Language desk
< January 9	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 11 >

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.

January 10

Names for the parts of a rasher of bacon in Spanish

I'm trying to think up some whimsical alternative names for regions in South America. I'd like to know what the various parts of a rasher of bacon (i.e. the medallion, the rind, (whatever the bottom part is called)) are known as in the Spanish language. Muchas gracias. 82.36.179.20 (talk) 02:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what the various parts are called (never heard of them until reading this) but a rasher would be torrezno in Spanish. 70.162.25.53 (talk) 04:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thank 70 for torrezno. I didn't know that word. I suppose in South America we'd just go for lonja, which is less specific. Medallion is easy: medallón. At least that's the term for beef's medallions. In regard to rind, I would say borde, but wait for a contribution by someone used to have bacon for breakfast. Pallida Mors 20:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Wet room"

This term seems to have gained currency in recent years, to mean a bathroom where the whole floor gets wet from the shower (and the water gets drained away, obviously). Personally, I abhor the term. It strikes me as reeking of snobbishness and one-upmanship. Just call it a bathroom, why don't you. Do I have a question? Not really. Just thought I'd mention it :) --Richardrj ^talk ^email 05:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you feel better now you got that off your chest, Richard. —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 05:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, don't get all Angr-y about it. :-) --Anon, edited 05:40 UTC, January 10.

