Language desk
< February 1	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 3 >

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.

February 2

Word use prerogative

~~Perhaps~~ I'm just pedantic, but I got into a little dispute with my professor today over his exceedingly flexible use of the word odds in place of the word chance. When I tried to explain that they mean different things and possess quite distinct definitions, he answered that he had asked around the class and responded that "consensus was..." I laughed, retorting that consensus doesn't necessarily define truth, but he said that words can be used in a way that doesn't necessarily conform to their formal mathematical definition, giving the word significant as an example. I laughed again, because we are in a class about statistics, in which the formal use of terms should be the only acceptable usage. I countered by providing combination/permutation, cohesion/adhesion, incidence/prevalence, continuous/contiguous dichotomies as examples of situations in which people very often use Word A when they really mean Word B because they likely don't know Word B exists and likely don't know the true definitions of either. Again, ~~perhaps~~ I'm just a pedant, but assuming we are in a classroom and not at the skating rink or on a date, shouldn't formality rule the day? How can one say that words mean whatever people want them to mean? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 03:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You raised a number of analogies to him, but you forgot Humpty Dumpty's quote from one of the Alice books: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh beamish boy! What're the odds of you passing his course now? Beware the jabberprof. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your professor is right that consensus (i.e. usage) creates meaning, but the classroom doesn't exist in a vacuum. Don't worry, though. It sounds like you're one of those students who annoys the professor by thinking too much, which rarely drops your grade. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 09:03, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As we're in pedantry-land, that should of course be "...one of those students who annoy..." (and perhaps "it sounds as if"). ;) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't it Hilaire Belloc who wrote "Count not his words against him as a crime: he meant them as he meant them at the time"? --TammyMoet (talk) 15:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The common colloquial usage usage of odds in place of chance would, I suppose, be acceptable in any informal classroom conversation except in a mathematics class, but I trust that your professor would never use it in an examination paper (and will probably not use it in class again!) Keep up the pedantry! You have our support! Dbfirs 16:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On what ground do you presume to offer "our" support, Dbfirs? Most pedantry (there are honourable exceptions) is a particularly distasteful game of applying limited understanding of arbitrary rules for the purpose of belittling others. I play the pedantry game only against pedants. --ColinFine (talk) 00:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Perhaps Dbfirs has a tapeworm. —Tamfang (talk) 07:47, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Always beware of "showing up" the teacher, though. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a batter with a count of 3 balls and something, gets a pitch seemingly outside the strike zone, starts toward first before the umpire makes the call, and it's "Strike!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:14, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematics professors (including statistics professors) are accustomed to using variables. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:51, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The class is on research basics, given by the chair of the department, as an introduction to reading and comprehending research methodology, statistical analysis and other fundamental concepts of periodontal literature. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, you'd better take BB's advice and play down the pedantry! ... and to CF, only with tongue in cheek - I should have used small type - I wondered how many editors would object! Dbfirs 18:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Russian word

Looking for a good translation of станкового -- I've seen the translation "heavy" or "machine" (as an adjective), but that seems to miss the mark a bit in the usage I've seen. Thanks for your assistance. BTW, I've already checked online translators and the single Russian-English dictionary I have. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, станкóвoго is in genitive case, the nominative case being станкóв-ый, -ая, -ое. It's the adjective from станóк, meaning a machine tool, bench, loom, press, lathe, mount or mounting, depending on the context. The two meanings given in my dictionary of станкóвый are 'heavy' (in reference to a machine gun), and 'easel' (an adjective referring to a painting done on an easel as compared to a mural). That may not be much help. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! W. B. Wilson (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Los Angeles

Why isn't it "Los Angelos"? Surely angelus is a 2nd declension masculine noun in Latin, and should normally give angelo, plural angelos, in Spanish? --rossb (talk) 15:19, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:ángel#Spanish. You're right that it comes from Latin, but the Spanish word is ángel, not *ángelo. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, for future reference, many cities in America were misspelled and mispronounced by settlers, causing some wacky place names. Quintusπ ^talk 17:01, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And in French it's ange, so apparently the trailing 'us' in Latin was dropped during the evolution of vulgate Latin to Spanish, French, and maybe others. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For a fun read, check out the full name of the City of the Angels. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One would expect Sp. ángelo from Lat. angelus, but obviously that hasn't happened (nor in French ange and Romanian inger), though the us->o occurred as expected in Italian angelo. My suspicion, which cannot be confirmed without a Romanticist handy, is that it comes from the antepenultimate stress. Are there any similarly stressed words in Latin/Spanish that might confirm this? Steewi (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With both French ange and Portuguese anjo it's hard to say whether it's regular or not. French vocalized L after the -um ending was lost (bellum > beau), and Portuguese lost intervocalic L (color > cor), but there's so little evidence about what happened when the preceding vowel was unstressed that's entirely possible that angelum > *angel > *angew > *ange is regular in French and angelum > *ángelo > *ángeo > anjo is regular in Portuguese. I don't know the circumstances of l > r in Romanian, so I don't know whether angelum > înger is regular or not, but the loss of the -um is regular in Romanian, unlike Spanish. +An gr 08:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology: is "urban" from Ur?

