Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 November 15

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November 15

Snot

What is origin of this word plaese--79.67.82.206 (talk) 01:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

See [1], [2], [3], etc. A good resource for looking up word origins (known as etymologies) is http://www.etymonline.com . rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:24, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Dirty cities

There was a question on the Humanities desk about the town of Fucking, Austria that got me thinking. Can anyone name towns (in the Anglosphere) that appear normal to English-speaking people, but which sound amusing or filthy in some other language? So, I'm not looking for something like Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador, which is amusing in English (and in Newfie), but rather something that sounds mundane to us and yet would elicit giggles from someone familiar with, say, Pashto or Portuguese. And, for additional points, are the residents aware of the situation, as the 104 people in Fucking apparently are? Matt Deres (talk) 02:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there are lots of things, not just for placenames but for any proper nouns. For example, I've seen Chinese friends get tickled at my dad's name, Ben, because it sounds like a Mandarin word for stupid (笨 bèn). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:26, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

In Scotland, I drove through Ruskie, whose name is not terribly obscene in Polish, but it may be a pejorative name for the Russians (or a perfectly acceptable name for cheese and potato pierogi). — Kpalion^(talk) 10:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Not quite what you're looking for, probably, but two fairly well-known places in New Zealand have Maori names which sound innocuous enough in English but have less-innocuous names in their original language. Te Urewera, one of the country's national parks name literally means "The burnt penis". There's also Tutaekuri River, which translates as "Dog shit river". As for non-english placenames which sound amusing in English, my favourite is the Western Australian town of Koolyanobbing, which sounds to me like a way of saying "go take a cold shower". Grutness...wha? 10:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Again, not quite what you are specifically looking for, but there is Malacca. Ask a greek-speaker what that means! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 13:24, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The village of Knockin in Shropshire, England, is locally rather famous because the village grocery store has a large sign proclaiming "The Knockin Shop". In UK slang, a "knocking shop" is a brothel[4].Alansplodge (talk) 16:00, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

In Italian, the city of Chicago is pronounced as "ci cago" (chee-kah-goh), that means "I defecate in it". It's a common joke here :-) --151.51.20.160 (talk) 22:27, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be ne cago? —Tamfang (talk) 03:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a place near Bolton called Nob End. I drove through it once, on my way to the unlamented (by me, anyway) Burnden Park. Nob End apparently is an SSSI - but sadly not because of its name. --Dweller (talk) 13:29, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

So...what does Malacca mean in Greek? —Akrabbim^talk 14:20, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

See malakas. — Emil J. 14:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

there is always Wetwang, too. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) 17:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Lecco is a town in Lombardy, 1 hour by trein from Milan. Neither Lecco nor Milano sounds strange, but together, as it's often heard talking about roads and railways, "Lecco-Milano" sounds a bit strange indeed (still natural for a cat or a dog I suppose). --pma (talk) 21:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Pen (writing instrument)

I've recently discovered that the word for "pen" in Spanish is pluma, which I would speculate is related to plumage, in that feathers served as (at least some of) the first pens in the form of quills. Can anyone a) comment on this speculation and b) provide traslations for the word "pen" in other languages that show a link to such a feather-origin (or another origin, as in stylus, which just means "pen") DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 15:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

In French, "la plume" can be a pen or nib. In English, a "pen" is also a male swan. I've always assumed that they were linked. A stylus was a pointed stick that Romans used to write on wax tablets. It can also mean the needle of a record-player.Alansplodge (talk) 16:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The word "pen" itself is from "penna", which is Latin for "feather". French has "plume", as in the famous phrase "la plume de ma tante". As you speculate, these all come from the use of quill pens. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:10, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

A french example that's even more famous: nom de plume. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

P.S. my dictionary (Chambers) says that the origin of pen=female swan is unknown. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:11, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course; a male swan is a cob. I apologise to any swans reading this.Alansplodge (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The German word for a fountain pen is Feder, which also means (and is cognate with) "feather". +Angr 16:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The Chinese word for pen, 笔, includes the Radical for hair, 毛. Since, of course, there they used brushes before they used pens. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

