The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
Could the English word "luck" ever mean "happiness" (like the German word "Glück")? If not, did it have in the past the same meaning as "Glück"? 80.58.205.34 (talk) 12:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The OED gives:
Etymology: < Low German (Dutch, Old Frisian) luk, a shortened form of geluk (Middle Dutch gelucke = Middle High German gelücke, modern German glück). Parallel adoptions of the Low German word are Icelandic lukka (14th cent.), Middle Swedish lukka, lykka (modern Swedish lycka), Danish lykke. Probably it came into English as a gambling term; the Low German dialects were a frequent source of such terms in 15–16 centuries.
Yes, that's of some help. But, would an English native speaker ever associate "luck" with the meaning "happiness"? (not in an indirect way, like if you are lucky, that makes you happy). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.34 (talk) 12:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In modern usage no English speaker would equate lucky/happy or luck/happiness. But they are fairly closely related, as good luck leads to happiness. The Latin word felix means both happy and fortunate, and the English expression happy-go-lucky is not merely coincidental. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 14:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That seems likely, but note that happy-go-lucky isn't a synonym for either luckiness or happiness directly, but to being "carefree" or "without worries" (which may arise from luck - and lead to happiness). Matt Deres (talk) 15:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's rather literary now, but "happy" can still mean "fortunate", particularly when applied to events and circumstances, as in "by a happy coincidence". Note that "happy" is cognate with "happen" and with "perhaps": its original meaning was somewhere in the realm of "chance". --ColinFine (talk) 23:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The root of this cluster of meanings seems to be hap - chance or fortune (from Middle English and Norse happ - chance, good luck), from which we also derive hapless - destitute of "hap" or good fortune, unlucky etc; haply - by chance or accident; and happen (plus its various derivatives) - to come to pass (from hap as above). Surprisingly, my edition of the OED omits happenstance - "a blend of happening and circumstance" according to Wictionary. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.111 (talk) 08:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The on-line OED agrees on the portmanteau origin and includes the word happenstance with the caveat "chiefly U.S.", giving citations from 1897 to 1973. Their definition is "A chance event; a coincidence." The OED also has a sense of "happy" defined as "Characterized by or involving good fortune; fortunate, lucky; prosperous; favourable, propitious" with cites from 1340 to 1969. Dbfirs17:00, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's worth noting that the use of happy as in "by a happy coincidence" also exists with "feliz" (happy) in Spanish "una feliz coincidencia" and probably in other Romance languages. --Belchman (talk) 21:28, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase "down on one's luck" is sometimes used in the sense of "experiencing financial distress", rather than merely "experiencing a string of bad luck". See [1], for example. Gabbe (talk) 19:21, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Stress of the armenian names
Does anybody know in which syllabe are stressed generally the armenian family names ending at -yan, like Martirosyan, Grigoryan
, Nazaryan, etc? Thanks. Leonprimer (talk) 15:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don;t know if there's a rule for it (I do not speak Armenian), but every such name I've ever heard places the stress on the syllable immediately preceding the -ian/-yan ending - e.g. zaKARian,garaBEDian, etc. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 15:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
According to Armenian language#Stress, the stress in all words that don't end in a schwa is on the last syllable. So MartirosYAN, GrigorYAN, NazarYAN. In English, however, we often anglicize the names by putting the stress on the next-to-last syllable, e.g. Sa-ROY-an, Kar-DASH-ian (which in Armenian would be [saɾoˈjan], [kʰaɾdaˈʃjan]). Lesgles (talk) 20:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine being the child of an Armenian parent and a Czech parent (in Czech, virtually all words are stressed on the first syllable). The child wouid probably grow up being a proponent of the Third Way and the Middle Path. :) -- Jack of Oz[your turn]22:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Etymology of some obscure hibernicisms
Hello there -
I've been spending a lot of time recently with my grandfather, who is from Northern Co. Longford. As a linguist, I'm always unconsciously listening out for distinctive words or turn of phrase, and a few such have emerged over the last couple of days and left me puzzling for hours over their origin. Some I've found (like corant), but others I haven't, and I was wondering whether anyone out there knows the origin of the following words:
- Something that sounds to my ears as [kəˈmɑlʲiːn] (camáilín? in my very inexpert attempt at a transcription). He uses this to refer to awful, repetitive songs.
- [ˈlatʃɪkoː] (latchico?) I've seen this mentioned elsewhere, but haven't come across its etymology. It means a half-wit or someone who acts stupid.
- [məˈloːdʒɪn] - referred to an artful dodger type who's somewhere between a scamp and a rogue.
Thanks for your suggestion, AnonMoos - I somehow doubt that such a word would be used as a reference point in a small village that knew little of Dublin, never mind rare ethnic groups thousands of miles away. Anyone else with an idea? These are going to bug me for some time, particularly camolyeen. 82.132.136.205 (talk) 22:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Several online forums and sites suggest latchkey (as in latchkey kid) as a possible origin of "latchico" or "latchie". The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Routledge, 2001, ISBN 9780415212595) gives "a ruffian" as its meaning, but doesn't mention its etymology, though the item "latchkey" can be found right below it. ---Sluzzelintalk13:34, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
April 13
Multilingual works?
