Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 February 4

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February 4

espanol translation

how do you say "my favourite band are the shins" in spanish? thanks 218.186.9.3 05:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me guess, "Mi favorito banda es los shins." it should be "is" not "are."

In British English, it is the norm to use a plural verb with a collective group. In American usage, the singular "is" is correct. As a Canadian, I think both sound fine. --Paul D.

"Banda" is feminine, and the adjective usually comes after the noun. So I think "Mi banda favorita es los shins." would be better. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about "los", perhaps "the" would be considered part of the band name, perhaps "mi grupo favorito es "The Shins" ". 惑乱 分からん 12:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Google is often useful in resolving questions such as this one: "son los": 48 hits, "son the": 1 hit, "es los": 8 hits, "es the": 30 hits.

Btw, mi banda favorita son los Beatles. :-) --NorwegianBlue ^talk 14:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Whilst this might be a little off-kilter, could someone also tell me what "I like the smell of fresh grass in the morning" is in Spanish as well? 218.186.8.12 14:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Me gusto el olor de hierba segado recientemente por la mañana? I'm afraid my Spanish is rather scrappy. Laïka 17:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

"Me gusta ...". --62.16.173.45 21:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Me gusta el olor de napalma por mañana. 惑乱 分からん 23:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Please to be answering this question

What's the origin of the construct "Please to be"? Vitriol 05:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

That's not the normal way "please" is used. It sounds more to me like a pidgin expression, or a foreigner's mistake. Correct English would be "would it please you to be" or just "please be". --Paul D.

That's the point, it's not the way 'please' is used. I was just wondering why people, on the Internets especially, use it. Vitriol 14:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a number of native speakers do use "please to be" nowadays, at least on the internet (see [1] for examples). I have no idea why — maybe it started as a jocular imitation of a foreigner's mistake. --Ptcamn 14:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

That reminds me of how Pitr speaks in User Friendly. Maybe it's fake Slavic? --Kjoonlee 17:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It's obviously just an incorrect spelling of "pleased to be". The "d" isn't pronounced clearly as it merges with the "t", so a not-so-well-educated native speaker may not realize the original meaning of "to be pleased". The same thing has happened to "used to be", where many native speakers will insist that "use to be" is correct, or even that "used to be" sounds awkward!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Except it obviously isn't if you look it up on Google. Vitriol 14:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see - in that sense the phrase is used light heartedly (jokingly) mimicking (typically) the poor english of immigrants to the UK such as south asians. eg ("please to be sitting downs whilst you are waiting for your meals" etc).87.102.8.103 16:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

In other english speaking countries it may be associated with the poor english of other immigrant populations.87.102.8.103 16:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively it could be an attempt to modify phrasing when being polite.87.102.8.103 16:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

similar changes include "is often getting" instead of "often gets" etc etc

In the UK this type of phrasing is/used to be associated with the perjorative paki - ie that's how TV pakis talk.87.102.8.103 16:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I would imagine that it's non-English grammar used by someone whose first language is not English. Some languages avoid the use of the imperative mood in polite situations and replace it with a non-finite verb. The phrase to be answering is a progressive infinitive in English, which might be used as equivalent to the grammatical form in other languages. I think Hindi might have this feature. — Gareth Hughes 16:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

(continued) for instance "please sit down" could be replaced by "please to be sitting down", "please sitting downs", "please be sittings" etc etc. I can first recall such usage in TV comedies such as the Two Ronnies in the 1970's - if this goes further back - I don't know. You could describe it as 'cruel' parody of polite behaviour. For east europeans similar grammatical errors would be described eg 'please is sitting down' for a russian visitor to england in a comedy sketch of that time.87.102.8.103 17:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Clauses without a subject or verb?

Can there be a clause without a subject or a verb, as in "After getting her salary, she went to the mall."? The group of words "After getting her salary" does not have a subject. Is it even a clause anyway?Carlrichard 13:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You could call it a non-finite clause or an prepositional phrase. — Gareth Hughes 13:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• These kind of clauses annoy me immensely. I prefer the phrase "After she got her salary,...". In this context "getting" simply doesn't sound natural. -- Mgm|^(talk) 11:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Cogito ergo sum

Could someone tell me how to say I type therefore I am in Latin in the format of cogito ergo sum? Thanks. Computerjoe's talk 13:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

There's no "real" Latin word for type, since Latin had largely gone out of fashion by the time typewriters and computers were invented. It's possible that some modern Latin writer has coined a word for it, but it wouldn't have much currency.

