Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 April 3

= April 3 =

Twelfth Night
In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, where Malvolio is trapped in a dark room, Feste, the fool, disguises himself as Sir Topas, the curate, to scare the "hyperbolical fiend" out of Malvolio. What's the point of Feste dressing up if Malvolio sees nothing but darkness? Thanks very much for responding. Mayfare 02:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * More for comic effect, and the amusement of the audience, than to fool Malvolio, I would imagine. But the man you really have to ask has been dead for four hundred years! Clio the Muse 05:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Latin question
Does anybody know the what the vowel lengths (in other words, the stress) would be for the Latin names Henricus and Ludovicus? With Henricus, for example, Italian Enrico suggests that it would be Hĕnrīcŭs, but German Heinrich suggests that it would be Hĕnrĭcŭs. --Lazar Taxon 02:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that people were always paying strict attention to the classical Latin penultimate-if-heavy stress rule by the time those names came into common use in medieval Latin, since a sytematic phonemic long-short vowel opposition no longer existed in the vernacular speech of the great majority of Romance-language speakers. I know that one pronunciation of Latin used for teaching purposes in modern France completely ignores the penultimate-if-heavy stress rule.  However, the penultimate vowels in those two words were probably originally long in early Germanic... AnonMoos 03:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Both in -īcus. Italian pronunciation is a pretty reliable guide; German isn't, because the language would tend to shift the stress back on the first syllable anyway (though, in this case, the fact that Heinrich is a Germanic name, not an import from Latin, is more relevant to its history in German!).  Wareh 03:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * In singing latin, I believe (weakly) that you sing either italian or german style. Polypipe Wrangler 11:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

TRANSLATION OF LATIN INTO DUTCH
Dear, I am searching for the translation of an old latin " STULTITIAM ODI " into Dutch. thanks a lot —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.224.39.207 (talk) 02:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC).


 * In English, it would be "I hate stupidity". AnonMoos 03:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Although the author of the slogan may have had the meaning of "stupidity" in mind, perhaps "folly" or "foolishness" is closer to the meaning in classical Latin, as in Laus Stultitiae. Babel Fish translates I hate folly into Ik haat dwaasheid. The Dutch Wikipedia suggests the alternative translation zotheid. The word stupidity is translated by Babel Fish as stompzinnigheid.  --Lambiam Talk  07:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

One of many reasons I like language: In Dutch, the word stupidity translates to what sounds like, to englishperson's ears, stomps in the head. And that's just perfect. Jfarber 15:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually it would the syllables are stomp-zin-nig-heid and not stompz-inn-i-gheid. So it is quite unlike stomps in the head. C mon 18:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It would be "ik haat stompzinnigheid (or) zotheid (or) domheid (or) dwaasheid (or) gekte" pick one, they mean slightly different things. C mon 12:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

'Yat'?
Hi - I'm reading Martin Amis's The Information, in which he has Black Londoners using the word yat. Can anyone tell me what it means?

Thanks,

12:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * a quick look on the urban dictionary gives three meanings. 1. New Orleans native. From the local greeting, "Where ya at."  2. A Female "Young Ass Teen" 3. A Australian Word coming from the words Yuck and Chat used to put emphasis on something gross or disgusting.  ... So the meaning would depend on the context, though I would lean toward definition 2, given that that definitions 1 and 3 are from other parts of the world. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Czmtzc (talk • contribs) 12:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

The Guillotine
Why wasn't the guillotine named the 'guillotin'? Why is the extra 'e' added? 66.213.29.242 13:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In other words it was invented by Dr Guillotin but they added an e to the end. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Czmtzc (talk • contribs) 13:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Why did they add an 'e'? Who is 'they'? Was the name changed because of the French language rule of translating a person's name to a thing? Or was it because 'Guillotine' helped English speakers pronounce 'Guillotin' correctly? 66.213.29.242 13:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The French article on Dr Guillotin spells the device with an extra E on the end. So this is not due to translation to English since I will assume that the French writers of the article know the difference.  There must be some rule in French.  The answer to the original question would be a definition of this mysterious French spelling rule. I was trying to clarify the question in my previuos post.-Czmtzc 14:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This is just a guess, but maybe the extra e has something to do with guillotine being a feminine noun? The French Guillotine article starts with La guillotine. This is another guess, but maybe it started with la Guillotine machine, since machine is feminine as well. --Kjoonlee 18:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Checking the page fr:Liste d'anthroponymes devenus noms communs, there are also Micheline from Michelin, and praline (previously prasline) from maréchal de Plessis-Praslin; and in French but not English fr:rustine from fr:Louis Rustin. Rather different is nicotine from Jean Nicot.  However, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin gave us the savarin pastry, with no e; likewise fr:Sébastien Bottin's directory is the Bottin.  There may be something to Kjoon's masculine/feminine theory.  Then again, the guillotine was earlier called Louisette or Louison after fr:Antoine Louis, a colleague of Dr Guillotin. jnestorius(talk) 21:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Clio the Muse has found the answer one theory, in answer to a related question on the Humanities page here - 4th post down. JackofOz 01:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I like Jnestorius' information here better; the problem with the "English poet" theory is that you have to suppose the French (re)imported the (now current French) form guillotine from English, something that dodgy page Clio found doesn't seem bold enough to claim. Wareh 03:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In Search of History (History Channel), Yeoman Warder Geoffrey Abbot claimed the 'e' (feminine) was added because its popular name was the widow-maker.

