Language desk
< January 18	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 20 >

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 19

î and â in Romanian—what happens if there's a c or g about?

According to the article on Romanian orthography, the Romanian letters î and â are identical, and that â is used word-internally and î is used at the start or end. But what happens if there's a soft c or g that needs to be preserved? If there were a word pronounced Romanian pronunciation: [tʃɨt], would it have to be spelled cît despite the rule? Or would it be ciât? (Does î even make c or g soft? Or are there even any Romanian words which have the clusters Romanian pronunciation: [tʃɨ] and Romanian pronunciation: [dʒɨ]?)

This rule was introduced with a spelling reform of 1993. Until then, /ɨ/ was spelt î everywhere except in român, România and their derivatives, and in certain proper names (Agârbiceanu). See Romanian alphabet#Î versus Â for more information. The â/î does not make the c/g soft: cînta (pre-1993 orthography) or cânta (modern orthography) is pronounced [kɨnˈta], and gîndi (pre-1993 orthography) or gândi (modern orthography) is pronounced [ɡɨnˈdi]. As for whether the /tʃɨ/ and /dʒɨ/ combinations exist in the language, I (non-native speaker) can't think of any words that contain them. --Theurgist (talk) 03:22, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And, for your information, cît (modern spelling: cât), pronounced [kɨt], is an extant Romanian word, meaning "how much". --Theurgist (talk) 03:26, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese

Resolved

What does 反映 mean in a software context? I know it means 'reflection' or 'reflect', but is this word normally used in English? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:57, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An American-Japanese friend suggests maybe "implement", as in "run a program". Pfly (talk) 05:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apply, applied, or application? The context is needed. Oda Mari (talk) 07:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mari, I have already submitted the translation, and I did in fact use 'apply'. I couldn't declare this question closed because Wikipedia was offline yesterday. Cheers, anyway. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Port Authority's Exact Words

There is audio all over the Net purporting to be the conversation between the Captain of the Costa ship that capsized and the Italian Coast Guard. One phrase (translated as "Get back on board, [expletive!]") has made it's way around the world, everywhere, in fact, except where I can see it. Does anyone know the actual words in Italian and what (in English) is the "expletive" that was used ? Bielle (talk) 05:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was Vada a bordo, cazzo! There are already t-shirts with the slogan. Angr (talk) 06:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the final part of the question, "Cazzo" means cock, prick, penis. It's not in our article Italian profanity except in the compound "Cazzo di Budda! (Buddha's cock!)" but you can find it in many dictionaries, e.g.[1]. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Guardian translated it idiomatically as "Get on board, for fuck's sake!" Smurrayinchester 14:33, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a more academic discussion of this, see "Language and emotion on the Costa Concordia" by Bob Ladd, a guest post on Language Log, a widely read blog about linguistics. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:52, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all. Bielle (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that schmuck would probably be a good idiomatic translation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:01, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, because cazzo in the original was not an insult directed at Schettino, it was an exclamation of anger/exasperation. The Language Log link above offers "Get the fuck on board!" as an idiomatic translation. Angr (talk) 06:51, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right, if he had wanted to call Schettino a bad word, he would have said testa di cazzo ("dickhead") instead of just cazzo. --Trovatore (talk) 19:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It occurred to me to look at what the Italian Wikipedia says about parolacccia, as linked from the English article Italian profanity. I haven't attempted to verify their sources, but it gives three categories, imprecazioni (expletives), insulti (insults) and maledizioni (curses). Of the imprecazioni, it gives cazzo as the single example, saying:

sono una forma di interiezione, ovvero di dialogo con sé stessi, e servono a sfogare simbolicamente la propria aggressività contro un oggetto inanimato o contro una situazione...

Or roughly:

expletives are a form of interjection, or something one says to oneself, and are used symbolically to vent one's aggression against an inanimate object or against a situation.

And our Italian friends have a 36-footnote article on cazzo. My Italian suffices for basics, but not to untie academic arguments, so I'll leave any further investigations to those who are fluent. For linking convenience, the original question was about the Costa Concordia disaster. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Both...and..." or "...so..."?