You're English, Richard, but you must be aware that our American cousins have long been misappropriating the word "bathroom" to mean what's called "toilet" elsewhere in the English-speaking world. But they also use "bathroom" to mean the place where people take a bath/shower. That might be justified if the toilet happens to be in the same room as the bath/shower, but surely this is not generally the case. Hence, having muddled the word "bathroom" for unnecessarily euphemistic purposes, they've created a need to distinguish the toilet-bathroom from the bathroom-bathroom. Maybe this is why "wetroom" has come about. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While we're on the subject, I dislike the use of 'bathroom' for any room not containing a bath. A shower's a shower, dammit! Algebraist 08:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I had never heard the word used this way before, when I saw it here the first thing that came to mind was a place where spooks would torture or kill someone, as in "wet work".... Vrac (talk) 08:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, if there's a bath/shower, then it's in the same room as the toilet. Thus there's no ambiguity in practice. Also, a wetroom, as you defined, is not merely the room where you go to take baths, it's a room that is a bath. Even if Americans reserved the word bathroom for the place you go to take baths, they would still need a word here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that apparently (in the UK) we now have reception rooms instead of sitting rooms.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Reception rooms also includes a study, ball room, smoking room and dining room. - CarbonLifeForm (talk) 13:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just waiting until we have a word for the room with Swedish massages, Belgian pancakes, no gravity, and a Van Gogh painting. Also waiting for the room itself... — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 15:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Knowing my luck I'd get Belgian massages, Swedish painting, no gravity pancakes and Van Gogh... Lanfear's Bane | t 16:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To disagree with Jack, in the U.S. a bathroom does include a bath and a toilet. If it had only a toilet it would be a half-bath (at least in real estate terms). And with only a shower and a toilet, a 3/4 bath. Is there a U.S. term for a room with only a bathtub? Rmhermen (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the house where my family lived in Rochester, New York, when I was small, there was a small room below the staircase with only a toilet and sink. We called it the "powder room", since it had neither shower nor bathtub. But it is true Americans refer euphemistically to "going to the bathroom" to mean excreting waste, even if there's no bathtub in the room where we go to perform the relevant bodily functions—and even, for that matter, if we don't perform them in any room at all. If I were the outdoorsy type and were hiking in the woods, I might announce, "I have to go to the bathroom" and then head behind a tree. —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 20:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, I am an American, and I have never heard the expression "wet room". I have never seen the kind of room that I think Richard is describing in the United States. I have seen showers that wet the entire floor while traveling, for example in India. The room that I remember best also had what I would call a toilet. As a result, I found the experience of showering vaguely unsanitary. While I am on the subject of toilets, in American English, the word "toilet" refers to the porcelain fixture that receives human waste and that one flushes. The word does not refer to the room that houses that fixture. That would create all kinds of ambiguities. I'm not sure what word Brits and Australians use to refer to the fixture that we know as a "toilet" if they use the word "toilet" to refer to the room that Americans know as the "bathroom." If an American said, "I was in the toilet", people would be alarmed. They would want to know but would be afraid to ask how the speaker ended up in the toilet, whether it had been flushed first, and whether it was traumatic. It is not problematic to Americans to use the expression "bathroom" for the room that houses the toilet, because in American houses, the bath and the toilet are almost universally in the same room. (Typically, Americans refer to a room containing toilets, but not baths, in a public building as a "restroom"—admittedly another euphemism—or else as a "men's room" or "ladies/women's room".) I once lived in an apartment (flat) in San Francisco where the bath and the toilet were in separate rooms. Within the United States, this is an oddity, in my experience only found in some older buildings in San Francisco. For want of a better word, we referred to the room with only a toilet as the "W.C.", even though this is not a common American expression. Marco polo (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, the room is not called "the toilet". There are apocryphal tales of English visitors to America asking "Where's the toilet?" and getting the astonished answer, "In the bathroom, of course; where else would it be?" —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This must be an American peculiarity (I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course). It's certainly not unknown elsewhere for a bathroom to include a toilet; in fact, it's quite common; in fact, I have such an arrangement in my house (but I'm moving next week to a house where this won't be the case); BUT it's much more common in my experience for them to be in separate rooms. However, even if they're in the same room, if I say "I'm going to the bathroom", that means I'm going to either have a shower, or clean my teeth, or look for a Bandaid, or an aspirin, or comb my beard, or whatever. If nature calls, then it's "I'm going to the toilet". Not that I usually broadcast my intentions about such matters, but you know what I mean. There's an expression "the smallest room in the house", which is understood internationally to mean a small room that houses a pedestal/cistern, a toilet roll holder, a toilet brush, a window, and nothing else (except perhaps a picture depicting a pleasant, *relaxing* scene on the back of the door). If it were the international norm for the room to also contain a shower and/or a bath, then the expression not only wouldn't be meaningful to many people, it probably would never have been created in the first place. I'm reminded of the German composer Max Reger, whose letter to a critic of one his works read "I am sitting on the smallest room in the house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me". -- JackofOz (talk) 21:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do Americans still ask where's the john? For me, The Wet Room sounds like a title for a movie : ) Julia Rossi (talk) 22:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Following up on Algebraist's observation: I think the "bath" in bathroom can be understood as from "bathe", the verb which, for the place of waste-disposal, leads back to a Latin word that might serve for the purpose in any English-speaking country: lavatory ( ex lavatorium?). LuckyThracian (talk) 01:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<unindent> See discussion of the various terms at toilet, washroom, and bathroom. Also notice that "lavatory" originally meant "place to wash", and "toilet" meant "getting dressed" (as in eau de toilette), so these two words also have euphemistic roots. British English is usually less euphemistic than American English, but not entirely so. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can recall, in my early, poverty-stricken days (unlike my current poverty-stricken days) staying in a hotel in Amsterdam with one of those "toilets down the hall", and the shower was a room, with a wooden door like any room, where you took off your clothes, hung them on a hook, then pulled a shower curtain around the clothes, then turned on the water. The shower got the whole room wet. But this was back in the dark ages ... the 70s. Corvus cornix_talk 22:10, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I first heard the term a few years ago at a gym -- the "wet room" is where the showers, sinks, steam room, etc. are. I now also own a wet room -- the toilet and the shower stall are the same place on my 16' Airstream trailer. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Correct wording #2

This is somewhat of a follow-up to my previous question (above) --> Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Correct wording. This is in reference to the following article: List of persons who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards. This article lists all of the people who have won an Academy Award, and an Emmy Award, and a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award --- that is, people who have won all four awards. There are nine people who have done so. Note that some of them have won multiple awards, within the four specific categories. So, for example, Person X might have won 3 Academy, 2 Emmy, 1 Grammy, and 4 Tony Awards. Now, say that we want to place that list of nine people in chronological order in the following manner: who is the first person to win all four of the awards, who is the second person, who is the third person, ... who is the ninth person. What is a good English sentence, grammatically correct, that will communicate that thought? I tried this: "This list is arranged in chronological order by the date on which each artist received all four major awards." --- But that makes it sound like a person won all four awards on the same exact day. I also tried: "This list is arranged in chronological order by the date on which each artist received his or her fourth major award." --- But that doesn't sound right ... and, technically, is not right. A person can win 4 Academy Awards in a row. That fourth Academy Award would be his "fourth major award" ... and would not put him in correct chronology of when he won the fourth within the four categories of Academy, Emmy, Grammy, Tony awards. The best I could come up with is this: "This list is arranged in chronological order by the date on which each artist completed receiving all four of the major awards." --- but I think it could be done better. Any input? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]

