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December 29

Chanukah? Challah?

Why are Hebrew-derived English terms pronounced without the 'ch'? Obviously, it's a different language, but still why do the English names have the 'ch'? Why can't the English terms be hallah or hanukah to reflect the accurate pronunciation? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 20:55, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When I go to google and type in "han", the first word it suggests is "Hanukkah". Google is your friend. μηδείς (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's a case of the Hebrew words being transliterated different in different varieties of English. British English prefers "ch", perhaps thinking of the Scottish (e.g. loch); American English prefers "h". Carbon Caryatid (talk) 22:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See Hanukkah#Alternative_spellings for the full story. Also, English spelling sometimes doesn't really concern itself with how the letters sound, look at "knee" for example. Alansplodge (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Words starting with kn used to be pronounced as spelled. The leading k's went silent by 1750. [1] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't quite know what you mean by "to reflect the accurate pronunciation". The Hebrew letter ח (cheth) has a sound which does not occur in most dialects of English except for non-English words. It is a different sound from that of ה (he), and a careful transliteration needs to recognise that; hence the common used of 'kh' or 'ch'. for the sound. --ColinFine (talk) 23:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Gutturals like the Spanish j and the Hebrew letter are often equated to the trailing "ch" in Scottish words such as "loch". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Choder! μηδείς (talk) 06:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

December 30

Possessives in names of workplaces

In a phrase like "I work in a florist's" or "There was a gas leak at the dentist's", is the apostrophe normally used? It make logical sense as an abbreviation for something like "dentist's clinic", but it looks wrong to me. I think I intuitively prefer "the dentists", which I guess might be a sort of synecdoche where the building is referred to by mentioning the occupants.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Dentists" is definitely wrong (unless you mean " dentists' ", in which case your bill is liable to be at least twice what it should be). "Dentist's" sounds fine and seems perfectly grammatical to me. "I work in a florist's", however, sounds a bit odd. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:55, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This issue comes up from time to time (see Arnos Grove). Some companies have made a point of restoring the apostrophe (see Sainsbury's), some haven't, pointing to possible problems with typing in the name of the website. 92.8.220.149 (talk) 14:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is one example of dropping the possessive apostrophe. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
These examples from 92.8 and Bugs refer to corporate names, but the original question is about generic phrases. As the original poster surmised, expressions like "at the dentist's" and "in a florist's" are just short for expressions like "at the dentist's clinic" and "in a florist's shop", and are correctly written as possessives. Another example of this construction is when you refer to the house of the Kerr family as "the Kerrs'", meaning "the Kerrs' house"; in this case it's a plural possessive because you are talking about more than one person named Kerr. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Last time I mentioned "the Joneses' house" here, I got a few funny looks. But we're both spot on. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What accent do Bob's Burgers characters use?

I'll ask this here instead of at Entertainment since it's a dialect question. I'm sure someone could narrow it down better than me (um, Great Lakes? Davenport?) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article List_of_Bob's_Burgers_characters#Linda says Linda has a thick New York accent (and multiple sources on the internet agree). In an interview the guy who voiced her said: "It's a voice that I've always had--you know, my mother, and my aunts are all from Brooklyn, so I've always done that voice really naturally since I was a kid. ". I wouldn't assume all characters have the same accent, or to the same degree. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 01:43, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is a (typically working-class white) accent from Brooklyn or some parts of Queens. Think of Fran Drescher in The Nanny (from Flushing, Queens) or Jean Stapleton in All in the Family (from Astoria, Queens). μηδείς (talk) 19:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Words that are technically one language but that we anglophones pronounce as if they were another language

How many words do anglophones use of this kind?? We have:

  • maraschino (Italian, German)
  • forte [in the sense of a strong point] (French, Italian)

Are there in fact many words of this kind?? Please restrict this category of words to those where the second question's answer is not English. Georgia guy (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See 100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces.
—Wavelength (talk) 22:06, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Most comment ones in my experience are bruschetta (Italian, pronounced as if it's German) and chorizo (Spanish, pronounced as if it's Italian). Then, not quite on topic, there's the horrible pronunciation of French lingérie as if it were spelled langeré, that seems to be gaining ground. --Nicknack009 (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Your second example is not valid, because ch in Italian is always before e or i. Georgia guy (talk) 23:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's the z that's pronounced as if it's Italian - chor-itz-o or chor-eetz-o, rather than chor-eess-o or chor-eeth-o. --Nicknack009 (talk) 23:29, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Most any foreign word is liable to be pronounced differently in English than in the language it comes from. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:55, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Do you really not understand that the question is about distortions not required by the differences between English and [source language] phonologies? —Tamfang (talk) 20:37, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hyperforeignism is relevant here; most of the examples given here are already mentioned in that article. --Theurgist (talk) 07:06, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two more:
  • pistachio: from Italian (actually spelled pistacchio in Italian), but the ch is pronounced "sh" as if it's French
  • machete: the ch can be pronounced "ch" as in the original Spanish or "sh" as if it's French
--Theurgist (talk) 07:21, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a half-example:
Not another example - but a correction to the ones in the original question. Forte is not a French word which we pronounce as if it were Italian - it happens to be a perfectly good Italian word as well. The French pronounce it with one syllable, the Italians with two - but the meaning is the same. Wymspen (talk) 11:09, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As a musical term, it's an Italian word that we didn't change the pronunciation of. But in the sense "this is not my forte" it's a French word we pronounce as if it were Italian. Georgia guy (talk) 12:44, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
... and spell as if it were feminine! Dbfirs 12:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We pianists are prone to uttering drolleries such as "the piano is my forte". ") -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 13:14, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention chaise longue, which has turned into "chase lounge." Or a French dip sandwich "in it's own au jus" (not a mispronunciation as such, but no less a horror). Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:52, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I always assumed ceviche was a French word, and I pronounced it accordingly (səveesh). Only when I heard people on cooking shows giving it 3 syllables did I check it out and discover it was Spanish. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 21:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