What are some works of literature or media in general in more than one language? By this I mean not that it has been translated but that the original was written in more than one language, and with the languages integrated / with more than one significant language (i.e., not some expressions / dialogue in a language but the main text in a main language, as is the case in For Whom the Bell Tolls), such that not to understand both languages poses a serious barrier to comprehension. If possible these shouldn't be two extremely close or intelligible languages. THanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 02:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many Hong Kong films include dialogue in both Cantonese and Mandarin, which are not mutually intelligible but exist in a diglossia. In mainland China these films are generally subtitled, but I don't know if they are in Hong Kong, where most of the population is at least bilingual in these two languages. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:23, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
True of mainland films as well, of course...but do HKers actually turn on the subtitles? (assuming, of course, that they're watching one in which the subtitles can be turned on and off, not one of the cheap pirated DVDs or movies on tudou.com ;) ) rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:12, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another film that comes to my mind is Lost in Translation, which has large chunks of un-subtitled Japanese dialogue. It is done in such a way, though, that you don't need to understand Japanese to comprehend the film, and in fact that's kind of the point (although I've been told by Japanese-speaking friends that some of that dialogue is really funny). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:35, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Henry V (play) was written with some all-French scenes, and a few scattered French phrases in other scenes; but probably the way it was originally performed (presumably with little effort to ensure that the French text was fully correct or pronounced in an authentically French way, and with the actors providing context through their gestures or movements) some part of the meaning would have come through, and overall enjoyment of the play would not have been greatly diminished if you didn't know any French. However, you would have missed the bilingual puns on French dirty words! -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:24, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you are monolingual, Finnegans Wake is largely incomprehensible. When I started to read it (aloud) I found out that my knowledge of German, bits of French and Latin helped a lot. A few morsels of Greek, Hebrew and sundry other languages will also be useful. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 05:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, in the novel (and subsequent film) The Name of the Rose, one of the monks (I believe it was Salvatore) speaks in what is supposed to be an incomprehensible gibberish, however knowledge of the basic set of most spoken European languages (like French, German, Latin, Greek, etc.) makes Salvatore's ramblings understandable to the reader. While the novel was originally written in Italian, even the English version preserves Salvatore's unique speaking style. --Jayron3205:53, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not really gibberish, it's just different languages mixed together. Foucault's Pendulum also has a mix of languages, especially Latin and Hebrew. But the books aren't incomprehensible if you don't understand those parts. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:48, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the first half of The Wages of Fear, people speak several languages seemingly as the whim of the moment takes them. (In the second half, they speak French because it's what the four main characters have in common.) —Tamfang (talk) 07:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, there are lots of movies that are multilingual; Babel is one that springs to mind, but there are thousands. The thing is, these would have been screened with subtitles. I don't think that's what the OP was asking about. Mathew5000 (talk) 07:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd wager that there are quite a few Irish works about the pre-Independence period which combine Irish and English, though the only one I could actually name is Translations. Our article says;
"In the world of the play, the characters, both Irish and English, "speak" their respective languages, but in actuality English is predominantly spoken. This allows the audience to understand all the languages, as if a translator were provided. However, onstage the characters cannot comprehend each other."
I don't recall exactly what that 'predominantly' works out as, but I seem to remember a fair amount of Gaelic in the play. If you accept closely related languages, there are certainly works combining Scots and English. HenryFlower10:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing that comes to mind is language parodies, like this well-known English/German parody:
ACHTUNG ALLES LOOKENPEEPERS
Das Computermaschine ist nicht fur Finger-poken und mittengrabben.
Ist easy schnappen der springwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewrken bel das dummkopfen. Das rubber-necken sightseeren must keepen hands in das pockets relaxen und watch das lights ger-blinken.
There is a common variety of English that, at least for these ageing ears, is so very difficult to understand that it may as well be a foreign language. I typically hear it on TV shows, spoken by young-ish American-ish females, but I also hear it a bit in real life from local gels who've obviously been influenced by these programs. It's characterised first and foremost by speed - it's like they're so desparate to say each sentence as quickly as possible, that by the time I've realised they've said what they had to say, the other person has already said their bit and it's back to the first person again. Which makes for very poor comprehension on my part. The next thing about it is the little-girl cutesy quality of the vowels - but which comes out anything but 'cute', more like 'incredibly spoiled brat'. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? One example is Pauley Perrette on NCIS - I never understand a single thing she says. (And even if I did, the relentless, ceaseless damn music, which is anything but "background", completely wipes that out.) When these people mingle with others who speak "normally", it's very much like there are 2 languages at work. Such is my experience. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]13:20, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was only me going deaf after the menopause! Teens have always had their own sort of argot, but the present generation seems to be carrying it over into real life.--TammyMoet (talk) 14:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For young readers, there is the Nonstop series by David Fermer. I've never read any of them, but from what I gathered the two languages (English and German) are used to convey two different points of view of the same story from two different people. The reader's required level of English seems to be very basic. ---Sluzzelintalk14:49, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am currently reading Sepulchre (Kate Mosse novel), and though it is understandable I am well aware that I am missing a lot by not knowing French. Incidentally, Indian films often switch between Hindi and English, both of which would need to be known to follow them. Sometimes they include another Indian language and the odd Sanskrit quote, though they are understandable without knowing this. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:59, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For another movie example: Night on Earth consists of five separate stories, performed in four different languages (English, French, Italian, and Finnish). I highly recommend the film, even if you only understand one of the languages. The film is always shown subtitled in English, and my favorite segment was spoken in a language I don't understand at all (Finnish). ---Sluzzelintalk15:10, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I remember seeing in a bookstore a book of poems, all or some of which were composed of verses with different lines in different languages, and somehow succeeding in achieving both rhyme and rhythm (meter). I vaguely remember the example of one verse with a German line ending in Katze, an Italian line ending in -azze, a Latin line ending in -at se (the last part of a reflexive verb in non-standard word order), and two other lines, each in another language (possibly French and English). I did not buy the book, I do not remember the title of the book, and I do not remember the author or compiler of the book.
