Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 12

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March 12

Japanese word order

Curious to see the Japanese article on the Sendai Airport, I put its URL into Google Translate and was confronted with a notice of "This page is vandalism or edit wars for such policies in accordance with Mamoru Yasushi editing is." Has the translation software mangled the word order, or is that how the Japanese words are really arranged? The original text is ここのページは荒らしや編集合戦などのため、方針に基づき編集保護されています。 Nyttend (talk) 00:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

This is the Japanese word order:

ここのページは = This page (topic)

荒らし = trolling/vandalism

や = and

編集合戦 = edit-warring

など = etc.

のため、 = because of,

方針 = policy

に基づき = in accordance with

編集保護されています = is edit-protected

Google Translate has mangled it, which is pretty typical. 86.177.106.19 (talk) 02:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Japanese is a head-final (subject-object-verb) language, so where we would say [this page is protected [because of [edit warring]]], a Japanese speaker would say [this page [edit warring [because of]] is protected]. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't imagine why Google Translate would choose to render 保護 as "Mamoru Yasushi" instead of "protection", but this isn't the first time it's happened. -- BenRG (talk) 05:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

More Arabic help

What is the Arabic name of the Toronto District School Board?

The name is somewhere in http://www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/parents/parents/docs/directorsprnt%20letter%202008-arabic.pdf this document

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 00:53, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

مجلس التعلیم المحلی بتورونتو --Omidinist (talk) 05:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much WhisperToMe (talk) 07:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Proper use of "big" in "it is that big" and "how big is this"

Hello,

I would like some feedback by native speakers or experts. I plan to use the sentences fairly often in a scientific text, and in order to avoid embarrassment I wanted to check if they are not silly. "How big can this be?" (as in "How big can the group of people/ the set of suitable options/the collection of planets..") "If it is that big, then...."

Many thanks,Evilbu (talk)

I am neither a native speaker nor an expert, but I think that in scientific texts the more formal (or rather, less informal) word large is preferred. --Pxos (talk) 16:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. "Big" isn't wrong, but "large" is better in this formal context. Lesgles (talk) 17:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for the responses. Would "large" also be suitable when speaking of "large parameters" (as in: the temperature in a room)?81.82.86.83 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC).

Do you mean that the parameter itself is "large" (the temperature can vary from absolute zero to millions of degrees) or that the temperature is "large" when it is hot? I think that the temperature is a variable, not a parameter. --Pxos (talk) 20:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

My immediate response would be this: "A parameter can be more or less important in a model, and it can have a large or small value." However, googling shows that "a large parameter" (meaning a parameter with a large value) appears to be used in mathematical literature, (example). Some examples from computer science turned up as well. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that when we talk of values, they will typically be high, and not big or large in a scientific text. However, on the other side of the scale, we have both small and low values. Thus, "high parameter values" and "high temperatures". No such user (talk) 13:20, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Origin of term hellcat

I am curious as to the origin of this term used to describe a nasty, unpleasant female. It seems to have been used a lot in 19th and early 20th-century USA. Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

My SOED dates the first use to 1605, with a possible connection suggested to the name Hecate. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

1605!? -Was it that long ago, and did it originate in England or Scotland? I am wondering when it became used in America?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The two earliest citations in the OED are both from the English drama: Thomas Middleton's The Witch (dated ante 1605 by the OED; see our article for another view) and James Shirley's The Ball (1632; credited by the OED to Chapman and Shirley). No American citations. Deor (talk) 15:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The online edition of the OED gives several American citations, the first being from Bennett Wood Green's Word-book of Virginia folk-speech from 1899 and the newest being from 2006. It even claims that the term is "Now chiefly US." -Elmer Clark (talk) 07:21, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Anna at the door

There is a knock on the door. Wife goes to answer, and later the man asks: "Who was at the door"? -"It was Anna," replies the wife. A question of grammar. Could the reply have been "She was Anna" as well, or is it merely awkward, or maybe ungrammatical even? --Pxos (talk) 16:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

