Language desk
< December 5	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 7 >

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

December 6

"Sold to American." Auction chant

There used to be radio and TV commercials (demonstrated at the beginning of [1]) in the U.S. for, I believe, Lucky Strike , in which a tobacco auctioneer, "Speed" Riggs would jabber something like "Hey forty, jabba jabba jabba jabba jabba jabba, sold to American!" What exactly were the slurred words spoken so fast in the commercial? This seems very different from what is described in Auction chant, besides being completely unintelligible. Edison (talk) 01:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That commercial is, I think, a good example of auction chant. The tobacco version is pretty much completely unintelligible to outsiders, but those who participated in such auctions apparently had no problems understanding it - they know what's being auctioned and what its cost should be. I believe much of the unintelligible part is simply numbers 40, 48, 8, 89, etc. - Nunh-huh 01:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Name for Coast Guard Servicemember

The Army has soldiers, Navy has seamen, Air Force has airmen, Marines has marines, what is a US Coast Guard service member officially called? Ed Sherwood

The U.S. Coast Guard uses identical ranks as the U.S. Navy. See United States Coast Guard. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:17, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is soldier a rank? —Tamfang (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe they generally emulate the Navy, so I'd say they have seamen. Let's just hope the coast remains impregnable. StuRat (talk) 04:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Guardsmen. --Nricardo (talk) 04:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Books of the Bible

For the Gospels, do the Czechs, Germans, French, Italians, Polish, and Spanish refer to, say, Matthew as "Matthew" or "the Book of Matthew"? For the other gospels? --Vltava 68 04:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean formally, as the title of the Gospel in a printed Bible, or more colloquially, as in "In Matthew, more emphasis is put on the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies than in the other Gospels"? —An gr 10:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of those, I had better try to answer only for German, in which the formal title is Evangelium nach Matthäus (Evangelium nach Markus, Evangelium nach Lukas, Evangelium nach Johannes). For a shorter form there is Matthäus-Evangelium or Matthäusevangelium, and you might indeed give a chapter and verse citation as "im Matthäus 3,10", but in speech it sounds awkward to my old-fashioned ear, except that you would say "im Matthäus- und im Lukas-Evangelium..." where we might say "in Matthew and in Luke..." Strawless (talk) 18:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a native speaker, but I might also be inclined to say "bei Matthäus und Lukas" to mean "in Matthew's and Luke's Gospels". —An gr 19:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a native speaker, I would basically agree with both Strawless and Angr, i.e. you can say Evangelium nach Matthäus (very formal, e.g. when starting a lection) or Matthäus-Evangelium (standard). Simply "in Matthew" would translate as "bei Matthäus". But "im Matthäus 3,10", as Strawless mentioned, seems quite awkward to me; maybe "in Matthäus 3,10" is better, but since I usually don't talk about Bible verses I'm not sure about the preposition here. -- 93.131.82.246 (talk) 21:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's hugely encouraging to an Englishman to find that German prepositions confuse Germans too! DuncanHill (talk) 13:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC) [reply]

See Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

-- Wavelength (talk) 02:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing as his real name wasn't Matthew, and it has been converted to English, yes, it is converted to the matching name in any language, as evident in Wavelength's link: Mateo in Spanish and Italian, Matthieu in French. Grsz ¹¹ 02:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article "Gospel of Matthew" has links to articles in these languages.
(Language codes are explained at Wikimedia wikis.)

-- Wavelength (talk) 04:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My word. The Lord bless thee and keep thee, Wavelength. (Numbers 6:24) Strawless (talk) 05:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I corrected the wikicode for the article in the Malayalam language.

-- Wavelength (talk) 05:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Polish, the most standard title is Ewangelia według świętego Mateusza, literally: the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. I think it nicely stresses the idea that John, Luke, Mark and Matthew are not four completely different stories, but four accounts of one Gospel. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Gospel according to Saint Matthew is exactly the title used by the Authorized Version of the Bible. Strawless ^(talk) 17:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most of these replies (especially the list of links that Wavelength has pointlessly copied here) ignore the original question, which wasn't about the title of the gospels in different languages, but about how they are referred to in informal speech. Please read the question you are replying to, people! (and I don't know any of the answer). --ColinFine (talk) 23:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

French-English/French-French dictionaries

http://french.about.com/od/dicosmonolingual/Monolingual_French_Dictionaries_Frenchonly_dictionaries.htm http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/tp/softwaredicos.htm

I've been learning French on and off for almost a year. So, I've been using Collins-Robert (English-French; software) for quite some time. What would you suggest for going monolingual? I think both software and paper dictionaries are useful, but I don't know which to use first. In particular, which French-French dictionary would you suggest? I'm still confused by "petit"/"grand" in the names of these dictionaries. It seems that the French dictionaries put a lot of quotations and encyclopedia content within them, unlike English/German dictionaries. What exactly are French-French dictionaries for 1) students and 2) native speakers?--Fitzwilliam (talk) 07:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to your question depends on whether you're primarily interested in Canadian or European French. Here are a few dictionaries used by native speakers:

-European:

Le Petit Robert. This is by far the best single-volume dictionary. It gives many examples of use. There's a second volume with encyclopedic material.
Le Petit Larousse. A new one is put out every year. The definitions are concise, and there aren't many examples. On the other hand, the second half of the dictionary is made up of encyclopedia entries on people, places, etc.
Online: fr:Trésor de la langue française informatisé This is the online version of a 16-volume paper dictionary.

-Canadian:

Dictionnaire québécois d'aujourd'hui.
fr:Franqus. A preliminary version will be coming out online in January. A print version will be coming out near the end of 2009.