There is a 1981 film "Les Uns et Les Autres", retitled as "Bolero", that I saw many years ago (and would like to see again.) I think it was multilingual; after all this time I am not sure. Wanderer57 (talk) 22:49, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On IMDB, I found a review saying the film is in French, English, German and Russian. As I mentioned, I'd like to see it again. So far, I have not found it on DVD or tape. Wanderer57 (talk) 15:23, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One of my favorite tv shows "Red Band" (רד בנד) is filmed with an English speaking protaganist and a Hebrew speaking cast. You can enjoy the lewd humor in English, or in Hebrew, or (Ideally) in both :)
Bollywood in general excels at multilingual films; the degree of codeswitching and Hinglish is impressive. Latin and Greek were prominently sprinkled through many "serious" books before WWII (e.g. essays, history), and novels as well pre-WWI. By way of contrast, and as it is approaching Easter, I'll mention the film Jesus of Montreal, which begins with a scene in which some sporadically employed actors are dubbing a porn film from English into French; not much is lost in translation. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point. Even outside of Bollywood, I've noticed other Indian films have a lot of codeswitching. For example, off the top of my head, Life in a Metro switches all the time between (at least) Hindi and English. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are some pop music songs that have verses in multiple languages, I've heard at least English with French and English with Hungarian, and I seem to remember there are some in Spanish with English.
There are also mathematics and science journals from the sixties that mix articles in English, German, Russian and French, but in this case each article is written in a single language and is understandable alone. In any case, reading mathematical articles in all these languages is much easier than reading literature, because the vocabulary used is very small (though I personally have not needed to learn mathematical terminology yet in any of German, Russian or French). – b_jonas18:29, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What I think this person is asking is whether Wikipedia could have the English name of the languages listed in the left column pop up when the user places his/her cursor over those language names. In response, I'd say that the primary purpose of those language names is to help people who can read those languages to find related content in those languages. As such, there is no need for the English name of the languages. Still, perhaps such a function could be programmed to satisfy curious users who can't read those languages. You might ask at the Help Desk about that. Marco polo (talk) 22:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Need to understand grammatical structure of the following sentence
"When the shouting ended, the bill passed, 114 to 4, sending it to the Senate, where a similar proposal is being sponsored by Sen& George Parkhouse of Dallas."
The above sentence is from the Brown corpus, I would like to understand its grammatical structure. In particular I am puzzled about the grammatical relation between the finite verb "passed" and the participle "sending". Is there a particular name for this kind of construction? 117.211.88.149 (talk) 12:52, 14 April 2011 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya[reply]
It's a particularly horrible type of error, but I don't know whether it has a name. Bills cannot send themselves anywhere. It needs to be something like "... the bill passed 114 to 4, and was sent to the Senate, where ...". -- Jack of Oz[your turn]12:56, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"sending it" is a shorthand way of saying that because the bill has been passed there is an unavoidable legislative route (to the senate) that it must follow. - X201 (talk) 13:07, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) See Dangling modifier. What "sending" is presumably intended to refer to is the notion of the bill's passing; but since the sentence contains no actual noun that the participle could logically modify, such a construction is often viewed as a grammatical error. Deor (talk) 13:14, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's ungrammatical, though I wouldn't call it particularly horrible. "The bill passed, 114 to 4, [with its passage] sending it..." You can't listen to a sports broadcast without hearing something similar: "At the last second, the ball went in, sending the game into overtime." --- OtherDave (talk) 15:37, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, but in that case, the action of the ball itself caused the overtime to occur. But in the OP's question, "sending" is an action taken not by the bill, but to the bill. The only agent that can do any sending is the members of the lower house. Yet it's written as if the receiver of the action is the doer of the action. All dangling modifiers are horrible. but some are particularly horrible. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]19:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Distinguo, Jack, on two counts. 1. It is not the ball which sent the game into overtime, but the occurrence that the ball went into the net. Ditto the occurrence of the bill's passing. (Arguably, it was the referee which sent the game into overtime, anyway). 2. "The bill was passed" (passive) but equally "the bill passed" (middle). Perfectly good English. --ColinFine (talk) 20:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose it's in the same league as: The road rage victim has died, upgrading the assault charge to manslaughter.
@ Other Dave: What sports broadcasters do with language ranges between creative and abominable, and you won't generally find me using them as examplars of good language. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]20:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Colin: I agree with Jack on the "sending the game into overtime". Regardless of the thematic relations, the point is, in Jack's example both a subject and an object are expressed in the sentence (the ball sends the game), whereas in the OP's example no subject for "sending the bill to Senate" is expressed in the sentence. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[outdent] I freely own up to (yet another) tangent. I had meant to state directly that I wasn't really answering the OP question. I think Jack's road-rage example is in fact similar to mine. There's a kind of implied expansion: "...[with the death] upgrading the charge..." English is replete with implied subjects, and my point was only that the vast majority of English speakers understand what's meant by the OP's example. This understanding no doubt brings great distress to Lynne Truss, so it's win-win. --- OtherDave (talk) 11:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the title is "Reichskomissariat Turkestan". In the key, the dark green tint is labeled "stable ( or "fixed") territory"; the light green tint is labeled "potential parts (Turkic formation)"; the magenta tint is labeled "Chkalov Oblast (present-day Orenburg Oblast) as a connecting element between Bashkortostan and Turkestan"; and the blue tint is labeled "potential parts (non-Turkic formation)". Note that I am translating the word образования as "formation" even though its usual translation is "education", since "education" didn't seem to make sense. Marco polo (talk) 23:17, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Word for someone who enjoys seeing others suffering
I of course know of 'sadist' but I see this more as Wiktionary defines it, ie 'one who derives pleasure through cruelty or pain to others', and I want something stronger. I'm looking for a word where the observed really must be suffering to the true delight of the observer. Any suggestions? meromorphic[talk to me]20:08, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
