Language desk
< December 21	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 23 >

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 22

Firefly question (requires a near native Mandarin speaker who is also a sci-fi fan)

I've just finished watching Firefly (TV series) for the first time from beginning to end to see what all the hype was about. Few things have ever inspired the cult loyalty for such a short-lived show. Anyway, I did enjoy it quite a bit and was curious about the Chinese language use in it. The article says a bit about why they speak Mandarin but very little else. In the show it's mostly what they switch to to curse, made clear only by context; I do not speak a word. I was wondering a few things. Are they cursing a blue streak in a manner that if it was translated could never have aired on American television but got away with it because to an American audience it was mostly just foreign words? Was it well done: generally grammatically sound and how were the accents? How dirty was it? What were they saying if you can recall anything specific? Thanks.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 00:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've only seen a few clips on youtube and I am a native speaker but I can pick up only the errant word because their accent is so horrible. I assume the makers of the show were smart enough to get a real Chinese person to at least write the lines so they should be grammatical but the actors speak with no regard for tone and little even for getting the phonemes right. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 01:04, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would point out that the characters were not supposed to be speaking Mandarin. They were speaking a version of English with Mandarin loanwords. It's entirely plausible that those would be quite badly distorted. --Trovatore (talk) 01:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True. On the other hand, that sort of presupposes that those in charge would have ever thought that out. I tend to think that they had a native Mandarin speaker on set who was trying to teach them how to say what they were saying as best as possible but this is what we got. I can't really blame them. I know I've had Chinese acquaintances try to teach me to say things and even on short phrases I can't get the tonal's down, and that seems to be true vice versa.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 02:15, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In general the pronunciation is quite bad (which never bothered me, because after all they're not supposed to be Chinese speakers, they're people speaking Chinese borrowings; when an American like me uses a Spanish borrowing I don't pronounce it accurately either). I don't know if the bad pronunciations are intentional (for the reason I mentioned before) or if they just didn't spend much time training the actors to pronounce accurately.

Also, for what it's worth, not all of the insults there are Mandarin, if I recall correctly there are some Cantonese words used now and then as well. If you do a little bit of Googling you can find one or two websites with a full list of all the Chinese phrases used in the series. This one is probably the best. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:04, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Words start with

I want to know some words that start with letter l, i and e. So basically i want to know three words, each starts with the one of each letter as i wrote. The words i'm looking for should mean something good, beautiful, fantastic, great, awesome... Or something like that. Help! Thanks!Trongphu (talk) 05:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lovely, incredible, excellent. --Jayron32 05:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Luscious, Iridescent, Edible --Raskalnickoff (talk) 06:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Laudable, inimitable, enviable – if you would like three words that ~~rhyme~~ have similar endings. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:25, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They all end with -able but that in itself doesn't make them rhyme, since the rhyme has to include the stressed part of the word, which those endings don't. Sorry. For example, despite the different endings, laudable, audible and affordable are a rhyming trio, in my idiolect. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

HAAA Thanks for all the words! I do know these words Lovely, incredible, excellent but didn't think of them somehow. I don't really know the rest. Anyway i wanted to use these words to describe someone. Should i use some words that the recipient wouldn't know what the words mean or i should use some words that the recipient would most likely to know? I know the recipient can always search them up but well i want to know simple words or advance words are better?Trongphu (talk) 21:37, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you use all of them? Itsmejudith (talk) 22:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well i wanted to use only one word for each of the letter.Trongphu (talk) 01:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a synonym for possession that does not relate to ownership or daemons?

I was trying to define the relationship between me playing a computer game and the protagonist of the game. As I control every aspect of their life (within the confines of the game engine) in much the same way that “possession” is used in the demonic sense. But I don’t want to use that word because I am not a daemon.

“Avatar” is a good descriptor for games like Skyrim were you first create an entity to personify yourself within the game world, but it’s different when you play a predefined character like Mario or Nancy Drew. In this case you live as though you were that person, they have a backstory and will potentially keep living in the world without your assistance (until another sequel is released).

The Latin etymology on wiktionary points to possideo, but this seems primarily used to refer to a home.

My brother knows a bit of Greek and according to him the word they used is daimonizomai, of which the first part is from the word demon and the second is a passive qualifier, That is to say a person has been passivated by a demon.