From the SOED: pen = writing instrument, has "ORIGIN Old French & Modern French penne from Latin penna feather, (pl.) pinions, wings, (in Late Latin) pen.". pen = female swan has "ORIGIN Origin unkn." Mitch Ames (talk) 23:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

(Not quite the same topic, but fun) The Uyghur word for "pencil" is قېرىنداش (qérindash), which is homophonous with the word for "relatives" (also qérindash). They come from entirely different words (the latter literally was something like "womb companion" or "person from the same womb", I don't remember the etymology of the former) but the pronunciations have happened to come together as a result of vowel harmony. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:46, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The Russian word for pencil is карандаш (karandásh).and it has one of the very few irregular plurals in Russian (karandashá, not the expected karandáshy). I wonder which language influenced the other. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

You can see the word declined at http://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/карандаш. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The same page shows its etymology from two words meaning "black stone". -- Wavelength (talk) 17:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

At a guess, I'd suspect the Russian word is borrowed from some Turkic language whose word is cognate with the Uyghur word. That -ash ending looks very Turkic to me. +Angr 07:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems you're right - see Caran d'Ache and Caran d'Ache (company). I'd always assumed the Russian word came from the Frenchified version, not vice versa. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Slovene has two words for a fountain pen: nalivnik, which means about as much as "the fill-up [with ink] implement", and pero (or nalivno pero), which means straight out "feather" (or "fill-up feather"). Don't know about other Slavic languages, but I wouldn't be surprised if more of them simply used the word "feather" for pen. TomorrowTime (talk) 07:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Back to Spanish, the word pluma is directly derived from the Latin pluma, which means of course feather. The word estilográfica is also used. That last word derives from Latin stilus, which has been explained above. For ballpoint pens, the words are birome (cf. biro) and lapicera (in turn derived from lápiz, and this last one from Latin lapis, e.g stone). Pallida  Mors 19:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Wallachia

I've never heard the word pronounced (in English), so what is the correct pronunciation? Preferably in American English, neutral or New York accent. Also, I'm IPA-illiterate :D Thanks in advance. Rimush (talk) 17:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Kenyon and Knott give /wɑˈleɪkiə/; for the non-IPA-compatible, that's wah-LAY-kee-uh. +Angr 17:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Hm. Odd... I've only ever heard it pronounced wah-LAY-sha, but the questioner - and K&K - are using American English, so perhaps it's another US/Commonwealth English difference. Grutness...wha? 22:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, the thoroughly British Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives /wɒˈleɪkiə/, which agrees with K&K (but shows that the first vowel is that of "doll", not that of "Dahl", in dialects that distinguish them). +Angr 07:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Comma before "and"

I have a habit, which I have been informed is a bad one (I'm in the UK). I write sentences like this:

• Tom reached his important hundredth birthday last Thursday, and we wish him luck for the future.

Where the first clause is considerably more important than the latter (as I've tried to make here) I put a comma before the "and." Have I picked this up off someone or something? And publication address this sort of comma? Thanks, - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Using a comma there seems completely natural to me, and I don't know by what "rule" it would be considered incorrect. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Serial comma may help. Essentially, it is one the many UK vs US differences. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Serial comma refers to a comma separating items in a list, not to a comma separating two independent clauses. The general rule of thumb is that if the clause following the word "and" could stand on its own as a grammatically correct sentence, a comma is used. In your example, "We wish him luck for the future" could be its own sentence, thus the comma is not only acceptable but also required. Keyed In (talk) 19:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Compound sentence (linguistics) suggest the comma is optional, now I look. Here is a second case, where I did use a comma (between the bold words) but I'm not so sure is correct:

• I spoke to Sally, who suggested that I ate something, and that I got some rest.