January 1

How do you say "Happy New Year!" in your ancestral or second tongue(s)?

Szczastliwy nowy rok! μηδείς (talk) 05:14, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proscht Neijohr, e Brezel wie e Scheierdohr, e Kuuche wie e Oweblatt, do werr mer all mitnanner satt. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 05:43, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nizhónígo Nináánááhai Dooleeł. —Stephen (talk) 08:15, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Esengo na mbula na sika. Wymspen (talk) 13:00, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No ancestral input, but here are a few dozen [2]. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:03, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, @Pp.paul.4:, @Stephen G. Brown:, and @Wymspen:. I'm going to guess, without research, that we've got a southern German dialect, Dine bizaad, and Swahili. Good link, Carbon Caryatid. Mine is the Rusyn language written in Polish orthography. It's very close to the Slovak, and mutually intelligible with the Polish, although the Poles don't use the nominative/accusative, but an oblique case. μηδείς (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not a bad guess. Actually Lingala - main lingua franca along most of the River Congo. SWahili is Heri Za Mwaka Mpya Wymspen (talk) 09:38, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Честита Нова година!
The adjective честит, meaning "happy", is nowadays not usually used except in set phrases when you wish someone a happy holiday or congratulate them on something got or achieved. For the general meaning of "happy", the word щастлив is most common. --Theurgist (talk) 14:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hallich Nei Yaahr! (I think. I can no longer speak or understand much Pennsylvania Dutch. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The standard Russian expression is "С новом годом", usually followed by "с новом счастьем" (literally, "With the new year, with new happiness"). The verb "Поздравляю" (I congratulate you, I wish you) can precede this, but it's usually omitted as understood, and that (unspoken) word governs the use of the preposition c, which in turn requires the instrumental case. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 21:55, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic police baton

What is the common English name for this type of striped baton, used by traffic police and road patrols to stop cars? Thanks--93.174.25.12 (talk) 22:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

UK police don't use anything like that, so there isn't a name for it in this country. I would just call it a striped police baton, or perhaps a traffic control baton - but those are descriptions, not names. In this article - Baton (law enforcement) - it is just called a traffic baton. In Russia, where they actually use the striped ones, it is called a трафика эстафету (trafika estafetu) which translates as traffic baton. Wymspen (talk) 11:25, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the Russian: First, the construction would be эстафета трафика in the base form: эстафета is nominative while эстафету is accusative, and трафика is the genitive of трафик. Second, that would mean "traffic's baton" or "baton of the traffic" and wouldn't make much sense, and Googling that or keywords like {эстафета трафик} doesn't produce much meaningful stuff, while some more Googling reveals that "палка регулировщика" or "жезл регулировщика" ("traffic officer's baton") might be used as terms for the object. For simplicity I'm using "baton" as a translation for all эстафета, палка and жезл. My Russian is rusty though, and perhaps User:Любослов Езыкин will be able to shed some more light on the issue. --Theurgist (talk) 15:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Theurgist: I was just typing the answer when you pinged. Yes, Google Translate has made no sense here. I wonder why people give their answers pretending they know the language while they actually use GT. It would always take very little time for a native speaker to see the mistake. GT is a hardly useful and reliable tool for providing an expert answer. Better to wait for a person who actually knows the language than to put yourself in a ridiculous situation. In fact, GT here just put the translation for "traffic" into the genitive case as the word comes first, then translated the second word using an absolutely unrelated meaning, that is a baton for a relay race, in addition putting it into the dative case. The final result is a joke.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:02, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not really the same, but there's the rather more benign British Lollipop Lady (or Man). Alansplodge (talk) 13:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Wymspen: The thing is officially called (according to the GOST "Р 51567-2000") жезл регулировщика, that is literally "traffic-controller's baton". Colloquially it may be called as a militiaman's (or now policeman's) baton/stick/club (Russian жезл/палка/дубинка). Next time do not rely on Google Translate while you provide an answer, especially if you do not know the language at all, as your Russian "translation" sounds absolutely ridiculous.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Russian came directly from a Russian language website - eg https://ru.pinterest.com/pin/291819250827621095/ - and I only checked the translation into English. Wymspen (talk) 10:22, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Wymspen: Pinterest is hardly a Russian website. Actually, the link you provided gives a page from a Chinese trade site which obviously translates the descriptions of its goods using Google Translate. And by the way, the site lists a red baton which is not used by the Russian police.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 13:57, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a bit of background: as Wymspen said, UK police do not and never have used such an implement. They also nowadays do not direct traffic (except in an emergency situation such as a road crash), but decades ago when they did at certain large city intersections, they instead wore white gloves or gauntlets to make their arm/hand signals more visible. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.241 (talk) 19:12, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed: see this page from a 1950s edition of the UK Highways Code. Alansplodge (talk) 16:23, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
From Russian sources it is known that such striped batons were introduced in the Soviet Union in 1939. I do not know if they borrowed it from somewhere or invented themselves. The Soviet Union had not enough traffic lights so they employed police traffic controllers, especially on busy streets where the manual control of the traffic might be preferable. The Soviet/Russian version of traffic code has had even a special chapter of how to interpret controller's gestures.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:28, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps they use such a thing and have a designation for it in some other English-speaking country... Outside anglosphere, in Czech, the formal term is směrovka, which means roughly "direction-thing" (derived from směr: "direction", "heading"). NB the same word směrovka is also used for multiple other things that serve for directional indication or change (arrow sign in trail blazing, aircraft rudder etc.). There is also an informal term among police officers themselves - regulovka, which, as I guess, comes via military slang, that was under heavy Russian influence in 1950s-1980s (the corresponding word for the military/police person who momentarily directs traffic by such means is regulovčík). Czech Road Law contains a section on manual traffic control by a police officer. which calls this kind of baton směrovka and for its holder use more general term policista ("policeman"), i. e. regulovčík doesn't appear there as a legal term, although in less formal context it is fairly common. Anyway, as said above, in reality you encounter them only exceptionally (as this news article in cs: points out - many drivers, upon such an encounter, appear unsure about or completely unfamiliar with meaning of all those gestures). GCZPN3 (talk) 15:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

