Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 June 21

= June 21 =

"Hesher" definitions gone--what happened to them?
On a previous visit to Wikipedia (many months ago) I was looking for information on the term "Hesher". I found many insightful definitions. I returned today, and the only reference is to a Nickleback album. Can the "good" (useful) definitions be brought back?


 * The version of the Hesher article before the rampant deletion is here: . It does appear to need some reformatting before being put back, would you be willing to do this ? StuRat 05:21, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Regular allophonic pair in English
Many years ago (ca. 1980) I asked my linguistics professor about a pattern I'd detected and she didn't even nibble. Question 1 is, how widespread is the following allophonic rule (my intuition as a native speaker is that it extends much beyond my own Mid-Atlantic idiolect!)? is rendered as before voiced consonants, but as  before unvoiced. Just some of the many minimal pairs of words for which the pattern holds:

(bride, bright), (five, fife), (spies, spice), (tribe, tripe)

Question 2: is there a tidy causal explanation in terms of minimal effort in pronunciation?

Sorry if this is widely known and I shoulda found it already on Wikipedia!

PaulTanenbaum 03:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Some of this may be discussed at Canadian raising (a bit of misnomer since the phenomenon isn't restricted to Canada). A Wikipedian from Wisconsin told me once that for him hide (noun, "skin") and hide verb are minimal pairs: one has and the other . —Angr 04:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Lick ...
Lick the dog. What does this phrase mean? I saw this phrase as an advice to someone who needed to get rid of drowsiness. But couldn't understand it. Sorry, if it is vulgar. I don't understand it. Desaparecidosdo 04:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Could it have been meant in a literal sense, like "take a cold shower" would also not mean something else? --Lambiam Talk  08:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Could this be a variation of “the hair of the dog that bit you”? The classic example is to drink beer to get rid of a hangover. The problem is that if applied to drowsiness the recommendation would be to sleep it off.  That makes little sense. David D. (Talk) 08:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Someone here had the same question. Perhaps it is the same person.  The only answer was a variation on David D. (Talk)'s "hair of the dog". Bielle 22:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Could this "lick" mean "beat" or "flog" as in the old question: "What is the difference between a stamp and an ass?... One you stick with a lick, the other you lick with a stick." CJLippert 18:28, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

That's too bad/What a shame
A colleague of mine (a non-native speaker of English) asked me if there was a difference between the usage of the phrases "that's too bad" and "what a shame". I couldn't really think of one, though. I told him that these two are more commonly used when someone tells you that something bad but not too serious has happened to them. "My car broke down today" or "I didn't get that promotion." In contrast, "my sympathies" or "my condolences" would be used in more serious situations: "My mother died" or "I've been diagnosed with cancer."

Do y'all agree or disagree? How would you distinguish the usage of "that's too bad" and "what a shame"? Is there a distinction? — Brian ( talk ) 04:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * "You have my condolences" is the stock phrase used when a person beloved to the addressee has died, and is therefore associated with death; for that reason I'd hesitate to use it in connection with serious illness. I'd further only use it either with people I don't personally know well, or in the context of a longer letter of condolence. "My sympathies" does not have an equally strong association with death, but is still rather impersonal if that is all that is said in response to learning something serious happened to the other person. You can always safely use "I'm sorry to hear that". I agree that the phrases "that's too bad" and "what a shame" are mainly used when the issue is not too personally serious, but perhaps that is largely due to the very informal and loose tone of these phrases, while a serious grief or loss is felt to call for a more formal register. I also agree they are almost interchangeable, but "that's too bad" includes the personal feelings while "what a shame" applies more to the situation itself; the latter suggests to me more than the former that there's nothing one can do about it, like when a favourite object was lost. --Lambiam Talk  07:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * To me 'that's too bad' has a distinctly American ring. It is used in Britain, but I think 'what a shame' or 'what a pity' is much more common. --ColinFine 23:31, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * To me, "that's too bad" carries the implication "(for you)"; that is, I'm noting that the situation is negative from your perspective. "What a shame" or "it's a shame" or "that's a shame" implies that I personally think the situation is bad. If George W. Bush were for some reason in my kitchen and said "I'm really bummed that I can't run for election to a third term", I might say out of politeness "that's too bad", but would never ever say "what a shame". Tesseran 23:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * In my experience, "What a shame" carries an added element of reaction to a perceived injustice or unfairness, often personal. "My car broke down" is simply impersonal fate and so would elicit a "That's too bad", whereas "I didn't get the promotion" would yield a "What a shame", or perhaps further, "What a shame - you worked so hard for it." Pushnell 03:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Identifing an accent
Can someone tell me where the narator of this YouTube video is most likely from? I've never heard this particular accent before. Dismas |(talk) 12:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It doesn't sound like a native English speaker, but some pronunciation is General American, suggesting that the speaker has spent a substantial time in North America. — Gareth Hughes 12:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds Quebecois to me. СПУТНИК CCC  P 14:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The narrator is from Romania.
 * It definitely sounds like an Eastern European who's learned American English. —Angr 17:16, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It is definitely Romanian. What does Eastern European mean? Slavic? Hungarian? Romanian? These languages have nothing to do with each other.