Clearly, the commas are not parenthetical, but I'd still feel the inclination to use one, where are pause would apply. Correct or not? - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 21:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Fully acceptable either with or without the comma. It seems that a lot of people are strangely keen on dreaming up their own odd "rules" of English and then accusing others of breaking these. -- Hoary (talk) 00:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, Hoary, don't you know you should never begin a sentence with an adverb? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Completely missing the forest for the trees there, are we? That wasn't a sentence to begin with, adverbially or not, but a sentence fragment. You'll have to concoct a different rule for one of those, won't you now? —— Shakescene (talk) 10:46, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that British writing today is significantly more likely to keep the punctuation minimal than North American writing. So, while the comma before "and" is certainly optional in this sort of construct, I think British writers are more likely to prefer not to use it; and perhaps some people would elevate this preference to the status of a rule. --Anonymous, 05:43 UTC, November 16, 2009.

¶ I favour commas. especially between clauses containing phrases that might get misattached by the reader to the conjunction ("and"). It's not just a matter of indicating where a spoken pause might (or might not) occur. However, there are other problems with that sentence to my eyes, ears and mind:

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested that I ate something, and that I got some rest. ”

I would have written (or I hope spoken) it either as:

“ I spoke to Sally who suggested that I eat something, and that I get some rest. ”

or

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested that I eat something and get some rest. ”

I prefer the latter, because I think a comma after Sally is the more important break. The trouble with having two commas in that particular sentence, each of which would otherwise serve a good purpose, is that there's no hierarchy in English-language punctuation to tell you which is more important. Another workaround is to impose a little hierarchy with a different punctuation mark:

“ I spoke to Sally — who suggested that I eat something, and that I get some rest. ”

But, as always, there are subtle changes in emphasis and meaning with each change in phrasing and punctuation. So none of my versions may be an accurate reflection of the intended meaning. The only person who knows what would be closest to the original meaning is the original author or speaker. An omnibus example of several points above might be:

“ I then spoke to Sally, and she suggested that I eat something and get some rest. ”

The comma helps avoid the momentary reading that I "spoke to Sally and she".—— Shakescene (talk) 11:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The examples are interesting comma dilemmas in which each sentence elutes non-similar meanings, and that none of the sentence seems correct to guess what would be the closest meaning of the speaker. I guess the final clause is most likely the meaning with the strong comma.

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested that I ate something; and that I got some rest. ”

Why? There are few grammatical explanations.--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 13:19, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Grammatical sidetrack

I'm sorry, but

(1) the semi-colon above just doesn't work in current Anglo-American punctuation. The usual hierarchy of stops is period/full stop [.], full colon [:], semi-colon [;] and comma [,], with the various dashes falling somewhere in between. Semi-colons introduce independent clauses, which may be started with coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.) by non-purists like me, but not by absolute purists. However, "and that I get some rest" is not an independent clause because it's introduced not only by the co-ordinating conjunction "and", but also by the subordinating conjunction "that" dependent on "suggested" at the beginning of a previous clause on the other side of the semi-colon.

(2) "ate" and "got" in the two examples above are just plain wrong, which is why I changed them in my own examples. The only time they'd be correct would be if Sally were making suggestions about something that I was doing at the same time or that I had already done before we spoke — and in that case they'd usually be in the past perfect ("had eaten and "had got" [Br.] or "had gotten" [U.S.]), past progressive or perfect progressive (if those are the correct names for those tenses). For example,

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested that they had already eaten and got[ten] some rest. ”

or

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I'd been seeing another woman. ”

or

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I was seeing another woman. ”

or

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I saw another woman before I came. ”

or (better)

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I'd seen another woman. ”

If Sally were an unjealous woman who wanted to end our relationship without hurting me, then a totally different meaning would be given by

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I see another woman. ”

or

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I should see another woman. ”

or (permissively; "Set Me Free")

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I could see other women. ”

You could use the past in the dependent clause if was something I was doing at the same time, especially if it were customary, for example

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I ate too much and got too much sleep. ”

although it's possible that that meaning might be better conveyed with the past progressive:

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I was eating too much and getting too much sleep. ”

or perfect progressive (or is it the past perfect progressive?)