Dictionaries, such as Wiktionary, give the etymology of the word "urban" as from Latin "urbs", meaning city (ref, ref). Is there any evidence that the etymology of urbs comes from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur? 87.115.47.188 (talk) 20:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Urbs is of unknown etymology, but a connection with the Mesopotamian city of Ur seems awfully unlikely. +An gr 20:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When a proposed etymology is outside the scope of the normal application of the accepted comparative method of historical linguistics, then the shorter the common sound sequence (one consonant and one vowel in this case) and the more historically/geographically/culturally remote the two languages are (Latin and Sumerian in this case), then the smaller likelihood there is of ever being able to prove or disprove anything... AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lewis and Short says it is related to "Sanscr. vardh-, to make strong; cf. Pers. vard-ana, city". Adam Bishop (talk) 21:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They might be right. But if not, we shouldn't judge them too harshly, for to ur is human. Sorry. :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

super, hyper and ultra

Don't ask me why but for some reason I've always thought that the prefix ultra was stronger than hyper and, in turn, ultra was even stronger. But now I've seen in the article Ultra high frequency (for electromagnetic waves) that the Super high frequency is actually higher than UHF. So... do those prefixes differ in intensity or not? --Belchman (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See the logarithmic chart of 21 divisions at Electromagnetic spectrum. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Errrr... yes, that's what I did. --Belchman (talk) 20:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There were separate "hyper" and "super" keys on the Space-cadet keyboard of yore, but I'm not sure if there was any relative ordering between the two... AnonMoos (talk) 21:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Surely, ridiculous speed is not as fast as ludicrous speed! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They've gone to plaid! Adam Bishop (talk) 07:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'ultra-' and 'super-' both come from Latin, super meaning 'above' and ultra meaning (loosely) 'beyond' most people would use ultra as greater than super, but that's convention more than anything else, and in some cases (like the EM spectrum) ultra was named first, and then they found higher frequencies, so super was attached after the ultra. 'hyper-' comes rom the greek, so there's not innate relationship to super or ultra. --Ludwigs2 01:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"hyper" and "super" are actually etymologically related (just as "sub" and "hypo" are). But I guess that doesn't really help here. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The "opposite" of "ultra", in the spectrum, is "infra", though it's not altogether clear that those prefixes are opposite, as "infra" goes more with "super". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:21, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! --Belchman (talk) 20:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of döner kebab in Turkish

I've googled extensively but, surprisingly, I haven't gotten any good results. So, how do you pronounce the Turkish dish döner kebab in Turkish? --Belchman (talk) 21:03, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

from some old conversations with a Turkish friend, it seems to me that this is a phrase that's difficult for English-speakers. the 'ö' sound is similar to the initial sound in 'eww' or 'due' (but not exactly that), vowel sounds are slightly shifted from English, and stresses tend to go on the last syllable; so possibly something close to dueNAIR kehBAHB (making the 'ue' sound as far away from 'oo' as possible). see Turkish_language#Sounds. --Ludwigs2 21:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In IPA, dø'neɾ ke'bap . The ø sound is similar to the sound in French feu or German schön. If you speak a nonrhotic variety of English (including most varieties spoken in England), the vowel is similar to the vowel in the English fur. If you speak American English and don't speak a language with this sound, the closest you can come is to pronounce the word "Dane" while rounding your lips. For the whole phrase, say day NAIR kay BAHP, rounding your lips while saying "day". Marco polo (talk) 21:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I understand IPA, thanks! --Belchman (talk) 00:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why would the similarity to fur depend on if you speak a rhotic or non-rhotic dialect? — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because there is no ɹ after the vowel in Turkish. Marco polo (talk) 01:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Aeusoes1 - many people in Britain use a non-rhotic [ɜː] for words like Goethe, Goebbels, Peugeot, which North Americans would probably not do because (AFAIK) they don't have a non-R-coloured [ɜː], unlike [ə]. There seems to be a feeling in Britain that [ɜː] is as close as you can get to [ø] and [œ]. On the other hand, the only pronunciation of "döner kebab" I have ever heard in Britain is ˈdɒnə(r), possibly because there is little overlap between the people who eat them on a regular basis and the people who like to talk about Goethe. Lfh (talk) 09:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But many North Americans do pronounce Goethe /ˈɡɜ˞tə/ and Goebbels /ˈɡɜ˞bl̩z/ (to rhyme with gerbils). Peugeot, on the other hand, I think is /pjuˈʒoʊ/ and milieu /mɪlˈju/. +An gr 10:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I stand enlightened!

If we're confident of [dø'neɾ ke'bap], let's add it to the article. Lfh (talk) 12:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And then let's all go out and get some, which is the only real way to resolve the question. no need to call it anything while you're eating it. --Ludwigs2 15:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Deal - I'll pay, if you ask the man with the meat cleaver in his hand how to pronounce "döner"! Lfh (talk) 15:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's obvious when you look at the article, but since nobody has mentioned it here: "döner kebab" is not proper Turkish orthography. Words are spelled as pronounced, and stops are devoiced when word-final, hence kebab is pronounced and written with -p: kebap. If followed by a vowel, the voicing is not lost: kebabı. Also, my impression is that Turkish e is more [ɛ] than [e]. Not sure about stress. Disclaimer: I am a native speaker of German and am not familiar with the Turkish language. HTH —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.46.24.70 (talk) 21:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This may sound obvious, but why not ask the man in the kebab shop (the one with the big knife)? Make sure beforehand that it's a Turkish establisment and not a Greek one to avoid bloodshed. Alansplodge (talk) 17:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With all this talk about the difficulty of 'ö', I'd like to point out it has actually appeared in some varieties of American English. See illustrations to left and right from Turkish phonology#Vowels and California vowel shift. The Southern vowel shift also fronts this vowel. --JWB (talk) 21:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]