Generally, Canadian dictionaries do a better job of giving you both European and Canadian words. On the other hand, apart from this shortcoming, Le Petit Robert is best in my opinion. 67.150.252.116 (talk) 08:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And petit dictionaries are usually abridged versions of multi-volume, grand dictionaries from the same publishers.67.150.252.116 (talk) 09:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, it seems, then, that le Petit Robert should be enough for, say, intermediate learners. I did take a look of French dictionaries in a French bookstore. But it seems that le petit robert (nouveau, and 2009 version) looks rather huge - is there a more handy version? I'd say 700-page or something, with dimensions like 20X13X4cm or so, would sound better.--Fitzwilliam (talk) 09:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have several large French–English dictionaries, and I use the very comprehensive Collins and Harraps unabridged ones fairly often. Those are two-volume dictionaries. For French only, I normally use Petit Robert. DON'T be put off by petit. It's all relative. This one is like the SOED: it's short only in relation to its enormous larger sibling. I have hardcopy and CD-ROM, and I use the CD-ROM (on my hard-drive, effectively) more than any other French resource. Searches are easy and flexible, and I can do linguistic research with it (see this from the archive for last month, for a straightforward example). The Grand Robert is also on CD-ROM. I use TLFi often too: on my hard-drive, for convenience. It's huge and wonderful, with vast detail and historical depth. Searching is extremely powerful, but less intuitive than with Petit Robert. The online version has invaluable links to other sources. One can get agreeably lost in no time at all.

For old French I use Greimas's Dictionnaire de l'ancien français and Dictionnaire du moyen français. Both are magnificent, and they work well together.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 10:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Le Petit Robert has about 2500 pages, and contains about 60,000 words, with fairly lengthy entries. Most people, whether they're French-speakers or foreign learners, never buy a bigger dictionary than that. The Robert Micro is a smaller version intended for schoolchildren who are native speakers (about 35,000 words), but also claims to be suitable for non-native speakers. It might be the right size for you. After a bit of research, here are a couple of dictionaries compiled specifically with foreign learners in mind: Dictionnaire du français, Référence, Apprentissage (Robert/CLE International, 22,000 words), Dictionnaire du français usuel (De Boeck/Duculot, 15,000 words). There's another called DAFLES that's still in preparation. 67.150.254.54 (talk) 12:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If Le Petit Robert is 2500 pages long, I shudder to think how big Le Grand Robert must be. —An gr 21:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Six volumes. -- 93.131.82.246 (talk) 22:05, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Dictionnaire visuel. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Run-on sentence help

I came across a serious run-on sentence in an article. I honestly cannot figure out what in the word it is even trying to say once I get half way through the sentence. I was wondering if anyone here could understand it better than I, and perhaps try re-writing it for grammar and coherence. Thanks. Here is the offending sentence:

The ruling families of the Zhou, shang, Qin, and (possibly)Xia dynasties did in fact coexist together as rulers of independent kingdoms until 286 BC, when the Sung principality was conquered, which the shang ruling family ruled, the Zhou king ruled at his independent kingdom, and the Kings of the state of Yue also claimed to be descended from Yu the Great of the Xia Dynasty^[1], while the Kings of qin ruled over the State of Qin.

Andrew c ^[talk] 18:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here is what my roommate came up with, but the last sentence seems problematic because it is mixing what families rules what geographic areas with the idea of descendants.

The ruling families of the Zhou, Shang, Qin, and possibly Xia dynasties coexisted together as rulers of independent kingdoms until 286 BC, when the Sung principality was conquered. The Shang family had been the rulers of this principality. Until 286 BC, the Zhou king ruled an independent kingdom, the kings of the state of Yue claimed to be descended from Yu the Great of the Xia Dynasty[1], and the kings of Qin ruled over the state of Qin.

Andrew c ^[talk] 18:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know which article you saw, but a very similar edit was recently made to Warring states period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Warring_States_Period&diff=255938288&oldid=255362269

Maybe the editor who made that edit should be consulted as to the meaning. (I am not going to ask as I know nothing about the subject matter.) CBHA (talk) 18:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm.. small world. Looks like the sentence doesn't have sourcing for anything but the Yue information. Without sourcing, doesn't seem like the sentence would be appropriate in these articles. But I'm still curious about how to fix this sentence, if possible.-Andrew c ^[talk] 20:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be very tempted to replace "did in fact co-exist together as rulers" with "were rulers". However, the foregoing context may demand something different. But at the very least, I'd do something about "co-exist together", which is a tautology. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about, "The ruling families of the Zhou, Shang, Qin, and (possibly) Xia dynasties controlled independent kingdoms until 286 BC. The Sung principality (of the Shang family) fell at this time. The Zhou kingdom remained independent, as did the State of Qin. Further, the Kings of Yue claimed descent from Yu the Great of the Xia Dynasty^[2]"? Fwiw, Julia Rossi (talk) 09:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Part of speech

What part of speech does the word "on" assume when used in the phrase "going on" (i.e., transpiring)? Example: "After reviewing budget reports, the manager wanted to know what was going on in his department." It's not a preposition ... or is it? Is it an adverb? Is it actually a part of the verb itself? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC))[reply]

It's part of the verb itself, a phrasal verb. Sometimes it can also be considered an adverb, though it is difficult to logically explain it as an adverb in this example.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An adverb, in my view. 67.150.252.177 (talk) 21:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some structural linguists just called such instances a "verbal particle"... AnonMoos (talk) 01:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:en:on. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the input! Much appreciated! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC))[reply]

[1] The State of Yue

[2] The State of Yue

[1]

[2]