A guess: Can it be something of the type "This list is arranged in chronological order by the date on which each artist completed receiving four distinct awards."?Drowsydream (talk) 07:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The artists are ordered by the earliest date on which they possessed all four distinct awards. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"This list is arranged in chronological order by the date on which each artist qualified for it." --Milkbreath (talk) 12:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does "distinct" really work, grammatically speaking? Isn't Tom Hanks' first Academy Award "distinct" from his second Academy Award ... even though they are both Academy Awards? Or are they not distinct awards? I'm unsure ...? (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]

"This list is arranged in chronological order by the date on which each artist had attained a set of at least one of each of the major awards" Rfwoolf (talk) 20:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the input --- much appreciated! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Latin "v"

I've always been rather skeptical of the accepted pronunciation of the Latin "V" (or "u"). The "w" (double "u") sound is so weak. (I can't imagine Caesar saying "Winki".) Additionally, it seems not to have existed in the lingua franca, since the Romance languages, that I've encountered, have a "v" or "b" sound. Church Latin uses the "v" sound, right? Did a Greek, contemporary with the classical Latin, describe the sound? Have any Latinists challenged this?LShecut2nd (talk) 15:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Examine the classic book Vox Latina by W. Sidney Allen for discussion of the matter. If I remember correctly, it started changing towards [β] (in at least some forms of popular Latin) as early as the second century A.D... AnonMoos (talk) 17:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. There is an article Latin spelling and pronunciation -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there are Greek transcriptions such as Greek ouenetos for Latin venetus -- where the alternative transcription benetos presumably belongs to a later period... AnonMoos (talk) 17:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Greek transcription seems to cinch it, at least for Julius Caesar. LShecut2nd (talk) 20:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The simple fact that the same letter V was used to represent the vowels /u/ and /uː/ strongly suggests that the pronunciation as a consonant was "soft". Other evidence is the transformation of consonant to vowel as seen in the past participle VOLVTVS of the verb VOLVO. Caesar may not have been a VIMP, but he may have sounded like one. --Lambiam 20:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Be that as it may, the OP is right to doubt that Caesar said "Winki", since the 1st person singular perfect of vinco is vici, not *vinci. —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 20:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so now we know who really invented the Wiki! :-) --Anon, 21:18 UTC, January 10, 2008.

The pronunciation is challenged, as can be seen here (about 1/3 of the way down) in Frances E Lord's book "The Roman Pronunciation of Latin". SaundersW (talk) 21:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting read. Pity he undermines himself with the profoundly ignorant claim, "the W sound is not only unfamiliar but nearly, if not quite, impossible, to the lips of any European people except the English". What sound does he think occurs at the beginning of French oui, Italian uomo, Spanish huevo, and Polish Łódź? —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

whispers* I think Frances is a she! You are right, Angr, unless by "European" one means "those Europeans who don't use that phoneme". On the one hand one could quibble that the "w"s in those languages (or at least French, Spanish and Italian: Polish is outside my welkin) are subtly different from an English "w". On the other hand many of their consonants are subtly different from their English equivalents so the quibble is pretty meaningless. SaundersW (talk) 22:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is also interesting that immediately below the nonconclusive lips argument the author proclaims: "X has the same sound as in English." eXactly the same as in Xylophone? What a XXX seXual luXury to have such a simple rule. --Lambiam 22:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And that right after Xmas! —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 05:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC):::::::::SaundersW directed the reader to the Frances F. Lord book. In it we find: "But 'provincialisms' do not seem sufficient to account for the use of *[Greek letter: b]} for U consonant in inscriptions and in writers of the first century. For instance, Nerva and Severus in contemporary inscriptions are written both with *[Greek: ou] and with [Greek letter: b]: [Greek transliteration: Neroua, Nerba; Seouaeros, Sebaeros]. And in Plutarch we find numerous instances of [Greek letter: b] taking the place of [Greek transliteration: ou]." Possibly the Spanish "v" is the closest modern equivalent.LShecut2nd (talk) 16:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Latin Sentence