schadenfreude's meaning has gotten pretty bleached from overuse, so I think it's probably weaker than what you're looking for. Schadenfreude#English equivalents has a few more examples, several of which are probably not what you're looking for; the definition given there for "Roman holiday" sounds similar to what you're asking for, although personally I've never seen that idiom used before. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t knew whether there has been any bleaching of schadenfreude's meaning in English–but I can tell you that the German word Schadenfreude is seldem used for an actually sadistic feeling; more often it is used for the feeling that accompanies comments like “It serves him right”. -- Irene1949 (talk) 22:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Facebook Terminology
When I browse friends' pages on Facebook, I am constantly given the opportunity to 'friend' people with whom my actual friends are already friends with, and I am told these new people are 'mutual friends'. Is this true? Even though these people are my friends' friends but not my friends yet (and probably won't be, because I don't add random people), can they be termed 'mutual friends'? I would have thought that if only one side in a couple has something or other, it would not be 'mutual'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK)22:01, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure? I get those same things on facebook, but it's not telling me they're "mutual friends", but rather listing how many mutual friends I have with them. Are you sure that's not what's going on? rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see this the same way as the previous editor. If you are friends with A, B & C and if X is also friends with A, B & C, then you and X have 3 mutual friends. (This is the case whether or not you and X are friends.) Wanderer57 (talk) 22:51, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Mutual properly means 'of/to/(etc) each other'; "mutual aid" means helping each other, a "mutual admiration society" is a group whose members spend their time praising each other. But Dickens with Our Mutual Friend helped legitimize the sense 'in common'; hence the usage in Facebook. —Tamfang (talk) 23:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A "mutual agreement" is "an agreement between...", so on facebook a mutual friend is a facebook user you and another friend have in common. "Mutual friend" is not a new neologism either. Juliancolton (talk) 01:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A mutual agreement is usually one reached summarily due to similar desires and/or intentions by both or all of the parties, whereas hypothetically a "normal" agreement might take more extensive debate and compromise. That's my interpretation, at least. Juliancolton (talk) 02:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! So, I have misunderstood - the 'mutual friend' bit refers to my friend, and not my friend's friend.... Embarrassing. Thanks a lot. I shall go and hide in a little hole in the corner of the garden now. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK)04:06, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All the grammar references I've been able to find say that an adverb should go after an auxiliary verb but before the main verb, as in "On Sunday morning he would usually read a newspaper". But I often see things like "On Sunday morning he usually would read a newspaper", even in formal registers. Is this a difference of regional variants, or what? --Stfg (talk) 23:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that there is really a hard-and-fast rule about the placement of adverbs in relation to verb phrases, except that the adverb should precede the main verb. It may also precede the auxiliary verb. Both variants occur in all regional variants of American English, and I suspect in other versions of English as well. The different placement may involve a subtle difference in emphasis. For example, if you read "On Sunday mornings he would usually read a newspaper", you might expect the next sentence to read something like "However, on this Sunday morning he read a Russian novel". By contrast, a sentence like "On Sunday mornings he usually would read a newspaper" suggests a follow-up like "However, on this Sunday morning he went bicycling instead". In other words, the closer the qualifying adverb is to the verb complement, the more likely it is to modify it. However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule either, just a tendency. Marco polo (talk) 00:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Only" is often used in a position that is technically illogical, e.g. "he only ate three bananas", but more natural and idiomatic than the "logical" version ("he ate only three bananas"). -- 10:12, 15 April 2011 User:AndrewWTaylor
Thanks everyone. The rule I was alluding to is found in Fowler, just here. It may be, of course, that the language is evolving away from Fowler's view of it :) --Stfg (talk) 14:33, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I've noticed that (historically) when languages interact and mix to such an extent that non-essential borrowing occurs (i.e., borrowing from language A into language B a word for a concept that already has a word in language B, not just to fill a lacuna), one of three things can happen: (1) The new word displaces the old word, so that the old word takes on a more restrictive/specific meaning, or becomes deprecated in favour of the new word (2) the two words coexist, with both about equally acceptable, or (3) the new word fails to displace/coexist with the old word and takes on a more restrictive/specific meaning than it had in language A. What are the linguistic terms for (1), (2), and (3)? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 01:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On older model phones- the kind we had before everyone got cell phones- there was a little button or lever on the cradle where, if pressed down, would hang-up the line. Anyone know what the technical name for that button is. I am writing a story that describes a person frantically pushing this button to get a dial tone in order to call the police, but I don't know how to describe it. Someone else said that it was the equivalent of what we now call the "flash" button...but saying "Jane Doe tapped frantically on the flash button, desperately hoping to hear a dial tone" just doesn't sound right. Any suggestions? Quinn☂THUNDER05:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's called the "switchhook" or "telephone hook". See also Telephone#Details_of_operation which uses the term as well. On early models, the entire cradle which held the handset was the switchhook, on later models a button inside the cradle served as the switchhook. But the term you wish to use, which should be recognizable to most readers who would have known about such phones, is probably switchhook. --Jayron3205:28, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've never heard "switchhook" before but I've definitely heard "hookswitch" to denote this component of a landline telephone. Note switchhook gets ~125k Google hits, hookswitch gets ~357k. Not to claim my word's better than yours is, but I wonder if the wider usage of one makes it a less-distracting choice in a work of fiction. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 14:10, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Neither "switchhook" nor "hookswitch" is familiar to me. I've always known it simply as "the hook," most often in the context of expressing that a telephone receiver was "off the hook" (i.e. not properly rested in its cradle).
While I no longer own that style of telephone, I still would use the term "off the hook" to describe a situation in which a landline receiver was accidentally active (similar to the persistent use of the terms "dial" and "hang up" in modern contexts).