...the opening of the game did away with the slow opening sequence of Golden Sun, introducing the characters in between the action.
— Golden Sun (series)#History

It's mean "Both (the opening of the game did away with the slow opening sequence), and (introducing the characters in between the action)." or "(introducing the characters in between the action), so (the opening of the game did away with the slow opening sequence)"?

Thank you!--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 07:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It means, "[the opening of the game did away with the slow opening sequence] and instead [the characters are introduced in the course of the action]". "In between the action" sounds really, really bad to me. Angr (talk) 07:13, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation is that instead of a long opening sequence where all of the characters are introduced, now one is introduced, then there's some action, then the next is introduced, then more action, etc. If this is indeed what they meant, then perhaps "character introductions are now interspersed with action scenes" might describe it best. Also, I don't like using "opening" in the same sentence to mean two different things. The first instance should be changed to "beginning". So: "The beginning replaced the slow opening sequence of Golden Sun. Character introductions are now interspersed with action scenes." StuRat (talk) 08:41, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is the longest English word that can in theory be written by repeatedly pressing the same key on a phone with an E.161 keyboard?

What is the longest English word that could be written by repreatedlety pressing the same key on a phone with predictive text and an E.161 keyboard, if the word was in the phone's dictionary? The longest I can think of is "deeded", which is not in my phone's dictionary. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a short shell script that finds the longest such word in a dictionary of your choice:

DICT=/usr/share/dict/words


(for PAT in abc def ghi jkl mno pqrs tuv wxyz; do
grep -i "^[$PAT]*$" "$DICT"

done) | (while read WORD; do echo "${#WORD} $WORD"; done) | sort -nr | head -1

With the system wordlist on Mac OS X the longest such word is deedeed (a euphemism for damned, according to the OED). Gdr 16:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, that's some serious shell-foo; I'm impressed. It's bash, right? Will it work in csh too? --Trovatore (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think everything there should work in any Posix-compatible shell (so Bourne shell and Bash, but not C shell). Gdr 19:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The words "Sodomy" and "Fornication" and "Adultery" -- fancy words for anal/oral sex, premarital sex, and extramarital sex?

Can "Sodomy", "Fornication", and "Adultery" be used as fancy, formal words for "Anal/Oral sex", "Premarital sex" and "Extramarital sex"? Is there a fancy term for "Vaginal sex"?

Instead of saying "James had anal sex with Christopher", one can write "James sodomizes with Christopher", and it still means the same thing, right? And a person who has anal sex with someone would be considered a Sodomite, right? Or does the term "sodomite" bear any connotations to the people of Sodom such as Israelite is a person from Israel? If a person happens to be from Sodom but does not engage in anal sex practices for whatever reason, then is that person still a Sodomite or be called innocently as "a person from Sodom" without any sexual connotations whatsoever? 164.107.189.181 (talk) 17:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To my American ears, every time I hear "sodomy", I think of "criminal activities of a sexual nature" for no apparent reason. Weird. 164.107.189.181 (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I fear that "using sodomy" can be deemed offensive when used to describe anal sex. Nobody wants to be considered a criminal. :| 164.107.189.181 (talk) 17:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These terms are in fact pretty much obsolete, and mostly to be found, if at all, in lawbooks not updated since the Victorian era (or in the more florid pornography). (And to be technical, "to sodomize" is a transitive verb: James sodomizes Christopher, or vice versa.) In U.S. law, the word "sodomy" (a/k/a "the abominable and detestable crime against nature") in particular was often expanded to include any kind of sexual activity other than heterosexual penis/vagina intercourse, even including bestiality! See our article sodomy law. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, sodomy, fornication and adultery should not be used. These words are obsolete and ambiguous, as well as having millennia of baggage("sin") attached to them. You should be as straightforward as you can be when you write, if you feel embarrassed then leave it to someone else. DukeTwicep (talk) 18:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to clarify, though, that adultery in the sense of "violation of a marital expectation of exclusivity in sexual activity" is still a useful term, since there's nothing formal that expresses the same thing. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder how "sodomy" itself got the connotation of "anal sex". Jesus, in the only instance of him mentioning Sodom, hints that the sin of Sodom was pride, selfishness, greed, and cruelty. Indeed this is also the Jewish interpretation and attested in other books and the Talmud not present in the Christian Old Testament. See Sodomy. People who claim it is in fact sexual behavior because of later instances of the word "Sodomite" in other passages (in Deuteronomy, Kings, and Job) forget one simple thing: they are holding an English translation. The original text did not at all say "Sodomite", nor were the words used even related in any way to Sodom. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:10, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Genesis 19:4-5 says "But before they [Lot and his party] lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. " Luckily Lot had the perfect answer: offer his virgin daughters instead. " (19:8) Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, The only good man in Sodom is one who would willingly let his virgin daughters be raped. But even that is unclear. It can easily be interpreted as rape as well. And earlier accounts of the wickedness of Sodom do not specifically mention this as the reason. It seems the very vagueness of why Sodom and Gommorah were destroyed led to its application in later interpretations to sins that are nebulously "unnatural". -- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Within that historical context, it would not be considered rape, any more than setting up an arranged marriage for your daughter without her consent would be considered rape. From the earliest history until recent times (possibly as late as the 19th century, I'm not sure about this last part, but certainly well into the Middle Ages), rape was not a crime against a woman, but rather a crime against her guardian (for an unmarried woman - her father, for a married woman - her husband). Rape of an unmarried virgin girl was considered particularly heinous, because her virginity was one of the greatest financial assets of her father and he could expect to extract a sizable sum of money in exchange for an arranged marriage. The woman herself had no say at all, she were to do what her guardian told her to do. --Itinerant1 (talk) 21:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Formally (in English-speaking religious contexts):