The closest you can get is probably scribo ergo sum, "I write therefore I am". --Ptcamn 14:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking that considering it's a dead language there'd be no word. Thanks. Computerjoe's talk 15:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You might want dactylographo, to back-latinise a Greek compound from a French noun and make it a verb! But this is rather silly. — Gareth Hughes 16:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's not entirely silly. The Vatican still maintains a Italian-Latin dictionary with modern terms, the Lexicon Recentis Latinitas (see recent word list), for use in some official documents. They translate "dattilografo" (Italian for typist) as "machínulae scriptóriae peritus". A better Latinist than I could derive exactly what their word for "typing" must be (it wasn't in the online list, which I think may just be the most recent words).--Pharos 17:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Building on that phrase for typist, we could say "machinula scribo, ergo sum" (I write with a writing machine, therefore I am). Wareh 01:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The whole enterprise is silly. Therefore, a silly solution is entirely called for. I vote for dactylographo ergo sum. All of which reminds me of a prayer I saw on a wall of a computer room in a University in Spain to "Santa Tecla" who was named the patron of computer geeks. Tecla is a real, though I guess obscure saint, but more importantly the word tecla means computer or typewriter key in Spanish. The prayer requests her intervention in preventing computer crashes, file corruptions, and hard disk failures of various types. It's really funny. mnewmanqc 17:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

See Acts_of_Paul_and_Thecla for the usual English spelling... AnonMoos 19:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Silly solutions? If you're a computer coder, you could also use Codito ego sum. --Kjoonlee 17:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

What authoritative source did you use to determine Codito as code? The only source I can find that is reliable is the [of Notre Dame's Latin/English Dictionary], which says that the closest match for the word 'code' is a word that means 'codex' and that the work [[2]] doesn't match any Latin words phalacee 01:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I think you will find the same problem with the verb 'code' as you do with the verb 'type'. Neither existed prior to Latin being abandoned.phalacee 01:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Erasmus uses excudo, -ere (lit. "to strike out") to mean "to print", and I think it conveys adequately the idea of hitting keys. I would use (litteras) excudere, but that's just my preference. Excudo, ergo sum.--Siva 22:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

One could also coin an onomatopoeic verb, along the lines of French tapper and German tippen. Tappo, ergo sum?--Siva 01:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Polish lemmatizer

Hello! Is there a free online lemmatizer for Polish? Could someone please help me with the word wątpię? What's the lemma? Which case is it? (The sentence is Wątpię, by wśród 25 osób, powołanych...) TIA, Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 17:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about a Polish lemmatizer, but wątpię is the first person singular present form of the lemma wątpić, a verb meaning "to doubt". This form therefore means "I doubt". Because it is a verbal form, it can't be described in terms of case. This online Polish translator is not bad, although its vocabulary is somewhat limited. From it you can deduce the English lemma of a given form (assuming you know English), and you can then obtain the Polish translation of the English lemma, which will typically be the Polish lemma of the original form. Marco polo 03:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I came across that Web site last week, but I tried using only the dictionary, not the translating system. Judging by the context, I thought wątpię was a noun; that's why I asked about the case. Anyway, thanks again for your input. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 12:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

how errors in english committed by non-english speaker be cosidered as learning tools?

It is said that errors can be useful for a person to understand the English language. How can we proove this?

With examples, of course.

• *How many furnitures does she need?

How is this wrong?

• Furnitures should be furniture; this tells us that English has countable and uncountable nouns.

Finding other examples is left to the reader as an exercise. ;) --Kjoonlee 23:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

There are actually several corpuses (corpora?) made up entirely of compositions by people learning English. Linguists and educators use these to understand how people learn English and what mistakes they make. Some people have been known to pay English teachers for the error-ridden compositions of their students to help compile these corpora. -- Mwalcoff 01:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

See also error analysis. Here are links to Common Errors in English and Common Mistakes and Confusing Words in English. ---Sluzzelin 01:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

"How many furniture" wouldn't work, though, and "How much furniture does she need", although it's grammatical, sounds odd, unless she's in the habit of going out and buying tons of furniture and the speaker is exasperated. Corvus cornix 18:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe "what amount of furniture does she need?" could work? --Candy-Panda 03:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