Alansplodge opines above that "telephone hook" or "the hook" would be better understood in the United Kingdom, and I'm inclined to believe that the same is true of the United States. (I'm American.) —David Levy14:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's funny how old terms stick around. The "hook" goes back to the days when you would turn a crank to make the phones on the party line ring. It's been physically a "cradle" for most landline phones, for generations now. And the term "dialup" is still heard even though most phones have been touchtone types, instead of dial types, for decades now. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 14:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even more colloquially, (in London at least) you can "give someone a bell" or "get on the blower" to someone (which I believe refers back to the Speaking tube which you had to blow down to attract the other person's attention). Alansplodge (talk) 16:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A carryover from radio, most likely, which used an analogue dial to tune-in particular frequencies. Old-old TV sets also had a fine-tuning knob, which as I recall was kind of like a "ring" around the outside of the channel selecter knob. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 20:05, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I find it particularly ironic when on the phone to a "machine" and I'm asked to "Dial 1 for [something], dial 2 for [something else]" etc. If I were to actually dial, I would not generate the DTMF signal required by machine. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:27, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This pertains to how something is witten in an article, so I'm not sure if I should have asked at the Help Desk instead. In any case, I'd like to know if the Hebrew letter Qoph must be capitalized when spelled out in English. Is "qoph" ever (or perhaps always) acceptable? My thought is no. Joefromrandb (talk) 05:31, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absotively posolutely. Even the official Scabble dictionary recognizes it: search here for it. Merriam-Webster recognizes it, see [3]. Why wouldn't it be a bonafide English word. How would English speakers describe the Hebrew alphabet to other English speakers without using that word? --Jayron3205:51, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This "word" is being used as part of a pangram. I can not find it anywhere. As it's used in the sentence, it appears to be an archaic spelling of crwth (which I suppose is itself, archaic). I know this insturment is sometimes called a "crowd", but I can find no mention of it being spelled "crwd", nor can I find "crwd" in any unabriged English dictionary. But, as I was wrong about "qoph", I could be wrong about this too. Can any of our illustrious Wikipedians identify "crwd" as a bona-fide English word? Joefromrandb (talk) 14:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A 1780 issue of Gentleman's magazine and historical chronicle says, "A crowd, crwd, or crwth, is an ancient musical instrument used by the Welsh, somewhat resembling a fiddle..." A modern-day reference can be found in a catalogue for violin strings, which asserts "The crwth or crwd, was played in Brittany before the Moorish invasions." Another source, rather recent, claims CRWD is a more economical form of CRWTH and that it is found in the OED. I don't have an OED subscription or a dead-tree OED anymore, so I can't verify. --jpgordon::==( o )15:51, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My second-ed. OED has the entry "crwd, crwth: see CROWD sb.1", directing the reader to the entry about the instrument. Oddly, there's a separate entry at crwth ("The Welsh form of CROWD sb.1"), complete with citations. Deor (talk) 00:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)x3 Translating Cymraeg into English is somewhat problematic as the Welsh orthography (that is the sound-to-letter relationship) is quite different; welsh has a lot of sounds which do not occur in English, and the English translator often faces a choice as to whether to preserve the original Welsh spelling (and thus see the word pronounced wrong in English) or to aproximate the Welsh sound of the word by changing the spelling in English. Two Welsh sounds that do not enter English all that easily are those represented by the "ll" digraph and the "dd" digraph. The dd digraph in Welsh is the Voiced dental fricative, which is usually represented in English as the "th" digraph, thus the original Welsh name "Meredudd" usually gets translated into English as "Meredith"; since English words tend to "devoice" the "th" sound at the end of words, there is also a change in pronounciation. So, my suspicion is that the instrument may have been called a "Crwdd" at some point in Welsh, which ended up getting translated into English two ways: As "Crwd" for those who tried to preserve the spelling (and dropping the final d since having dd at the end of a word seems very unnatural for English) and as "Crwth" for those who tried to preserve the pronounciation (though Crwth is not prounced exactly as Crwdd would be, since the former would take a voiceles dental fricative, while the latter would be voiced.) --Jayron3215:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! Thank you all! I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say that for each contribution I've made here, I've learned ten times as much. Joefromrandb (talk) 16:20, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Siberian Elephants
Does anyone know the etymology of the slavic root 'slon-', meaning 'elephant'? By this I mean, can it be traced back to P-I.E., and are there any cognate roots in other languages? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK)20:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For the Proto-Slavic word slonъ, wiktionary has: "Possibly a deverbative from "sloniti sę" (to lean against), relating to a medieval story of an elephant sleeping leaned against a tree. According to some other sources, it's related to Turkish aslan." (lion) ---Sluzzelintalk21:17, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Similarly: "The origin of the actual Slavonic word for "elephant", e.g. Russian slon, is uncertain. There are two main etymological suggestions (cf. Vasmer 1955, s.v. slon). One would connect the name with the word meaning "to lean" (Old Church Slavonic sloniti-sę, Russian slonit'-s'a) referring to a belief that elephants sleep leaning against a tree. The other would connect it with the Turkic word for "lion" (Modern Turkish aslan). But a change of meaning from "lion" to "elephant is considerably more remarkable than from "elephant" to "camel", and the etymology remains obscure." (W. Sidney Allen, "Creatures Great and Small": Some Cross-Lingustic Parallels in Productivity and Creativity: Studies in General and Descriptive Linguistics in Honor of E.M. Uhlenbeck, Walter de Gruyter, 1998, ISBN 9783110162172) ---Sluzzelintalk21:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, by Grassmann's law, a pre-Greek *helephas probably would have become elephas anyway (cf. ekhō "I have" < *hekhō < *seghō). But what won't work is connecting Greek ph (< *bh and *gʷh) with Slavic p (< *p). —Angr (talk) 08:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
April 16
Translation from Arabic
One is a user's name (عمرو بن كلثوم) and the other (ستيفان ديون) is supposed to be "Stéphane Dion" in Arabic. Can someone translate the first and confirm the second? Thanks. Bielle (talk) 02:56, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The extra waw in Amr is there to distinguish it from Umar, since they are otherwise spelled the same. It's not pronounced as a long vowel. There are also some nouns that are normally spelled with a waw at the end, even though it is pronounced as a short vowel, like father and brother (as in "Abu Dhabi" for example). Adam Bishop (talk) 06:58, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Treeing preay and dropping balls
Translating Jeffery Deaver's Edge. I found the sentences as follow:
The government attorney now said, "Corte, look, you've been so busy trying to tree Loving that you dropped the ball on the primary compeletely."