"She was Anna" isn't really possible here, but I'm not exactly sure why. I think part of it is "she" is too particular; it implies a specific person whose gender is known. In fact, the only context that I can think of in which you would use "She was Anna" (or any pronoun + was + name) is when you are talking about a name change, e.g. "She was Anna, but now she is Hannah". Lesgles (talk) 17:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The way I see it is, 'it was Anna' answers the question 'who was at the door', because it says 'it was Anna [who was at the door]'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:08, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That's right. The question could have been answered in the "A (<verb> B)" form ("Anna (was at the door)"), but they chose to use the "It is/was A (who <verb> B)" form ("It was Anna (who was at the door)"). This latter construction is fixed in its essential form ("It is the Queen who makes the final decision"), and the "it" is like the "it" in "It's raining" - it does not refer to an identifiable doer of an action, so its use in sentences that do happen to have an identifiable doer (lika Anna) should not be confused as referring to that doer, and the temptation to "correct" it to "he" or "she" or "they" should be avoided. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I agree as the construction is equally unacceptable in my native language (Finnish), but let me put the question another way. If the man asks the question "who is knocking at this late hour" and the wife, having seen Anna through a window, replies "It is Anna!", can she also make a point by saying "She is Anna!"? Is that merely odd, or unacceptable? And what if this happened in a nunnery? I'm not trying to make a joke here, I have thought about this too long and I have lost touch (with all languages...) --Pxos (talk) 19:13, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Theoretically it may be possible for the wife to add 'She is Anna!' - if Anna was a topic of conversation recently and the husband had no idea who Anna was. In which case, the sentence-stress would be on the word 'she'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:19, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The answer "She was Anna" seems somewhat more natural if the man had asked: "Who was the woman at the door?" rather than "Who was at the door?" But "She was Anna" strikes me as an awkward response in either case. Wanderer57 (talk) 20:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The following continuation of this discussion was posted on my Talk Page, so I am moving it here where it really should be:

[Start] Could the reply have been "She was Anna" as well, or it is merely awkward or is maybe even ungrammatical?

Certainly an interesting one, including your input.

And if we search for descriptive answers, the problem of pronominal and binding ambiguities are divided into roughly two syntactic principles; which regards pronouns as genuinely ambiguous between referential and bound uses, and 2) which refers the ambiguity as utterly semantical and that pronouns should be given a uniform treatment with the context in question.

But explicating the details of this difference between referential and bound uses of pronouns is far from a trivial matter as for how to characterize the ambiguities. One proponent of the view that natural language pronouns are ambiguous is Chomsky ( Government_and_Binding_Theory). Also, Schoubye's analyses on ‘Pronominal ambiguity' seek some answers to this question.

If those analyses do not give an accurate answer to this particular question about the anaphoric pronoun that is in contextual deixis, then, as for its descriptivism, I tend to see this as the question of the verb’s inherent modality, namely, whether the verb is a copulative one or a linking verb.

Example:

Who was at the door? It was Anna. (the verb is a linking verb; cannot be ‘She was Anna.’)

Who is she? She was Anna. (the verb is copulative; cannot be ‘It was Anna.’)

Mr.Bitpart (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The differences between languages are great fun. Finnish does not use 'it' for the subject in sentences like "It is raining", we simply say "rains" as in Italian "piove". And in Finnish the equivalent of it (se) has broader use than in English. It can be used to refer to persons, animals, objects as well as something definite (but it is not the definite article). It comprises the English words 'it', 'she', 'he', 'the' and 'that'. In this regard, the reply "It was Anna" has the same basic meaning as in English, but at the same time, implicitly, can be construed to have the meaning "She was Anna" (at the door). On the contrary, the real personal pronoun hän (he or she) cannot be used in this context.

