Language desk
< November 2	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 4 >

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.

November 3

latin sentence

Please translate this for me: "Hunc ergo gladium de manu Ecclesiae accipit princeps." It's in Copleston, vol.2, p.174. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omidinist (talk • contribs) 09:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Therefore the prince receives this sword from the hand of the Church." —An gr 09:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

how do you say this scottish greeting?

I would like to be able to listen to this: "Fit Like Jockie?", and "Aw'Right" they are Scottish greetings. what do they mean, by the way? I guess the last one means something like alright. thank you for any help that you can extend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.213.188.88 (talk) 11:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "Aw'Right" means "Alright?", but doesn't really require an answer. "Fit Like, Jockie?" is asking "What's Up?" to someone called Jockie. --Bearbear 18:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Homographic homophonic autantonym

Dinosaur Comics has a thing for unusual words. In the most recent comic he, I believe, coined the term "homographic homophonic autantonym". [1] He defines them as words that are spelt and pronounced the same, but have two opposite and contradictory meanings. He gives two examples: dust and custom. Can anyone think of anymore? -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk  contribs)} 14:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my language, Icelandic, hljóð can mean either "sound" or "silence" and you have only the context to figure out which is meant.Etymology here. Haukur 15:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Auto-antonym and List of self-contradicting words in English. -- BenRG 15:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand the opposites of custom, could somebody explain? There's also cleave, meaning to cut or to stick together. Corvus cornix 18:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As explained in the second page BenRG linked to, custom means 'usual, conventional' as a noun, but as an adjective, it means 'specially designed'. Algebraist 19:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit summary was inappropriate. I will thank you to remember civility. Corvus cornix 19:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(In case anyone else is wondering, the edit summary in question just said please consult the linked articles before asking questions... Disappointing really; I was hoping for some profanity or insults. —Keenan Pepper 01:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC))[reply]

To ravel: to disentangle or to entangle.[2] --Lambiam 11:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'To stalk': to walk with measured, stiff, or haughty strides, or to pursue or approach prey, quarry, etc., stealthily.[3] (well, ish)--Estrellador* 15:39, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is a little pleonastic: an autantonym is by definition homophonic: it is a pair of antonyms which are at the same time homophonic. Thus, they seem to be one word (homophonic, same sound) but are in fact two (antonymic, opposite meanings). Interestingly, a word may come to mean its opposite over time, but that is another matter. The question refers to synchronic use. See the article on Auto-antonyms and the List of self-contradicting words in English mentioned above, where, however, the examples are not all equally convincing. Some do not present true opposites, others do not deal with homonyms so much as with polysemy.

How about down(s): (1) descending ↓ (2) sandhill ↑ ? There must be many more.

However, if we are looking for instances where one word has two opposite meanings, then inflammable might be an explosive example. Again, there are some classic examples of English and American as one language dividing two peoples: to table a motion comes to mind.

And exactly what transaction does someone who rents rooms engage in?

Bessel Dekker 01:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'Music technology' French

How do I say music technology in French? Computerjoe 's talk 14:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At a guess, I'd say technologie de musique. I'm intrigued by the final sentence of that article, though, which reads, "The music population is filled with incessant fans." Incessant fans are presumably large electric ventilators that never stop blowing, but I'm not sure what the music population is, or how the electric fans can fill it. —An gr 16:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Technologie de la musique, much more frequent on Google than the other possibility, Technologie musicale (or : Technologies musicales). Also : technologie du son (sound technology). 89.83.23.161 16:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Romanian verb question

I have a textbook of Colloquial Romanian from 1993 in which the verb form meaning both "I am" and "they are" is given as sînt, which suggests the pronunciation [sɨnt]. However, I have learned that nowadays, this verb form is spelled sunt, which suggests the pronunciation [sunt]. So what's going on here? Has the pronunciation of this form actually changed in the last 14 years? Or has it always been pronounced the same way, but either the old spelling or the new spelling is not faithful to the pronunciation? If so, which is spelling reflects the pronunciation, and why was the unfaithful spelling ever used? —An gr 18:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The pronunciation hasn't changed, it's sînt for both. They are just alternative spellings, whether in the Latin alphabet or the Cyrillic. Sunt is more usual in Romania, and sînt in Moldova. The Romanians say sunt is more correct, as it's the spelling in Latin. Xn4 05:20, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the Latin spelling of "I am", though! But okay, it's just an archaizing spelling that doesn't reflect modern pronunciation. (As an English speaker, I'm certainly used to that!) Somewhere I read that in the 19th century, some Romanians spelled cinci ("five") quinque on the grounds that it's the Latin spelling, so I guess the sentiment isn't new there. —An gr 09:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's odd that sunt can come to mean 'I am', but these things do happen. In standard English, we have "aren't I?" instead of "amn't I?" And in the West of England, you can still hear old people say you'm for 'you are'. Soon, that will be "as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird". Xn4 23:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many English teachers would be horrified to read this, but "ain't I" is historically justified and imo much preferable to "aren't I". -- JackofOz 00:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's the same in Italian, isn't it? "Sono" means "I am" and "They are". Adam Bishop 03:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.210.170.48 (talk) [reply]

Actually i'm pretty sure that there are plenty of regions where it's pronounced [sunt] because of the accents used. And as i recall when we where told about the reasons why the spelling changed it was because they decided to undo changes made by the communist regime. 89.36.53.11 (talk) 18:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]