'sodomy' refers to any kind of non-child-producing (and hence to the religious mind unnatural) sexual activity, excepting masturbation. This loosely includes anal sex, bestiality, and oral sex.
'onanism' is used for masturbation
'intercourse' is used for normal sex (usually in the marital context)
'adultery' is a violation of marital vows (yours or another's)
'fornication' is non-marital but otherwise regular sex

there are a few others (like frotteurism) that are less conventional. IMO, the association of sodomy with sexuality is because in English of the time 'know' was a euphemism for 'have sex with' (e.g. someone in 16th or 17th century England would say 'I knew him/her' the way a modern American might say 'I did him/her' - if I remember correctly, Shakespeare plays on that a lot). Lot's statement, particularly combined with the bit about virgin daughters, would have tickled English speakers no end. Most likely Lot was trying to appease a mob suspicious about strangers by distracting them with women - note that the mob didn't take him up on the daughter-offer, which is what one would expect if it were actually about sex.

It does tell you a lot about the place of women in early times, though… --Ludwigs2 18:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio." What I once thought was an innocent line I'll never think of the same way again. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question is, did Hamlet 'know' him before or after he became a skull? Eeeeee... I think I just grossed myself out. --Ludwigs2 19:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

>_< -- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is that skullduggery or skull buggery? :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The person who sodomizes is a sodomite. A person who fornicates is a fornicator. A person who commits adultery is an adulterer, or if female, an adulteress. If that is the case, then present-day unmarried, pregnant teenagers could be called "fornicators", if there was a time machine and a person from the 19th century used it to travel to the 21st century. 164.107.190.169 (talk) 21:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but didn't it have that meaning in English because that is how the phrase is used in the Bible? The Bible uses the set phrase "to know (a man)" quite a few times when it clearly means sex, and I was pretty sure this was actually a Hebrew idiom that had been transferred to English (and some other languages) through the Bible. I'm not sure where to look that up. It's why people say "know in the Biblical sense". Even literal modern Bibles have Mary in Luke (written in Greek, but in a Jewish context from people familiar with the older Scriptures) saying "how can this be, as I have not known a man?". It's not sniggering English-speakers reading an unsavoury meaning in: this is what it meant. Aha!

3 [with object] archaic have sexual intercourse with (someone).

[a Hebraism which has passed into modern languages; compare with German erkennen, French connaître]

(OxfordDictionaries.com definition of "know". I can't paste the link, weirdly enough.)

86.164.75.123 (talk) 09:25, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth remembering that instead of saying "James had anal sex with Christopher", one can write "James had anal sex with Christine". I don't know if that's a crime anywhere. HiLo48 (talk) 23:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In quite a few U.S. states and more than a few countries, yes: it certainly is. But as for the U.S. states, see Lawrence v. Texas. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

English vowels

How many vowel sounds does (American) English have? --108.225.115.211 (talk) 22:16, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

English vowels.