That's even less standard than "how much furniture". I'd be more likely to say, "Just how many chairs can one person use?" or something like that.  :) Or, if you're not being exasperated, "How many chairs do you need?" The item of furniture should be specified, or it just sounds odd to my ear. Corvus cornix 16:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

If how many furniture "doesn't work" because the corrected version sounds odd too, then you've learned another thing about English. ;) Anyway, *How many waters did she drink? might have been a better example, then. --Kjoonlee 15:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Another interesting category is correct English uttered by non-native speakers that is incorrectly regarded by others as wrong. One example that comes to mind is the use of "outputted" as the past tense of "output." A while ago someone asked if that was correct, and according to the dictionary nearby, at the time, it is. Nevertheless, this usage is not common, perhaps owing to the internal discomfort caused from 'guilt by association' with "put" -> "putted" (which is regarded as "incorrect"). Thus, the whole notion of "errors" perhaps teaches us to be paranoid and prejudicial! *gasp* dr.ef.tymac 17:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

English Grammar

What is the word when you imbue an inanimate object with imagined character or personality, eg. calling a motor car 'Bertha'? I really am going to explode if I don't remember soon. With thanks, CL

Personification or anthropomorphism — Gareth Hughes 22:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Gareth, anthropomorphism would work, but it is not the word I have forgotten. The word I am looking for needs to fit an essay on a Beatrix Potter-type writer, making the point that her 'anthropomorphism of the mice is neither coy nor lightly rendered.' Again, with thanks, CL.

There's also an article on pathetic fallacy, and on prosopopoeia (which can have more than one meaning, according to wiktionary.) ---Sluzzelin 00:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank you very much for your help. The report has been completed and my client will be happy. Thank you to both Sluzzelin and Gareth. CL.

[çj] vs. [ç]

The Roh Moo-hyun article has [çj-], whose [j] surprised me as I don't think any natural language would discriminate between [çj] and simply [ç]. Is it possible to pronounce that? If they cannot be distinguished, is it better to always write [ç] or [çj]? Wikipeditor 23:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a case of /hjʌn/ being pronounced with allophones, which might explain the use of [jʌn]. --Kjoonlee 23:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm not sure whether I've understood your answer. Don't Korean /h/ and /j/ always merge to form [ç] (similar to /s/ and /j/'s merge to [ʃ]/[ɕ]/[insert your favoured IPA symbol here]), as opposed to /h/ alone? Wikipeditor 16:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason why no language can distinguish between [ç] and [çj]. Remember that the latter is a cluster and so takes about twice as long to pronounce. Although the tendency, I'm sure, is to merge the two. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I mix up the sound with [ɕ] (I'm Swedish), but I think I could at least tell the difference between [ɕ] and [ɕj]. 惑乱 分からん 22:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipeditor, it looks like I didn't understand your question properly. ^_^;; --Kjoonlee 14:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't the [ç] (being [ʝ]'s voiceless counterpart) inevitably contain something like [j] which need not be written? I doubt anybody can articulate or perceive a [çj] distinct from [ç]. (If it is supposed to be longer, I'd simply write [çç] or [çː].)
If I failed to make myself clear, nevermind, this is in no way important. Thanks for all answers. Wikipeditor 23:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Trying to find information on a sword

see, sword!

Hi! I've got an old sword. I'd realy like to find out more about our sword. I know a little about it, but we would like to figure out if it would be worth the expence of having it restored. Can anyone around here give me a hand? Thanks, ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice kanji markings, but you have to turn the image upside-down to read them. 惑乱 分からん 01:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

the characters say that the swords were made during the third year of the Bunkyu era, that is, 1863. Hope it helps. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that confirms some earlier research. I'd like to get a full-translation and background information if anyone can assist further. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried to transcribe the texts for you. The one as shown in the left-hand side of the pic: 御用試之節於豊列谷ケ原太々三度土擅拂文久三癸卯年八月吉日 The other: 千秋萬歲台命賜?俸豊列高田正行五代孫中磨六郎左馬門藤信行以地鉄鉓之造之 You can consult those learned in Japanese with these texts. Good luck.--K.C. Tang 04:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

(That's a (very) nice one - but why the holes???)87.102.8.103 11:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

K.C. can I ask you how you managed to enhance the image enough to get all those characters?? I just spent 10 minutes with GIMP and I couldn't get enough detail to be able to read even half of them! I'm guessing 癸卯 should be 癸亥 (which is the 干支 of 文久三年/1863), but I can't get enough detail out of the picture to check!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

That indeed reads 癸卯, perhaps the maker made a mistake? I'm not sure... anyway you can decipher it after downloading the high-re version of the image. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

87, from what I understand the holes are there to attach the handle. From what I've been able to gather katanas like this one tend to have only 1 hole... but two isn't unheard of. It's unfortunate that the holes cut off some of the letters.