Please translate this sentence: Utrum anima suae naturali perfectioni relicta possit cognoscere Trinitatem personarum in Divinis. Thanks. --Omidinist (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Whether the soul, having lost its native perfection, can recognize (or perhaps 'comprehend') the Trinity of persons in God." Not quite sure why "Divinis" is plural here, though. Is this the head of a quaestio in Aquinas? Deor (talk) 17:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is from a Quodlibet by John Duns Scotus. By the way, does Quodlibet have a one-word equivalent in English? --Omidinist (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Whatever" or "anything", or "miscellaneous"...it literally means "whatever is pleasing" and in this sense it just means he didn't think of a proper title. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Makes me think of 'potpourri,' Adam. :P - Dureo (talk) 10:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

looking for the word that means a test or trial

Instead of a trial run, I've heard of a mach, or moc run. Not sure how to spell it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dlaros (talk • contribs) 19:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Mock"? —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 19:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Meaning of "DZ" in Chinese/Taiwanese/Asian products

This may seem like a very weird question...
I'm busy looking at various manufacturers of vacuuming machines. Almost all of them are from China, and although all of the machines have different "manufacturers", the model numbers are strikingly similar:
(Here are the model numbers from 7 different manufacturers!!!):

DZ600/2S
DZD-400/S
DZQ-400B
DZD-500S VA-500s VAQ-400
DZ-300Z DZ-400Z DZ'-500Z
HD-DZ-400C
DZQ400A

What's also odd is if you do a google search for "DZ series" you will get a whole lot of part numbers across various different industries that all start with "DZ"
But what could it mean? Does it denote a standard? A Manufacturer?
Other examples are screw driver sets beginning with "DZ"
Here is the "Might USA Inc." brands of "Bridge Machines": DZ-3240 DZ-4240 DZ-5240 DZ-6240
Hitachi has a whole series of camcorders that start with "DZ"
There's a "DZ" series of breaks.

Any idea what this could mean?
I hope you don't mind me also posting this question in the Miscellanious Reference section. I will try remove one posting once I have an answer
Rfwoolf (talk) 19:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Mandarin, dianzi (電子) means "electronic" (also "electrons" and "electronics"). Cheers.--K.C. Tang (talk) 01:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm not sure that completely explains it, but thanks, it's the best I've got so far! Rfwoolf (talk) 03:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it beheading?

Deheading imo Bellum et Pax (talk) 21:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

be- is a catch-all prefix in Old and Middle English that means completely, away from, causation, etc etc. So it means "away from the head". De- is a Latin prefix meaning "away from", and the English word decapitation means exactly the same thing ("caput" being Latin for head). It would be strange to mix two roots from different languages, so therefore, there is no "deheading". Adam Bishop (talk) 21:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right. The only other English word in common use today having that prefix is "bereave", to "rob away". --Milkbreath (talk) 22:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A thing if you are interested. The Dutch word "beroven" still means the same thing as "bereave". Daimanta (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think not mixing roots from two languages is more of a pendant thing than a real issue. Automobile mixes its roots, for example. If they needed a word today that meant beheading, no one would hesitate to use deheading. But the word "beheading" was probably created by people who didn't know Latin, and the word decapitation probably created by scholar-pedants who would have cared about mixing roots and were "improving" English by Latinizing its vocabulary. (I'm curious if what the OED says matches up with those assumptions.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest citation for "behead" (actually "beheafdode") is from c. 1000 AD, and for "decapitate" 1611. These dates are far enough apart to put "behead" first. "Decapitate" does not appear to be one of those Latinesque made-up words, coming as it did from the French décapiter. They seem to be another of the French-English doublets. --Milkbreath (talk) 02:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Only one? What about betray, become, beget, behold, bestride, bewilder? -- JackofOz (talk) 05:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "be-" in question means "away", unlike the other "be-"s. It is dead as a doornail in modern English. --Milkbreath (talk) 11:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Bedazzle"? Corvus cornix_talk 22:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just going by the OED. The "be-" in "bedazzle" seems to me to be the productive one we use all the time. (Love the movie, by the way.) --Milkbreath (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That'd be one of the movies. Never saw this one, but it couldn't possibly have been better than the original - Pete and Dud and Raquel Welch to boot, what more could one ask for!. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's more of a pedant thing, myself, although there are places where the pedant pendant comes in handy. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 14:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]