Treeing preay and dropping balls. I supposed in court, before a jury, he didn't mix metaphors so relentlessly.
The references would not be acceptable in a British court where metaphor needs to be re-phrased in straightforward language. I had always assumed that American courts applied the same rules. The references are very obscure to me, and, were I on the jury, I would require an explanation, but they may be familiar to all Americans? Dbfirs12:14, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See the bulleted item on mixed metaphor near the bottom of the lead of Metaphor. "Treeing" something occurs when one is hunting (usually with dogs doing the treeing—i.e., driving the prey up into the branches of a tree, whence it can't escape). "Dropped the ball" presumably comes from baseball (or perhaps American football). Since hunting and playing ball sports aren't usually engaged in together, the two metaphors are in some sense incompatible. Deor (talk) 13:15, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I am an American who has never lived in a rural area (only in the top 10 urban agglomerations), and I understand the meaning of the sentence above quite clearly. The expressions used in the sentence were originally metaphors but are so common as to be idioms, at least in American English. Marco polo (talk) 20:10, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The author, who has practised law in the USA (sorry, that should be "practiced" in American English), will presumably know to what extent metaphor and idiom is permitted in American courts. British judges used to be particularly strict about this. Dbfirs09:28, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the sentence quoted above was supposed to have been uttered in court, but merely by a lawyer in conversation. The OP writes "I supposed in court, before a jury, he didn't mix metaphors so relentlessly", suggesting that the character only mixed metaphors when not in court before a jury. —Angr (talk) 10:13, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree. I thought that was what the author was saying, and what the OP was asking about. Have I misunderstood? Dbfirs16:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Achim (name, New Testament)
In the King James Version of the Bible, I find the name Achim in Matthew 1:14: "And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud" (the Greek spelling of the name is Αχιμ).
As my son's name is Achim, I'd like to know the origin and the original meaning of the name Achim in Matthew 1:14. In German books about names, the name Achim is said to be a short form of Joachim, which is derived from the name of the biblical king who is called “Jojakim” in Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible, and who is called “Jehoiakim” in the King James Version. But I wonder whether there is a different explanation of the name ‘’Achim’’ in the New Testament. -- Irene1949 (talk) 23:05, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not an anagram in Hebrew. First I thought it was pronounced like "akh", "brother", but apparently it has a kuf. It could be related to Hakim, a common name in Arabic; that is, if it doesn't have a khet... --Lazer Stein (talk) 01:09, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lazer Stein -- If it's Jehoiakim (יהויקים) without the shortened prefixed version of the Tetragrammaton (יהו), then it would be יקים, as explained in my previous comment. "Hakim" (which actually can stand for either of two Arabic words) has consonants corresponding to Hebrew ח-כ-מ, completely different from the root ק-ו-מ which would be behind יקים... AnonMoos (talk) 01:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've forgotten some of the details of the (partial) regularities governing ancient Greek transcriptions of Hebrew, but Θ, Φ, Χ were still pretty much aspirated stop consonants in Greek at that time, and there was little correlation between Τ, Π, Κ vs. Θ, Φ, Χ and stop vs. fricative allophones in Hebrew (though Latin "F" consistently became Greek Φ)... AnonMoos (talk) 06:47, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's an article Achim (name), which I've just now expanded. If it originates as Jehoiakim with the shortened prefixed version of the Tetragrammaton removed, then it's the third person masculine singular imperfect Hiph'il (causative) form of triconsonantal root q-w-m (basic meaning "to stand"). AnonMoos (talk) 23:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your detailed answers.
Unfortunately, I do not quite understand “the third person masculine singular imperfect Hiph'il (causative) form“. For me, “imperfect” would mean that it is something like “he stood”. I never heard of the word “causative”. When I try to make sense of it, I get something like “he is caused to stand” or “he causes somebody or something to stand”. Maybe both is wrong. Can you please give me a correct explanation?
In Hebrew grammar, the so-called "imperfect" isn't an imperfect at all but an imperfective. In most cases it can be conveniently translated into English with the future tense. A causative is indeed a form that means "cause to X". Causatives aren't productive in Germanic languages anymore, but there are some examples like raise (causative of rise) or German stellen (causative of stehen; particularly obvious in collocations like zur Verfügung stellen "to make available" vs. zur Verfügung stehen "to be available"). So the third person masculine singular imperfect Hiph'il (causative) form of a verb meaning "to stand" can be translated "he will cause to stand"/"er wird (aufrecht) stellen". —Angr (talk) 10:32, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. The modern German name Achim is almost certainly short for Joachim, as the books you've seen say. The Achim in Matthew 1:14 isn't important enough a character to have had a significant impact on name-giving, but Joachim as the traditional (though non-Biblical) name of the father of the Virgin Mary, is. —Angr (talk) 10:41, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
STX: My second message in this discussion was (like my first message) a reply to the original post, and not a reply to my first message. Therefore, I indented each of those messages by one increment, in accordance with Help:Using talk pages#Indentation (permanent link here).
I see, so that is not the actual name of the mosque in Arabic. Let me see if I can find an official Arabic name on the mosque's website. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:11, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean you need an inscription of the Hebrew-language book title, here it is: שלוש כוסות תה. A transliteration would be shalosh kosot te (שָׁלוֹשׁ כּוֹסוֹת תֵּה). --Theurgist (talk) 02:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English lists hour as a one-syllable word , and flower as a two-syllable word (for hyphenation purposes). The British English pronunciations are given as /aʊə/ and /'flaʊə/ respectively. I take the use of the stress marker to indicate that they are one foot and two feet respectively, with flower divided /'flaʊ-ə/.