And furthermore, Finnish uses the past tense where, say, in Italian the present is called for. I remember saying to an Italian that the man who actually visited our house was the mayor. My friend thought that the man is an ex-mayor as I said it in Italian (era il sindaco = he was the Mayor) which was a direct translation of the Finnish implicit sense He who was here, is the mayor. The Finnish 'it' causes sometimes confusion among learners. --Pxos (talk) 02:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

[End] Sorry for the formatting. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:36, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Looking for name of English tense or term

Could someone tell me what the term or tense is of the following phrases, and if there's a difference other than number? "Like the swan in the evening moves over the lake" as opposed to "Like the swans in the evening move over the lake".

It's from the song "She moved through the fair". I was wondering about this as I was listening to a few versions of it, and some sing the second phrase, which sounds less poetic to me. Obviously, the first is singular and the second is plural, but somehow the first one seems less specific, as though it's describing a general swan, while the second seems more reality based. Any suggestions? Snorgle (talk) 17:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's a past discussion, regarding the generic use of the singular, that seems related to your query. Jesperson's grammar, referred to there, might be a good place to look for a formal discussion, but I don't have it at hand at the moment. Deor (talk) 22:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That looks very useful, thanks! Snorgle (talk) 23:19, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

double translation

Hi, I'm looking for examples of (quality) English literature that has been translated into a foreign language, then, as an exercise, translated back by someone else not familiar with the original. The qualification is that the translations be by reasonably qualified people, preferably who at least thought they were producing them for some kind of professional or commercial use. Of course they needn't be entire texts, because no one would spend heaps of money translating all of Macbeth from Russian back into English just out of curiosity, but I feel that linguists must have tried this for shorter passages for the sake of comparison. I've been googling (no luck), and I've also tried google's own machine translation, but it actually reproduces the original with remarkable fidelity, I trust because it follows its own rules and assumptions consistently in both directions. Try Hamlet's famous soliloquy, for example. Thanks in advance, It's been emotional (talk) 19:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello! This is very interesting. Do you qualify me as a translator? I happen to know parts of the soliloquy in English, but I could begin translating Hamlet from the beginning of the play (from an excellent translation into Finnish) back into English. --Pxos (talk) 20:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Please do feel free - I would be very interested. However, perhaps I was unclear - I meant "try the soliloquy" on google translate for your own amusement. It goes back and forth between languages with near perfect fidelity. There is in fact an amusing game of google-translating a saying (eg. "a stitch in time saves nine") back and forth between English and Japanese, until the translation becomes stable, i.e. doesn't change with further translation. It comes up with some memorable stuff, but I'm mainly looking for anything that was produced by professional tranlators, to see how close they were able to get to the original. Please have a go anyway if you enjoy the challenge. You can post it on my talk page if you run out of time here. It's been emotional (talk) 20:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, here goes.

---

HAMLET Act One, scene Two (back translation from Finnish to English without consulting the original)

The same region. A fest hall. (The King, the Queen etc.)

King: Though the memory of the death of our dear brother Hamlet is still fresh, and thus we should in grief sigh, and the realm should wrinkle to a single forehead of sorrow, still the reason at least has conqured the nature, so that we mourn him with our senses, and remember ourselves too.

We have therefore our former sister-in-law, the present our queen, this gallant heiress to the power, so to speak, countered with joy - water'd the one eye, clear the other, with wedding cries and festive delight, and equally the joys and sorrows weighed - married, without hinderance and by hearing your sound advice that freely to this have bent. I thank you for that!

Now, know you, that has the young Fortinbras, despising our grace, or by thinking, that by the demise of our dear late brother, our power from its hinges has loosened - based on this dream of victory, seen fit to blackmail us by a messenger, to have back the lands that his father to our brave brother by law has forfeited. - That much for that. Now to ourselves and this session!