January 2

Translations from German

Hello! I am looking for some nice and as classic as possible translations for these German sentences:

  1. Das ist keine inhaltliche Begründung (e. g. after somebody answered the question why he did something particular by saying: "because I can!")
  2. Kaum bin ich ein paar Tage weg [und] schon geht die Welt unter [or: ... schon geht alles den Bach runter].

Finally, I would like to ask whether my introductory sentence is grammatically resp. idiomatically correct English – or do I have to place "as classic as possible" after "translations"?

Since this kind of questions is somewhat difficult to settle with a dictionary – and all dictionaries I consulted did not provide satisfying solutions –, I would be very grateful for your advice,--Hubon (talk) 23:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For #1, I would say "that is not a good reason", which is not literally what the German says, but idiomatic in English. For #2, I would say "I've barely been gone a few days and the world is falling apart". As for your introduction, it sounds very German, since German likes to use a whole string of words as an adjective, so you actually need to re-work the whole sentence to make it sound idiomatic in English - "For these German sentences, I am looking for some nice translations that are as classic as possible". However, "classic" doesn't sound correct there in English. I'm not sure what you mean by "classic" so I can't offer a better word. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:48, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much so far! By "classic" I mean [Is this idiomatic either?] neither slangy nor over-sophisticated, but timeless or standard instead; in this sence it was intended. Another brain teaser that has been on my mind for quite a while by now is:
Der Professor setzt von seinen Studierenden viel voraus (meaning: he assumes that his students have quite a lot of background knowledge) – Would you maybe like to [idiomatic?] also help me with that one?
Sorry for asking so much, but, as you see, I'm not a native speaker... (For the underlined phrases or any other part you may comment right in my post if you like!) Best--Hubon (talk) 01:45, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Since you asked,"this" (in your initial post) is singular, but you've paired it with "kind of questions", which is plural. It's a very common mistake among English learners. Where you've used 'classic' above to describe the style of translation, I might use 'formal', but since formal translation has a technical meaning, perhaps 'proper' would be better. The sentence "Would you maybe like to also help me with that one?" is idiomatic, but slightly verbose and, well, formal sounding, but perfectly acceptable, especially when requesting assistance (when English speakers are asking for a favour, they often beat around the bush (second sense) instead of approaching it directly. Matt Deres (talk) 03:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Surely "kind of questions" is singular, since "kind" is the main noun here - though it should be "kind of question", since "kind of" takes the singular. MChesterMC (talk) 10:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You are, of course, correct. Thank you. That's what I get for editing while sleepy. Matt Deres (talk) 14:37, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also: "The professor expects a lot from his students" (which translates the German, but not the clarification). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

January 3

the meaning of "play a straight hand"

Would you please teach me the meaning of "play a straight hand" in the following passage. He was the nearest thing to an independent in Itarian politics; in negotiation he always played a straight hanad; he could be relied upon to keep his word as he did over the stationing of Cruise missiles in Italy. ---Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, p.83153.178.118.63 (talk)dengen

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