This puzzles me. It seems to me that hour has both a dipthong and another (very short) vowel. Even allowing for the many oddities of English, shouldn't it be a two-feet word? Is there any general principle for the treatment of schwas to explain this? Should these words have been rhymed according to norms of English poetry?
I doubt that there's any consistent difference in number of syllables between the words; they're both bisyllabic in American English, while in British English there are bisyllabic and monosyllabic pronunciations for both words, I would presume. (American English does monosyllabicize the one word "our", by making it be pronounced the same as "are" in less formal or more rapid speech...). AnonMoos (talk) 03:40, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
AnonMoos, I agree that there's never much consistency in pronunciation! The Longman's gives the American English pronunciations as /aʊr/ and /'flaʊər/, which makes hour definitely one syllable, but flower two syllables. I don't think there's a significant American vs British difference here, and it still doesn't explain whether a schwa can be absorbed into the previous foot. Matt's talk04:01, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In Received Pronunciation, /aʊə/ and /aɪə/ are usually considered to be triphthongs, which by definition are monosyllabic. Not everyone distinguishes the vowels in hour from those in flower, but the distinction does seem to apply to much of English poetry. There are plenty of exceptions, though, such as Shakespeare's Sonnet 5: "Those hours that with gentle work did frame...", where hour is clearly meant to be read as hower. And many poets have rhymed hour with power, flower, etc.[5][6] Note, however, that foot has a different meaning; a foot can be two or more syllables long, and can include parts of several words. Lesgles (talk) 06:39, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone remember this ?
When I was nine, back in 1977, our teachers got us onto reading what they called S.R.A. books, which were used to assist us in reading comprehension. They conisted of may be laminated pieces of cardboard, colour coded, where a given colour represented a certain reading level, and we would read the story on the card, then were to answer questions about what we read to determine our level of understanding of the story, such that if we did well, we could move on to the next level of card. I recall colours like Gold, Red and Aqua - the first time I had come across that colour - a kind of greenish blue like teal or turquoise. All I could see was the article on the book Mr. Bush read to the kids in Florida the day of nine eleven ( I understand he was criticised for that, in not getting up to go immmediately but perhaps he simply did not want to disappoint the children by leaving early, relaising there was not much he could do right away, since as it turned out they had him on Air Force One for over six hours before they deemed DC safe enough to return to in any case. Some of course could suggest his very presence might have upset the kids, but one can see they looked pretty happy to have him there ) The article says the book read was of the SRA type published by McGraw Hill, and I recall the stories were certainly not of New Zeland - we had other books for that. Does anyone anywhere recall the S.R.A. books I am referring to ? Thanks. Chris the RussianChristopher Lilly06:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I remember doing those when I was in second and third grade (which would mean 2000 and 2001). I have never heard of my peers past those years using SRA books. bibliomaniac1507:34, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
LIkewise. This question brings back memories - really good, positive, happy memories - that I've not consciously had for approximately 50 years. WP's a great place for that. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]11:05, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I used SRA materials when teaching high-school English in Kansas in the early 1970s. The SRA kit included diagnostic material to help determine a student's reading level, which is what the colors represented. Each level had several readings with related comprehension tests, which I believe were mainly objective questions rather than essay questions. I used the SRA package to allow students to work independently, focusing my time on those who were not yet at grade level in reading. I seem to recall short booklets, rather than simply cards, probably because these were secondary rather than primary school materials. --- OtherDave (talk) 13:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is it my imagination, or was there also an automated version, where it would read to you, then beep, then you would be asked a question and push the right button ? At first this seems like an odd way to do reading comprehension, without any actual reading, but it could be useful in distinguishing reading problems, like dyslexia, versus a failure to comprehend. StuRat (talk) 16:28, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how Æthelberht pronounced his name, but in modern British English it's ETH-ul-but. Richard Attenborough pronounces his name AT-un-bruh. SaundersW (talk) 08:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Did you mean to make the R silent in Æthelberht ? I've always thought it should be pronounced AYTHELBERT, but we may never know how it was pronounced back then. StuRat (talk) 10:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
SaundersW said that he was providing the pronunciation in modern British English. In standard British English (or Received Pronunciation), R's are not pronounced after vowels that are phrase-final or that precede consonants in a word or phrase. (The post-vocalic R was pronounced in Old English and is still pronounced in most varieties of American English and in some other varieties of English, but it was lost in London and other parts of England in early modern times.) If Aristitleism wants an American pronunciation for Æthelberht, then it would be either ETH-ul-burt or ATH-ul-burt (in which the first syllable is the same as the first syllable in athlete), depending on the source. As for the original pronunciation, most historical linguists think the initial vowel was closer to the initial vowel in athlete than to the initial vowel in ethics. Also in Marco polo (talk) 13:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Right now, I have "It was sealed underground in a deeper, darker place than the angel Digimon that descended in the distant past." However, I'm not sure if it should be "It was sealed underground, in the deepest, darkest place, by the angel Digimon that descened in the distant past," or something else entirely.