---

It is safe to say that because the Finnish is lyrical and old, I was not able to grasp everything even in my mother tongue. But it was fun. --Pxos (talk) 21:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Google Translate cheats sometimes because it has officially translated texts in its database. (Try translating the Vulgate Bible with it - it will give you the KJV English.) Maybe it also knows Shakespeare and Shakespeare translations. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My favourite of the washing-machine process is when the original phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" comes out as "Invisible idiot." Almost like a riddle :)

By the way, I finally compared my rendering of the Bard to the original, and I can say that I might have a brilliant future as the invisible idiot. Well, perhaps Shakespeare did write things like "advice that has bent", or "countered with joy", but Sir Francis Bacon quickly bought him out of the project. Oh well. --Pxos (talk) 12:38, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's the only example I can remember of a double translation done by professionals, though done inadvertently rather than as an exercise. The writer Halldór Laxness included an Icelandic rendering of the first verse of an old American song in his novel Paradísarheimt. When the translator and broadcaster Magnus Magnusson turned the novel into English as Paradise Reclaimed he failed to identify the song and had to simply translate Laxness's Icelandic back into English, as follows:

Far beyond the farthest forests
in the year that gold was found,
there lived a smith who shared his dwelling
with his daughter, I'll be bound.

Shortly before publication Magnusson realized the song was "Clementine", which is perhaps not the quality English literature you were asking for, Emotional. Oh, I don't know though. --Antiquary (talk) 13:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Another similar example is the chronicle of William of Tyre, which was written in Latin, and translated into French shortly after William's death. The French was far more popular than the Latin in the Middle Ages, and in the Renaissance, someone translated it back into Latin, since he didn't know about the Latin original. (Unfortunately I don't know how his Latin compares to William's.) Adam Bishop (talk) 13:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Benjamin Franklin's autobiography was first partially published in French translation, and an unauthorized translation of the French into English followed... AnonMoos (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

A bit off the point: in Kage Baker's science fiction novel, Sky Coyote, the 17th-century Chumash Indians sing this:

Put all my sorrows in a basket

I sing quietly as I go out upon my journey

Raven, farewell

A woman stays awake to greet me

She is as sweet as honeydew

Raven, farewell

Not in Chumash, of course, but if it were and you tried putting it into English, I'm not sure you'd hit upon Bye Bye Blackbird. --- OtherDave (talk) 11:14, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers folks. I was wondering for a moment if Oh My Darling Clementine might have some relationship to the Megan Washington song Clementine, but something about these lyrics tells me maybe not. It's been emotional (talk) 01:15, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The Queen as Granny/Grandma/Gran/Nana

What do the Queen's grandchildren call her? 74.14.13.241 (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Prince Charles called her "mummy" in public once, so I doubt they would call her "Your Majesty." It's been emotional (talk) 20:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. However, I would like to know what they do call her. 74.14.13.241 (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Her own husband calls her "Cabbage". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Googling told me the grandchildren call her Maam. This was on some Royal watching website, but I can't remember the exact link. It's been emotional (talk) 01:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

What would you call someone who studies carnivals?

Feel free to be creative. It's for a story...

Adambrowne666 (talk) 20:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

A carnivalatrist. A carnographer. A carnivalographer. I think the last has a nicer rhythm. Wanderer57 (talk) 20:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

"Carnographer" sounds more related to carnivores. Try "carnivalographer". StuRat (talk) 21:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, both; I like them, though is 'ographer' as evocative as 'ologist'? - is an 'ographer' someone who makes notes, as opposed to an 'ologist', who's someone who makes a study of them? Still, ologist is a bit predictable here... Still thinking about it. Adambrowne666 (talk) 21:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Rotary notary, / Washington Ferris was / building a bridge with a / surplus of steel; / making him famous with / carnivalographers, / since in their business he's / quite a big wheel. Marnanel (talk) 01:28, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Bravo!! Wanderer57 (talk) 04:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, quite good, although I might change "in their business" to "in their circles". :-) StuRat (talk) 08:02, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Fastnachtsprofessor? Foirest? 74.14.13.241 (talk) 22:00, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

How's about 'festologist'? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Faschingist. (At first I tried "Faschist", but there's a problem with that.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 01:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