I think you're misunderstanding "passive" - the suffix is a grammatical passive, here with the meaning of a middle voice: it's nothing to do with "passivating" anything (which would be an active operation btw). --ColinFine (talk) 11:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The other people that I know who know a language other than English simply put this in the too hard basket. Or maybe I'm just bad at explaining the question.Raskalnickoff (talk) 06:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, "avatar" is noun anyway, and you seem to want a verb ... but if you don't mind nouns, I find the term player character useful when writing about games. Card Zero (talk) 08:47, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what's wrong with the good old Latin word "persona" (originally referring to actors' masks). AnonMoos (talk) 09:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Embodiment" or "incarnation"? --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are the player of these player characters. When you play them, you are taking them as your persona. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Control or direction, as in "you have control of the character"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could be said to "inhabit" the character. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, that's pretty much the same list as I had come up with so I'm not missing anything obvious. I've had another look at foreign language analogs but just about anything to do with computers uses the English word or a phonetic equivalent of it.Raskalnickoff (talk) 19:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Word for Male Ejaculation in Pre-Tudor England . . .

Hello!

I am wondering if anyone knows what the English called male ejaculation in pre-Tudor England.

I know that in France, the common expression was the Le Petit Mort, and that the English adopted it, but I think that would have happened around the reign of Henry VIII (he was so eager to compete with the royal courts of France and Spain, while his father, Henry VII, did not have a court in the same sense-- too expensive.)

The reason I ask is because I am writing a novel about Shakespeare and so le petit mort comes up quite a bit.

In Margaret George's fictional autobiography of Henry VIII, she has a scene where Mary Boleyn (who spent many years in the French court and supposedly had an affair with King Francis) teaches young King Henry about the le petit mort, and Henry, in George's fictionalized account, says something about the "English word" and the contrasting definitions (and thus a different way to understand the nature of orgasm.)

But "Orgasm" did not appear in the common vernacular (at least according to the OED) until the mid 1600's . . . almost 200 years later.

So. What would have been the word for orgasm in pre-Tudor England?

I hope this question makes sense.

THANK YOU! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.97.183.38 (talk) 17:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I like "The reason I ask is because I am writing a novel about Shakespeare and so le petit mort comes up quite a bit". Some would say the association is obvious to anyone who's ever read his stuff. I naturally disagree. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should point out that since the word for death, mort is feminine in French it would be la petite mort, for which it seems Wikipedia has an article. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 03:54, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen the verb "spent" used in some period pieces, but I don't know how authentic that is. -- 203.82.82.137 (talk) 23:20, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One of the common euphemisms in those times was 'die'. In Much Ado about Nothing Benedict says to Beatrice "I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes", which is understood to mean orgasm. 'Spend' and 'come' were also in use according to this. Mikenorton (talk) 00:01, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese adjective inflection

Hi, in Japanese can the following adjective inflection pattern ever be correct, or is it always a mistake/typo?

高い　->　高ない
寒い　->　寒ない
暖かい　->　暖かない
新しい　->　新しない
etc.

86.179.5.83 (talk) 17:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They are incorrect. They should be 高くない, 寒くない, 暖かくない, and 新しくない. Oda Mari (talk) 20:25, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mari. Right, I know the ～くない pattern. I wondered if this could possibly be an abbreviated/colloquial form or something, but clearly not. 86.179.5.83 (talk) 20:56, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They are used in the Kansai dialect colloquially. In the Kansai dialect, -ku is reduced to -u (see Kansai dialect#Adjectives). For example, 高くない takakunai is 高うない takōnai (takō is contraction of takau) in the Kansai dialect. And then the long vowel is shortened, producing 高ない takonai. Another example: 寒くない samukunai : 寒うない samūnai : 寒ない samunai. --Kusunose 10:25, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Translation

Hello! I am wondering what the inscription on the Thai War flag used during WWI means. It is written using Thai script, but according to the spelling, it is not written in Thai, but in an Indian language, most likely Sanskrit or Pali. Using the typical rules for transliteration from Thai to IAST, I have been able to come up with the following version of the text, which should be more legible than the version in Thai. :-P As Thai script normally doesn't use spacing between words, my transliteration only uses hyphens between syllables (Thai script, as an Indic script, is an abugida).

I have several questions concerning this text:

What language is it written in?
What does the text mean?
What is the original source of this text?

Regarding the last question: The "full text" is available here: s:th:พุทธชัยมงคลคาถา. The meaning of the title is something like: "Buddha magical incantation for victory". The three first lines of the poem's first verse are identical to the inscription on the flag, but the fourth line is different.

bā-huṃ-has-sa-ma-bhi-nim-mi-ta-sā-wu-dhan-taṃ,
grī-mekh-laṃ-u-dit-gho-ra-sa-sen-mā-raṃ.
dā-nā-da-dhan-ma-wi-dhi-nā-ji-ta-wā-mu-nin-do,
tan-te-ja-sā-bha-wa-tu-me-ja-ya-sid-dhi-nic-caṃ.

(The first verse on Thai Wikisource has this as its fourth line:

tan-te-ja-sā-bha-wa-tu-te-ja-ya-mang-ga-lā-ni.)