For pedagogical purposes, I generally say seven: /ɪ ɛ æ ʌ ɑ ɔ ʊ/. The rest can be presented as diphthongs in -j (/ɪj ɛj ɑj ɔj/ = [iː eɪ aɪ ɔɪ]), -w (/æw ʌw~ɔw ʊw/ = [aʊ oʊ uː]), or -r (/ɪr ɛr ʌr ɑr ɔr ʊr/). — kwami (talk) 22:19, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's kind of the classic 1950's-style "Bloch and Trager" analysis (with some slight variations), but I'm not sure how many linguists would endorse it today... AnonMoos (talk) 22:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot the schwa (as the last vowel in "sofa"). BTW, what do you mean by /ʌr/? Are your sure it's really an /ʌ/ and not a schwa? 77.127.88.33 (talk) 01:55, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For the bird vowel, you either need to posit an additional rhotic vowel /ɝ/ (so /ɝɹ/), or that this is underlyingly /ʌr/. — kwami (talk) 22:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Between slashes means phonemic analysis, not phonetic transcription... AnonMoos (talk) 02:26, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In accents with the cot-caught merger, however, it's difficult to justify listing both /ɑ/ and /ɔ/, but without /ɔ/ there's no easy way to resolve [ɔɪ] and [ɔr] into simple vowel + approximant. Angr (talk) 06:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's also /ɔw/, and you could argue [ɔr] is /ɔwr/, but yeah, it's weird to have no /ɔ/. But I'm thinking more of accessibility than of theoretical elegance. — kwami (talk) 22:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also it will vary from place to place - for example the Pin–pen merger in some Southern states. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The pin-pen merger doesn't have an effect on the number of phonemes, since /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ are not merged in all environments. Even someone with the pin-pen merger still distinguishes bit and bet. Angr (talk) 22:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are Herry and hurry pronounced the same way? Aren't there 3 different vowels here: a schwa (in Herry), an /ʌ/ (in Hurry), and an /ɑ/ (in Harry)? 87.68.245.244 (talk) 09:54, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally there were pronunciation differences between furry [fɜːrɪ] hurry [hʌrɪ] Mary [mɛːrɪ] merry [mɛrɪ] marry [mærɪ] starry [stɑːrɪ] etc., but only very few dialects retain the full set of contrasts... AnonMoos (talk) 11:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm talking about General American. Is the vowel in furry the same as in hurry? Are Herry and hurry pronounced the same way? 87.68.245.244 (talk) 11:53, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The vowels in "furry" and "hurry" are identical. "Herry" is pronounced the same as "hairy". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:53, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a difference between 'rhotic' vowels and vowels followed by /r/. Some vowels may only be followed by /r/ if there is another vowel after that. Hurry is an example: there is no possibility of a word like "bird" with that vowel, even in dialects that distinguish hurry and furry. You see the same thing with marry – merry – Mary: there is only a single air sound within syllables. So you could argue there are rhotic vowels (effectively diphthongs) and also a larger set of vowel + /r/. — kwami (talk) 22:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not in general American. The vowel + r combination is pronounced identically in "hurry" and "bird". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My dialect of English has ten true vowels /ɑː iː uː æ ɛ ɪ ɒ ʌ ʊ ə/ and four diphthongs /aj oj aʊ juː/, as well as two diphthong/vowels /eɪ oʊ/. My dialect also distinguishes between syllabic and consonantal /ɹ/ (<boar> [boɹ̩] and <bore> [boɹ] are pronounced differently), so one could argue that that makes eleven vowels. Inter change able|talk to me 19:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure you don't pronounce "boar": /boəɹ/ (the ɹ being always consonantal) ? 87.68.245.244 (talk) 02:14, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am sure. /əɹ/ does not exist in my dialect, with the exception of words like "erase" and "surreal" ([əɹʷeɪs], [səɹʷiːəɫ]) where the /ɹ/ is between a schwa and another vowel. Otherwise, my dialect always realizes /ər/ as /ɹ̩/.

All Right. 87.68.245.244 (talk) 09:51, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]