“ I spoke to Sally, who suggested [that] I'd been eating too much and [had been} getting too much sleep. ”

—— Shakescene (talk) 06:42, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

One sentence paragraphs

Hey there all,
What's with the entire heuristic idea that most professors feel that one sentence paragraphs aren't entirely incorrect? I read from [5] it says one sentence paragraphs are correct (so long as it meets the criteria). Is there a good rationale for this heuristic?
Thanks in advance! --Agester (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It's unclear to me whether you're arguing for one-sentence paragraphs (where appropriate), or against them. Can you clarify your question, please. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm just merely trying to figure out why some feel one-sentence paragraphs are inappropriate for something like a college paper, and why (like the source I gave) would argue for it, in the setting of say journalism. Both are professional styles of writing. My professor personally hates single sentence paragraphs, where as, an article like that says it's okay (and I must admit I'm guilty for using one-sentence paragraphs).
In other words, there's conflicting arguments, just wondering what the real deal is, and is there a rationale for this. --Agester (talk) 20:35, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The heuristic method, applied to "normal" essays, would generally show that very infrequently a coherent point can be made in a single sentence. Had I not added this very second sentence, this may have been an exception. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The heuristic is best rationalized by the five-paragraph method of writing papers where each paragraph should make a claim, provide evidence for that claim, and provide analysis to show how the evidence backs up the claim. Of course, writing a five-paragraph essay is horribly formulaic, but it establishes the conventions and tendencies of essay-writing. I doubt you could accomplish this in one sentence unless this sentence was so long that you might as well break it up into multiple sentences. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]}

The best style guides, as I recall from a disagreement with my Portuguese teacher a decade ago, don't have a rule against one-sentence paragraphs. It really depends almost entirely on context. One-sentence paragraphs, if not watched very closely, can degenerate into a choppy, superficial style that doesn't fit most academic purposes. But remember that Hemingway and George Orwell (who, out of economic necessity and the political exigencies of his day, wrote many more essays than stories) were hardly averse to short paragraphs that reflected everyday speech and avoided disjointed breathlessness. —— Shakescene (talk) 11:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Writing styles differ by culture and for different audiences. As a bad example (non academic) single sentence paragraphs proliferate in Direct Marketing as they can be very powerful, if not over-used. Most cultures would see academic writing as more dry and therefore less needing of this kind of drama. --Dweller (talk) 16:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Mahmoud

How do you pronounce "Mahmoud" (as in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad)? I heard something like "Makh-mood" on TV but I wonder if the "k" was actually supposed to be a glottal stop. 69.228.171.150 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:31, 15 November 2009 (UTC).

The article shows the IPA transcription: [mæhmuːde æhmædiːneʒɒːd]. So no, no glottal stop. --Belchman (talk) 21:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I think people are trying to pronounce it as the Arabic letter ha, which is /ħ/ in IPA. I don't know how to represent it with an English sound, it's like a deeper H I guess. It's not a K sound but it's sort of in the same general area of the throat. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

And of course, this sound does not exist in Persian. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 23:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

There's also the "kh", represented in IPA by /x/, as used particularly in loan-words and dialects. The best known example is probably the Scottish word "loch". Grutness...wha? 23:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

In Arabic, Mahmoud has a ha, like Adam Bishop says, but in Persian I think it might become a kha. Steewi (talk) 01:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

According to Persian phonology it is realized as a regular h. This does not occur finally in English or many other languages but you can approximate it by adding a vowel after ("ma ha mood") then repeating the word gradually reducing the vowel to as little as possible. --JWB (talk) 01:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't see any pronunciation info at Mahmoud and hadn't actually looked at the article [[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (which I had linked to only as an example of someone with the name). The audio sample there definitely has a softer "h" than the TV announcer I heard. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 03:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)