According to the Latin Wikipedia, the Neo-Latin word is Carnelevarium, so carnelevarist is a possibility. If you want an -ologist term, I'd go with a Greek combining form and coin apocriologist (or apokriologist). Deor (talk) 01:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops, it occurred to me that you may be referring to funfair carnivals rather than the pre-Lenten Carnival, as I and at least some of the other respondents had assumed. If so, disregard my comment above. Deor (talk) 01:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, yes; I did mean funfairs - sorry, should have been specific. I still like apokriologist, though. Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Alphabetizing names

Consider the case of a name such as Josef von Sternberg. Under American (United States) conventions, is his last name alphabetized under the letter "v" or under the letter "s"? And why? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC))

The Chicago Manual of Style is the standard reference for US usage, its guidelines for alphabetising names is at the bottom of this page. It is basically down to the preference of owner of the name, if they capitalise the Von it is considered part of the last name and listed under V, as von Sternberg does not capitalise the von it will be listed as Sternberg, Josef von. Advice the Wernher von Braun article seems to ignore. meltBanana 03:10, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's as cut and dried as that, Melt. About the capitalisation, I mean. It is certainly down to the owner's preference. But the owner might prefer not to capitalise the "von" but still consider it part of their surname. Look at the soprano Frederica von Stade, as American as you can get. I can only assume one of her forbears came from Germany, where he would have been considered a "Stade" for sorting purposes, ignoring the "von". She, however, is a "von Stade", not a "Von Stade", and not just a "Stade".

My only concern about the Wernher von Braun article is that he's referred throughout as "von Braun" (or "Von Braun", sentence initially), but the Defaultsort function is set to "Braun", so that he appears in all his categories under B for 'Braun', not V for 'von Braun'. That's an inconsistency that needs to be resolved. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

We do have a Von article which contains a section about capitalization. Zoonoses (talk) 00:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Words of indeterminate etymology

What are some English words (preferably relatively common) whose etymologies we haven't even a guess on? I say "words" implicitly excluding things like company names, etc. Thansk. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 23:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

We have no certainty about the origins of shark or penguin. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:20, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I wanted to suggest hockey, but wiktionary has an entire category of over 200 words in English: wikt:Category:Unknown_etymology. In most cases, as far as I could tell (especially on etymonline), some people have had a guess though. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Jack; I thought penguin came from pinguid? No? - on QI the other night, Stephen Fry said we don't know the origin of the word 'dog' - until a certain point in history they were always some variation on hound; then the shift... Adambrowne666 (talk) 23:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I heard that 'penguin' came from the Welsh 'pen-gwyn', meaning 'white head'. Then there is the word 'bad' - not related to the Persian 'bad' (same pronunciation, same meaning). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

(EC)Jack's right, as ever - penguin - of course, there are lots of slang words and profanities of unknown origin, since they arose outside the sight of most philologists. Adambrowne666 (talk) 00:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

"Hassle." It started to be used around World War II. No one knows where it came from. One of the ironies of etymology is that relatively new words often have unknown origins. "Nerd," for instance. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, sometimes the creation of a word can be pinned down to an exact date and time, and an exact creator (if one whose name is known only to himself). I used "novomundane" at 15:12 on 17 September 2008, in one of my ref desk posts here. I never imagined I was in fact coining anything, because it seemed the most obvious word to use, and I was as surprised as anyone to learn that nobody had ever used the word before, or, if they had, they’d never recorded it anywhere. But now, thanks to me, it's constantly on the lips of all right-thinking wordsmiths. No? Well, no, actually ... but what the hell, it's still my baby. It probably doesn't merit a place in wiktionary yet, but one day, one day ... -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 00:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You play Final Fantasy, then? (Scroll down, or ctrl+f for 'novomundane'). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:55, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

No, not me. I tip my hat to one of my many acolytes.  :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 01:45, 13 March 2011 (UTC)