Language desk
< June 18	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 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.

June 19

Iwan Rheon

How is Iwan Rheon's last name pronounced? Dismas|^(talk) 01:39, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Like this. --Preceding unsigned comment 02:38, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Was... that... a D that I heard at the beginning of Rheon? Dismas|^(talk) 02:53, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It sounded to me like a trilled R, which is very close to a D sound. Hence the joke about calling a given situation "veddy English". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:00, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Thanks. Dismas|^(talk) 12:49, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, Bugs, if you ever go to Wales, don't confuse England with Wales unless you like hospital food ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That was strictly an illustration. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:19, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The last hospital I was in had a gourmet menu and free wifi, so I could work. They even had a little smoking area, and a shop for newspapers and drinks. Quite a happy time, to be honest, considering I was dying.

KägeTorä - (影 虎) (もしもし！)

19:27, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this means you are no longer dying. :) As to the hospital, providing a smoking room sounds like a subtle plan to generate new business. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:19, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bacule?

We have an extremely thin stub article called Bacule which is apparently a type of portcullis, although the description is very brief and not entirely clear. I can't find a single reference in English which supports this; can anybody else do better? Is it perhaps a typo for Bascule? Alansplodge (talk) 22:34, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think yes, just from the whole counterpoise thing ... but if so, the mistake is in the source. Nothing found at the OED. But Wiktionary and others seem to think it's a thing and give a backstory pointing at a Latin origin. Odd. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:56, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the Useful English Dictionary "bacule" is defined as a variant of "bascule". — AldoSyrt (talk) 09:32, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think bacule comes from French bacule, from Old French bacul, from Old French battre + cul, from Latin battuō (beat) + cul (bottom). Cognate with bascule. —Stephen (talk) 01:48, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A number of words in French that now have an acute or circumflex accent were previously written with an S after the vowel instead. I wonder if someone tried to turn French bascule into bâcule and this might have become English "bacule" while the original spelling remained in French as well and became English "bascule". This is pure conjecture, though. --69.159.60.83 (talk) 06:28, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See the etymological section of the word bascule in CNRTL. It explains how, in French, bacule got two "s" and later lost one of these two to became bascule. In this French book the word bacule is used in the running text whereas bascule (with a long "s") is used in the section title (page 76). — AldoSyrt (talk) 09:27, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Great work on the etymology everyone; has anybody found out what it actually is? I was thinking that it might merit a subsection in "Portcullis" rather than its own article which doesn't have much to say... 09:57, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

It actually belongs in Drawbridge rather than portcullis. In fact, that article already talks about the bascule as one type of drawbridge. Wymspen (talk) 12:19, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So is it a the type of drawbridge lifted by two counterpoised beams like this one? Alansplodge (talk) 17:07, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If anybody has found any further information, please go to WikiProject Military history ~ Bacule?. Thanks for the input so far. Alansplodge (talk) 12:54, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't merge with Drawbridge just yet. Drawbridge already has a link to Bascule bridge. It appears to be a door or gate rather than a causeway [1]. 86.168.123.89 (talk) 14:46, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

However, straight after that link, the drawbridge article says: "...but this article concerns the narrower, more historical definition of the term." If a bacule IS a drawbridge used in early modern fortifications, then it belongs in the "drawbridge" article. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any reference that describes what it actually is, apart from the 1728 reference in the article. So I need to know two things:

1) What exactly is a bacule in terms of English language fortification terminology and

2) Does the term have any real currency in English after 1728, making it worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia.

Alansplodge (talk) 11:10, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware that we were not allowed to cover obsolete fortifications because we have no current word to describe them. The last link posted yesterday is to a French/English dictionary, rather than a Wikipedia article. 80.44.160.251 (talk) 13:19, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if we're talking at cross-purposes. We have many articles on rather obscure fortification terms, such as terreplein, chemin de ronde and faussebraye, but all of these can be referenced to modern works on fortification. Search as I might, I can't find "bacule" in any modern work on the internet or in the several books in my own collection. Thus my thought was, if we say "this type of drawbridge is called a bacule" when nobody ever calls it "a bacule",. it would not be right. Whatever it's called in the French language is irrelevant to the English Wikipedia if the French word isn't used by anybody in English. Alansplodge (talk) 16:58, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the reason why there is no record of a drawbridge being called a "bacule" is because that is not the name of it. We have two sources which say a bacule is a door or gate which is elevated above the roadway and then dropped on the unsuspecting enemy forces as they pass beneath, much as the bank thief finds himself impaled on the security shutter which jumps up from the counter when he attempts to cross. 86.177.172.210 (talk) 00:29, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Could you post a link to those sources please? Alansplodge (talk) 11:45, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

AldoSyrt's reference appears to start out by describing a portcullis:

... disposees en forme de Treillis: son usage est de supleer au defaut de la Porte estant petardee ou rompue; la Herse est attache par une corde a un Moulinet, qui est au dessus de la Porte, & la Herse, s'abbaiseou tombe par deux Coulisses, qui sont entaillees dans les deux costez de la Porte ...

Next comes the bacule, which is indeed a lifting bridge of the bascule variety. Tagishsimon's link describes "bacule" as

... a Kind of Portcullis or Gate, made like a Pit-fall with a Counter-Poise, and supported by two great Stakes: It is usually made before the Corps-de-Garde advancing near the Gates.

86.168's link is:

A square, and beauie dore (commonly) hanging, and held up by chaynes, a pretie distance without the maine gate of a fortresse, and let fal (as a Portcullis) in a trice, with a whurrie, and to the confusion of them it reaches, or lights on; also, as Bascule.

So the difference appears to be that the portcullis is of latticework design and an integral part of the building, while the bacule guards the approach. 80.44.160.251 (talk) 16:34, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]