr/20150107171028368.pdf

In this PDF you see "I am Charlie" in various languages.

• Persian - من چارلی هستم
• German - Ich bin Charlie
• Spanish: Yo Soy Charlie
• Unknown: - Som Charlie Hebdo
• Czech: Jsem Charlie Hebdo
• Arabic: أنا تشارلي
• Russian: Я "Charlie Hebdo" (can't type the Russian)

Which one is the "unknown" one? WhisperToMe (talk) 15:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Could be Slovak, according to wiktionary:Som. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Som means "We are" in Catalan (though that wouldn't be exactly parallel)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

The better wiktionary link is wikt:som since it is case sensitive. It could be various probably West Slavic dialects. μηδείς (talk) 16:59, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

IPA for Okinawan

Hello, I can't read IPA but I need to add IPA symbols to two charts on User:Minfremi/sandbox. Help? ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 16:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

German question

In The Book Thief (at about 41:10 or so), the little girl is leaving the house and the foster mother comes to remind her just before stepping out that she must keep the presence of the visitor an absolute secret. When the little girl accepts, the foster mother pats her on the shoulder and says "ah, gut mentsch."

I don't speak any German, but I know that in Yiddish, one would never call a girl a mentsch -- that would be reserved for a male. Is it different in German (or perhaps, 1930s German) or is it perhaps a little oversight. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 20:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I have not seen the film but could it have been Mädchen? That is "girl" in German. Dismas|^(talk) 21:04, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't have much German, but I've always understood Mensch as being gender-neutral in meaning. Wiktionary defines it as "human, human being, person" except when it's used as an interjection, when it's equivalent to "Man!". By contrast Wiktionary defines the Yiddish mensch as

1. A person (chiefly male) of strength, integrity and honor or compassion.

2. A gentleman.

That accords with what you tell us. --Antiquary (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• "sie ist" "ein mensch" gets 613Khits at google. My understanding has always been that the word means (virtuous) person and contrasts with Mann which simply refers to an adult male. Old-English supposedly had this distinction. μηδείς (talk) 21:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• What kind of German is this supposed to be anyway? "gut mentsch" isn't standard German either syntactically, orthographically or phonologically, no matter what the meaning of "Mensch" is. Are you sure this is what the speaker really says, and is she supposed to be a native speaker? If she has some regional accent, she could actually be saying "Gut(es) Mädchen" – the "ch" often comes out as a kind of "sch" ([ʃ]) sound in many dialects, and "Mädchen" would explain why you heard a "t" too. I would consider "Gutes Mädchen" far more likely to be said in this kind of situation than "Guter Mensch". Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:56, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I've looked at the subtitles for this movie. Actually, the line is "Gut, Saumensch", so "gut" is not an adjective here anyway (nor is "Saumensch" meant to indicate anything positive). - Lindert (talk) 22:10, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Jive followup (not a question)

Something was said a couple of weeks ago, about "jive" being connected directly with the film Airplane! That is not quite correct. Please note Glossary of jive talk, and its connection to Cab Calloway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)