 * Well, Romanian may not be classified as a Slavic language, but it does have Slavic as well as Latin origins. --  JackofOz 22:07, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It doesn't have Slavic origins, but it does have Slavic loanwords. However, that isn't the point. Regardless of how different Romanian and Hungarian are from the Slavic languages and each other, the accents of their speakers when using English sound similar (to my ears at any rate). —Angr 22:33, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * See sprachbund.--Pharos 03:03, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I was surprised to hear it is actually a person. Usually an accent like that reflects computer-generated speech. Edison 22:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Names of Latin letters in Greek language
I know the English names for the Greek letters (alpha, beta, gamma, etc.).

What are the Greek names for the Latin letters (A, B, C, D, etc.)?


 * If you are referring to classical Greek, I don't think they had any, since Latin is a later language than Greek, and I don't know if the conquered Greeks made separate names for the Latin letters (from Etruscan). I suspect they just called A alpha, or they called the letters by their Latin names, which according to Latin alphabet were essentially the same as today. I'm afraid I can't help for modern Greek, and the Greek wikipedia gives nothing useful, as far as I can see. СПУТНИК CCC  P 14:33, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Greek Wikiepdia isn't very helpful, as СПУТНИК said. For example, el:A simply says: "Το γράμμα A είναι το πρώτο γράμμα του Λατινικού αλφαβήτου." ("The letter A is the first letter of the Latin alphabet"), without a pronunciation. el:Λατινικό αλφάβητο (Latin alphabet) doesn't give pronunciations either.

This page has a section called "ΛΑΤΙΝΙΚΟ ΑΛΦΑΒΗΤΟ" (Latin Alphabet), that looks like it may be the Greek pronuniciations for the Latin letters. These seem to be pretty tied to the Latin language itself; "Y" is "ί γκραίκουμ" ("i graecum") and "V" and "W" have the same text ("βε"). It also has a section with the equivalent of the British letter names "ΑΓΓΛΙΚΟ ΑΛΦΑΒΗΤΟ" ("English Alphabet").

You'd probably have to find someone that actually knows Modern Greek to be certain, but I think part of the problem is that letters in the Latin alphabet have very minimal names (except "W" and "Z"). For the most part, their names in the languages I'm familiar with are pretty close to their pronunciations (allowing for the per-language constraints of phonotactics). In Greek, the names are actually native letter names, e.g. the letter "α" is actually called "ἄλφα" while it is pronounced. Mike Dillon 18:11, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

What does "walk-down" mean?
Hello. On several occasions I've encountered the expression 'a walk-down bar' in reference to a bar/restaurant. I tried to find a definition or an explanation of this expressiom, but count not find anything.

Thanks in advance!


 * It means you would enter it by going down a set of steps. Recury 16:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The expression tends to mean a bar that is a half-storey or less "below ground", in what would be called a "raised basement" in a North American residence. You can usually see through the bar's front window looking down from street level. New York is full of them, as are areas of Boston, Montreal and Toronto. Bielle 05:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)


 * In a residence, I would call that a split level, tri-level, or quad-level, depending on the number of floors. StuRat 14:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Cheershotclaws 08:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

What's a motto with you?
Hi. During the song Hakuna Matata Timon makes a lame pun: Pumba: What's a motto? Timon: Nothing. What's a motto with you?

I'm curious how this pun was translated in to Mandarin. [] Anyone know? Thanks --Duomillia 16:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't get the pun but it sounds like Simba asks what's a motto? And Timon answers who cares, as long as we're with you. --Wirbelwind ヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 18:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It's a pretty bad pun on "matter" ("what's the matter with you"), based on the non-rhotic New York accent or whatever they were going for with those characters. Though of course I have no idea how this was rendered in Mandarin or any other language! Adam Bishop 19:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * No no, what I posted was the Mandarin rendition. --Wirbelwind ヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh! Sorry. Adam Bishop 23:40, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

No punning is involved in the Mandarin version, lame or not lame. "Hakuna Matata?" "That's our motto." (这是我们的座右铭. ) "What's a motto?" (什么是座右铭？) "Never mind! Just say it as we do." (管它呢!跟著念就成了. ) Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Yea, I wasn't sure if I heard correctly, since I speak Taiwan's Mandarin, so the accents are really heavy to me. But that still clears up that there's no pun. --Wirbelwind ヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 02:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)