"Schilsted"
I was reading the Wikipedia article on Portuguese wine, and under the subsection "Port Wine and Douro wines" the first sentence is "The Port Wine vineyards grow in schilsted soil, with a particular climate and a particular vinification method, this wine is very particular and it is known worldwide." I try to look up all new words I find when reading, but I have been unable to figure out the definition of "Schilsted". Both Google and OED didn't help much. Does anyone know where I might be able to find the meaning?--Zippyt 14:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps this is a typo, and the intended word was schisted -- meaning heavy in Schist or seeded with schist.   I imagine that the presence of schist in soil would affect vineyard production.   (Note: I wouldn't assume a typo so easily if the sentence you cite did not suffer from a few other problems as well...) Jfarber 14:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You are right! I followed the links at the bottom of the page and indeed they do reference "schist" in the soil. Thanks!--Zippyt 04:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Sexual euphemisms.
Does anyone know any commonly used euphemisms for the female orgasm apart from 'the Big O'. There seem to be lots for male ejaculation (Busting a nut, etc) but I am struggling for the girls equivalent. Thanks. 85.211.204.138 16:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Pick up a Harlequin Romance novel or some other bodice ripper, I'm sure they are full of such terms. StuRat 16:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The big 'O' isn't just to describe female orgasms. 'Le petit mort' is also a generic term for orgasm, but it is seldom used in reference to men. Anchoress 21:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Really? I have only heard this term used in reference to men. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you remember where? Anchoress 22:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, it was The Multi-Orgasmic Man by Mantak Chia and Douglas Abrams. However, I would say the author reiterated the idea of le petit mort into his own terms. I found the phrase in question: "In China, however, doctors long ago saw what the French call le petit mort—'the little death' of ejaculation—as an unavoidable betrayal of male pleasure and a dangerous depletion of male virility." It does not suggest, as I had previously thought, that the French meant the term to be exclusive to men. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Any other places? Anchoress 11:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Pronouncing Hiroshima
What is the correct way to pronounce Hiroshima? I've heard a number of varients and I don't know which one is more correct than the other. If you provide it in IPA, please try and provide it in a way that people not familiar with IPA will also understand, as I find Wikipedia's IPA pages hard to follow for practical purposes. i.e., is it Hee-roe-shee-ma, or Heroash-eema, or something else? --140.247.243.111 16:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The two you've listed are the only two I've heard. StuRat 16:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The correct syllabification (with a rough phonetic transcription into American English) is hee-roe-shee-maa. According to Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary, the preferred pronunciation is with the stress on the third syllable.  There is an alternative pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable.  Japanese does not have stress in the same way that English does.  In Japanese, all four syllables would receive roughly equal stress, so that is no help in choosing between the two English stress patterns.  Marco polo 17:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the Japanese pronounce it more like "Hee-ROASH-ma", with the stress on the second mora and the "i" of "shi" elided, in the same way that Matsushita is pronounced "Ma-TSU-shta". "Heero-SHEE-muh" strikes me as an Anglicized pronunciation, although it's much more common in my experience. "Huh-ROASH-uh-muh" is how I generally pronounce it, and I hear a lot of English-speakers pronounce it similarly. Bhumiya (said/done) 17:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Bhumiya, it may sound to English ears as if the second syllable is stressed, but in Japanese all syllables have equal stress. I think that you are right that the vowel in the mora "shi" is not strongly pronounced, but the consonant [ʃ]  ("sh") is then pronounced with compensatory volume.  To the Japanese, this is a completely separate syllable from the preceding "ro", but to English ears (listening for a nonexistent stressed syllable), it may sound as though there is a syllable "rosh" that receives double the emphasis and is pronounced for twice as long as the other syllables.  No matter how you pronounce it using English phonotactics, the word will sound foreign to Japanese ears.  For that reason, I think that the choice between the English stress patterns is a toss up, with perhaps a slight advantage for the pronunciation that is conventionally preferred, if your goal is to maximize comprehension for an English-speaking audience.  Marco polo 18:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Marco. (Hope you don't mind if I use the familiar). My (admittedly limited) interpretation of the Japanese pronunciation is the same - no inflection, therefore no stress. Spoken, some sylables are perhaps elongated (drawn out), but never stressed in the European sense. Arigato gozai-mas, sensei. Esseh 07:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Spanish: "the most"
In Spanish, how would you say something like, "the subject that I've studied the most", or "the one that I like the most?" --Lazar Taxon 19:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The word to use in these cases is más. For example,  "la materia que he más estudiado", or "el que me más gusta".  Marco polo 19:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Or, in correct word order, "la materia que más he estudiado" or "el que más me gusta" :)--RiseRover|talk 19:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, RiseRover. :) Marco polo 19:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * But the song "Me Gustan Todas" uses "Pero esa rubia, me gusta más". Is that just a poetic affectation, or would that be a more correct word order?  Corvus cornix 19:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * "Pero esa rubia me gusta más" would translate as "But I like that blonde better" (not "the most"). The superlative would be, "Pero esa rubia es la que más me gusta".--RiseRover|talk 07:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Corvus cornix 20:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)