I realise that this might be a bit of a long shot, but I hope that you will be able to help me! Many thanks, V85 (talk) 18:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

arrow in the knee?

Should one say “I Took an Arrow in the Knee”, or"“I Took an Arrow to the Knee”, and why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.126.66.14 (talk) 19:25, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Either works. Hot Stop ^UTC 19:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"In the knee" is more reliably painful. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. --77.126.66.14 (talk) 19:41, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The "took" seems a bit old-fashioned though, almost implying it was done at their request. "I was shot in the knee with an arrow" sounds more normal, to me. StuRat (talk) 19:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You need to know your meme. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say "took" is old-fashioned, even if bow-and-arrow is. How often have you heard the expression "took a bullet" as a metaphor for loyalty to someone else? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:03, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I concur, if someone is involved in a brawl it's not rare to say they "took a few good hits" and boxers often "take a hard right to the head". I suspect that it may be colloquial to my area but that's the *only* way I would describe the act of recieving an injury from a weapon. HominidMachinae (talk) 05:24, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

pet "he" or "it"

1.should one refer to his male pet as "he" or "it"?

2. What about others' pets?

3. And (capital a?) animals in general? --77.126.66.14 (talk) 19:40, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe in English, pets and other animals generally follow the same rules as humans. So, "he" or "she", if the gender is known, "it" if not known (although this isn't quite as rude as with humans: "Your cousin is coming over ? Well tell it to hurry up then !"). StuRat (talk) 19:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And Cousin Itt?--Shirt58 (talk) 02:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, the use of 'them' would not be rude, as in "Your cousin is coming over ? Well tell them to hurry up then !". this may be because "it" is neutral gender whilst "them" is common gender. But I will bow to any more knowledgeable opinion. Gurumaister (talk) 19:50, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC's English-as-a-foreign-language page says nearly always "he" or "she" for pets (our own or others), but normally "it" for wild animals (except sometimes on wildlife TV programs or Tarka the Otter).[1] Here are a couple of forums from wordreference.com[2][3] which generally agree - say "he"/"she" if you care about the animal, "it" if you don't. (Personally I would use "it" a bit more often than that, but I'm not a pet-owner.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will sometimes use he or she for wild animals if the sex is obvious or otherwise known. I'm probably not very consistent about it. I do agree that this carries a connotation of some emotional connection to the beast, even if it's one I don't know personally. --Trovatore (talk) 20:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is related to the use of the relative pronoun "that" (or sometimes "which") for humans, rather than "who" or "whom". Whenever I see a sentence like "The person that runs the company", I change "that" to "who", with the edit summary: "that" is for dogs, "who" for humans. I know many people whose pets are effectively members of the family, and their deaths sometimes evoke greater displays of grief than those of some human family members. To them, their pets are naturally "he" and "she". I am relatively indifferent to animals, so they're all "it" to me, but at least I'm consistent with my pronouns. (We have 2 cockatiels, both female; their names are George and Mildred. You think I'm confused - you ought to see them. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I prefer that even for humans, in restrictive clauses. I know you Commonwealth folks are not so careful about the that/which distinction. Of course which is terribly jarring when used for humans. --Trovatore (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What annoys me are Finnish people who insist on calling their pets with the correct personal pronoun hän (he, she) but have no problem about calling other people with the colloquial pronoun se (it). It should be the other way around, shouldn't it? JIP | Talk 05:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"S/he" (or singular they) are used for persons, "it" for non-persons. People use "it" for infants when their gender is not known, but their parents tend to take offense, as if you're saying their baby isn't human. People can take offense if you call their pet "it" too, but it depends on the kind of pet. When a pet is a personal friend, you need to treat it as a person, but even owners may (though not always) call a pet lizard or tarantula "it". I think it depends on the degree of emotional attachment, as well as on the amount of personality the animal has. Same principal for wild animals, though in that case it's rare to know an animal as enough of a personality to call it "s/he". But an impressive, beautiful, or striking wild animal may be "s/he" even personality unknown. Depends on the degree of empathy on the part of the speaker, I guess. My sister will call a beautiful spider she finds in the yard "s/he" if gender is apparent (like a black widow, of if it's pregnant or has eggs or young), or even if it's not apparent, but then, she likes spiders.

Even if people don't know the gender of an animal, they may still guess and use "s/he", expecting the owner to correct them if they get it wrong. — kwami (talk) 06:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One reason all animals are "it" to me is that I have always from earliest childhood thought of dogs as male and cats as female (dogs and cats accounting for 95% of all household pets). My adult self knows I only have a 50% chance of being right in either case, and with odds like that, it's better not to risk it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:01, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a common usage, and I suspect it has to do with men generally being more into dogs and women more into cats. "It" works, though. The creature doesn't know or care what sex we call it, as long as we provide for its basic needs. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]