The ja sentence is a very bad one. If it was used "もっと" instead of "もっとも", it is perfectly OK and the translation would be the first one. The original sentence could be translated like this: It was sealed underground in a deeper, darker place than the angel Digimon that descended in the distant past. The place was the deepest, darkest in the underground. Oda Mari (talk) 09:44, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Intelligibility of French
Hello all! I read in a source somewhere that spoken French is some percent intelligible to Spanish speakers who have never studied French, but unfortunately I forgot the percentage :( I know that it would only be an estimate (after all how does one measure intelligibility), but can someone help me track down the source, or a similar source with such a percentage? Thanks. PS: I would also be interested in the mutual intelligibility of spoken French to other Romance languages. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whichfrenchlanguagedo you refer to? There are numerous French languages spoken across France. While nearly all of the people in French are able to speak both the Official Academy French and their local language, people who speak local languages closer to Spain are likely to have more understanding of Spanish languages as well. It's nearly impossible to seperate "The Spanish I know because I speak Academy French" from "The Spanish I know because I speak Occitan" since most people can switch between their local language and the Prestige dialect without even thinking about it. Many of us speak differently in a job interview than we do drinking at the local pub with our pals, or conversing with our parents. Its the same worldwide. See Diglossia. --Jayron3214:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
However, I think we can say with some assurance that spoken Standard French has virtually no mutual intelligibility with spoken Standard Spanish, assuming that a speaker of either language has had no prior exposure to the other language or to regional dialects that might have some mutual intelligibility with either language. For that matter, spoken Standard French has virtually no mutual intelligibility with any other Romance national language. There is probably limited mutual intelligibility between speakers of Standard French and speakers of Occitan without prior exposure to one another's languages (though in practice there are probably no speakers of Occitan who lack exposure to French). I was able to find some statistics stating lexical similarity among Romance languages in percentage terms, but no percentage statistics on mutual intelligibility between spoken French and other Romance national languages (perhaps because the percentage would be 0%). See this blog, which cites the Italian Wikipedia. I haven't taken the time to check sources cited by the Italian Wikipedia. As for lexical similarity, it is not a good index for mutual intelligibility. For example, the French word for "water", eau (pronounced "o"), is lexically similar to (derived from the same historic word as) the Spanish agua ("a ɣwa"), but the two forms have diverged so much that they are no longer mutually intelligible. Marco polo (talk) 15:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but this stuff is nearly impossible to study; find me the mature adult French speaker who has never heard that "agua" is Spanish for water. In the modern world, people get exposure to more languages through the media, and in order to do the study properly, you'd need to find that person who speaks Standard French as a native language, and have never been exposed to even one word of the Spanish language in their whole life; so we can definitively say "This person knows these Spanish words because of their intellibility in French." versus "This person knows these Spanish words because they have been exposed to them used in context." I have zero formal training in Spanish, and yet living in the United States I can make out enough words to understand an occasional something; it's not because of a similarity to English that I understand some Spanish; its because I have been exposed to Spanish that I do... --Jayron3215:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In watching some British television programs recently (I'm American), I've noticed a usage that seems rather curious to me: that of apparently using the word "us" to mean "me". A character might say, "Give it to us", when there are only two people there, the speaker and the listener. Can anyone tell me anything about this usage? LadyofShalott14:10, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is quite common in a number of regions, particularly London. I think it is used in constructs like "give us ..." but not usually like "give it to us" (sorry I don't know the grammatical terms for this). You would say "give us a drink", "give us a clue" but not "give any spare copies to us". I think it is normally used informally. This is all from personal observation, so I may not have it quite right. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
People often use prestige terms in colloquial usage, sometimes for ironic or comical effect, sometimes to be subversive. Just because common people use the Royal We doesn't mean that they aren't using it because they are "common". --Jayron3214:47, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The OED describes it thus under "us", at definition 7: "Eng. regional, Sc., Irish English, and colloq. Chiefly in unemphatic use (freq. with give): me; to me." The first quotation given is from William Carr's Dialect of Craven (1828). Lesgles (talk) 14:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) I knew about the "royal we", but this is not it - it's the common use that Q Chris and Lesgles describe. The regions listed in the OED help explain part of what I noticed: in Hope Springs, it seemed to be the Scottish people (and not the English) who used it, but then an Englishman used it in MidSomer Murders. Thanks, y'all! Do you know anything further about the origins of this usage? LadyofShalott14:51, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm from the US so I don't know much about this expression; I have mostly encountered it in a few set expressions (or at least what I thought were set expressions) like "Give us a kiss!". I also remember that the character Gollum used the first-person plural to refer to himself (although I guess he had his reasons...).
Also I feel I should point out, at least here in the US we also have singular "we" but in a different context, as a second-person singular ("now what are we doing here?" when 'you' have been caught in the act of something...) rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think most British English speakers would be familiar with this usage from the phrase "Gissa job" used in Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff. As to its origins, I can only offer that it seems to be generic across the UK as I've heard it used by speakers from all dialects and all countries of the UK. So maybe defined as slang rather than dialect. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:58, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
When two kiss on the lips, they are both getting kissed, so "us" can just be a normal plural there. A kiss anywhere else is singular, though, unless they swap positions and kiss the other way around. StuRat (talk) 16:35, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Singular us" is not unusual at all in northern Nova Scotia. "Give us a step (do a step dance), give us a tune (play the fiddle)," with "give us" sounding almost like a single word (givvus). There's a similar use in Auld Lang Syne:
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
and gie's a hand o’ thine ! gie's = give us
And in Jim Malcolm's more recent Jimmy's Gone Tae Flanders
When Jimmy¹s home from Flanders we¹ll be sat down by the table
And we¹ll coax him to his fiddle: "Jimmy, gie us the Bonawe Highlanders."
[[I've requested some help with a Lithuanian translation of a map here; however, I think this is the place to find Lithuanian speakers (or perhaps similar languages). They're all placenames. Thanks Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 14:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nouns indicating residency
What is the term for words like "New Yorkers", "Floridians", or "Californians" -- where a noun is modified to indicate a person who lives in that location?
Is there a complete list of modifiers?
How could one tell with certainty what local residents are called -- or is it left to local residents to decide? For example, without looking it up, how could I tell what Las Vegas residents are called? Las Vegans? Las Vegasites? Las Vegars? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.26.172.65 (talk) 16:57, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The word is demonym. As far as a "complete list", such a list is likely outside of the scope of Wikipedia. Some places have more than one term, and given the millions of named places in the world, having a comprehensive list of demonyms at Wikipedia would get very quickly unweildy. --Jayron3217:02, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
