Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 November 16

= November 16 =

Who can read the (Chinese?) writing on this coin


Here's a mystery coin, both sides pictured, I'd like to know what it is. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The coin on the right-hand side has four Chinese characters on it: 光緒通寶 (pinyin: guāngxù tōngbǎo), which means "coins issued during the reign of Guangxu". Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's just one coin. The left picture is the other side. (I pasted 2 separate images together.) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 03:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * That one contains Manchu letters, not Chinese characters. They represent the name of the mint. I'm not familiar with the alphabet, but you can match the letters here.--K.C. Tang 04:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Linguistic term needed
What is it called when a word's meaning shifts to something in a similar location? I.e. the word 'stomach' orginally meant "mouth" in Greek, then "throat," then finally "Stomach." I heard the word metronym but I don't think it's the correct term. 130.126.67.144 09:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 * See semantic change. The term metonym is sometimes used, without the -r-. The word metronym would mean the same as matronymic: name based on mother's name. Bessel Dekker 13:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As a coined term, metronym could also be the name of a unit of measure ("Inch, pound, centimeter, and kilogram are all metronyms.") —Angr 13:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 * All depends on wheher it's spelled with an eta or an epsilon! AnonMoos (talk) 05:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * All right, but that looks like taking a word form that has a well-established meaning and attempting to give it another meaning altogether. Similarly, we might try to decide that from now on, patronym shall be the name of a shepherd. I wonder whether this would be an improvement of the English (or even the Greek) language. Bessel Dekker (talk) 17:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

looking for the word that means: "to black out certain information in a report or transcript"
It sounds like "ENDACTED: but I can't think of the word exactly. As in ... "The report was released by the government but certain names were ENDACTED"


 * Redacted? —Angr 17:03, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * That's it. - EronTalk 17:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * FYI, searching for "" says "redacted" in the first page of results. --Sean 15:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Japanese album title
Can anyone translate (or transliterate) this? It's the title of an album by the Japanese band Noirouze.

病ヨリノ使者 -- Malcolm Starkey (talk) 18:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Er, "messenger from sickness", I guess? Maybe it's a pun on 闇よりの使者 ("messenger from the darkness" -- not that I know what that means, but it sounds more like something someone might say). They both romanize to "yami yori no shisha". By the way, "noirouze" means "neurosis" (from German "Neurose", I think). -- BenRG (talk) 20:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that, BenRG. Malcolm Starkey (talk) 09:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * When romanized 病ヨリノ使者, it should be yamai yori no shisha. Yami reading is only possible when with other kanji before it and み behind it. Like 気病み, 目病み. Just 病 is read only as yamai. Translation is right as User BenRG wrote above. But I think it's not a pun.Oda Mari (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2007 (UTC)