Freshgavin, the full-resolution version has a lot more detail then the thumbnail generated by wikipedia. If you check out the "Download high-resolution version (1416x3240, 5499 KB)" link, it will load the high-res version... careful, it's freaking huge. About 5megs. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 15:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

17th century French

1. What disease does rogne translate into? I know its one related to scabies and that it's chronic.
2. Does anyone know the exact translation of orviétan? It either means miracle cure or it is a specific cure.

--The Dark Side 02:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

(1) One definition in French Wiktionnaire is indeed gale invéterée, meaning chronic scabies.

(2) Orviétan was introduced in the late 16th century as a panacea against poisonings with criminal background, as well as against mushroom poisonings, snakebite, scorpion bites, bites by rabid animals and against the plague. It was probably named after a certain Lupi da Orvieto, native from the city of Orvieto, though there is no certain information on this.

Gerolamo Ferranti started producing and selling orviétan in early 17th century Paris. He was a fairground attraction, asking onlookers to give him unknown poisons to swallow which he then cured with his remedy. Other charlatans in the business were Jean Vitrario, Desiderio Descombes, and Cristoforo Contugi. Though most Doctors and pharmacists were skeptical, the reputed medical doctor Johann Schröder published his own recipe in his Pharmacopeia Medico-Chymica in 1655. The first pharmacist to include orviétan in his compendium was Moyse Charas (Pharmacopée Royale Galénique et Chymique, 1676).

Orviétan was a mix of partially toxic herbs, wine and dissolved honey, but existed in powdered form too (sold in lead boxes). Patrizia Catellani and Renzo Console analyzed 35 different recipes for orviétan, published between 1655 and 1857. The number of ingredients varies from 9 to 57. The most frequent 26 ingredients are: Garden Angelica, Healing Wolfsbane, Birthwort, Bistort, Sweet Flag, Carline Thistle, Dittany, Gentian, Masterwort, Black Salsify, Tormentil, Valerian, Blessed Thistle, Dittany of Crete, Rue, Germander, Laurel berries, Juniper berries, cinnamon, cloves, viper meat, Mithridate (another concoction in its own right), Theriac (yet another concoction), white wine, and honey.

Literature: Orviétan is mentioned in Molière's L'Amour médecin (1665), Voltaire's Pot-pourri (1765), and Walter Scott's Kenilworth (1821).

Online sources: L’Orvietano, una Panacea Popolare e Controversa, Orvietan on German Wikipedia . ---Sluzzelin 03:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I just looked up the original text from Kenilworth at the Gutenberg Project:

"I have, sir," replied Wayland; "and with these drugs will I, this very day, compound the true orvietan, that noble medicine which is so seldom found genuine and effective within these realms of Europe, for want of that most rare and precious drug which I got but now from Yoglan." [Orvietan, or Venice treacle, as it was sometimes called, was understood to be a sovereign remedy against poison; and the reader must be contented, for the time he peruses these pages, to hold the same opinion, which was once universally received by the learned as well as the vulgar.]

.... Weeeeell, according to Wikipedia, Venice treacle is a theriac, and not the same thing as orvietan. Who knows? ---Sluzzelin 04:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't put too much stock in Walter Scott's footnote. A good source for the French of this period is Cotgrave's 1611 French-English dictionary. He defines: "rogne, f., scurf, scabbiness, the mange."[3] The term orviétan is not in Cotgrave, which agrees with the fact that Robert says it was first used in French in 1642. My little Larousse dictionary of 17th c. French, for what it's worth, defines it, "A famous medicine, composed of numerous plants, stag's horn, powder of viper, antimony, honey, etc." and cites L'Amour médecin (ARTFL FRANTEXT search, subscr. req., from the XVII c. returns only this play and a couple of passages of Mme de Sevigne's correspondence.) (In the Petit Robert orv. is "drug invented by a charlatan from Orvieto, which was in vogue in the XVII c.") Wareh 01:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Am I correct in saying that Orviétan is a proper noun? --The Dark Side 01:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I would say, no, it's a common noun that takes its name from a place, like frankfurter & hamburger. Wareh 13:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)