Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 October 30

= October 30 =

Schweinfurt and Swinford
Etymologically, are these two toponyms related? Something to do with pigs and a river ford, perhaps? 211.30.58.79 05:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say you're right on both counts. Both places were probably originally places where swineherds could safely lead their herds across a river. Note that Swinford's Irish name, Béal Átha na Muice, means "mouth of the ford of the pig". —Angr 06:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Schweinfurt's web page claims the reference could also be topographic, rather than animalic; the name might have originally meant "fort in the swamp", derived from Old Frankish swin meaning swamp. But swin can also mean swine in Old High German. The article on German Wikipedia goes with the porcine etymology, and says the name changed from "Suinuurde" to "Suinfurte" > "Swinvordi" > "Sweinvort" > "Sweinfurt" > "Schweinfurt". The Latin name Porcivadum corresponds to the meaning of a "fort accessible to pigs", a "fort, where (wild) boar can be found", according to the German article. No references are provided for either interpretation. ---Sluzzelin  talk  15:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

TURNPIKE ~ origin of the word
What is the origin of the word turnpike, today applied to a toll road or other thoroughfare?

I am familiar with the term "pike", being a particularly long, weapon featuring a plain staff (hence the old saying "as plain as a pike staff"). A blade was fixed to one end to complete a fearsome weapon, much favoured by the scots in battle. The word "turn" is commonly known. Put the two together and you get turnpike. But why did it become applied to a toll road?

I know that a "bar", generally formed from a substantial, straight sapling, was typically used to form the barrier across the road to compel road users to stop and permit the tollkeeper to collect the revenues. These, I believe, were generally pivoted horizontally and fitted with a counter weight, to enable the bar to be easily displaced upwards from its' position across the highway, but is this why the term "turn" was used? Was there sometimes a bar which was mounted or suspended in some other manner and moved horizontally off the highway, more easily perceived as "a turn", rather than a lifting motion, which might explain the application of the name, turnpike?

Perhaps the word "turn" refers to a traveller's requirement to turn and retrace his or her path if the toll charges were not met? The thought arises that the term "pike" may be attributed to the straight nature of the highway, since they were frequently developed by private capital in the past and would have been built as short as practicable and thus straight.

This question first came to mind many years past when travelling as a boy to Manchester and passing a place, still known today, as "Trafford Bar". I learned much later in life that it had been the site of a toll gate. The term has recently been encountered in some text I am reading, so I tried Wikipedia for an answer. I'm still looking for that answer. 90.207.13.167 14:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The OED gives the original meaning as "A spiked barrier fixed in or across a road or passage, as a defence against sudden attack, esp. of men on horseback", which later became "A horizontal cross of timber turning on a vertical pin, set up to exclude horse-traffic from a foot-way: a turnstile" and finally "A barrier (orig. of the nature of a turnpike in sense 2, later a gate or gates) placed across a road to stop passage till the toll is paid; a toll-gate" before just meaning a toll-road. Thus it appears that the turn- was originally because it turned back attackers and the pike because it was spiky (pike originally meaning a spike, before being applied to a specific spiked weapon). Note for future reference that the OED is freely available to members of UK libraries. Algebraist 14:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact, most large libraries in English-speaking countries will have a reference copy of the OED available, printed out in hard copy. (Lookup speed suffers, of course.) Tesseran 15:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * They tend to be out of date compared to the online version, too. Algebraist 15:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The article Turnpike trust may be worth a glance. 86.21.74.40 00:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Estonian Translator
Can anyone help me find an Estonian-English translator? I dont mean a Dictionary or paying someone to translate but a machine. Joneleth 18:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * How about an online translator tool? 86.21.74.40 00:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Thats not a translator thats another dictionary. Joneleth 22:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Dickens and English vowels
So I am waaaaaay into Bleak House right about now. It is quite clear to me that he of the wackily, appropriately named characters was trying making a ham-fisted pun on the word jaundice when he named the plot's central focus the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit. Here's my question are "jaundice" and "Jarndyce" exact homophones in most dialects of British English? Or do they just sound similar? I know there are certain pairs of "a" vowels that Americans do not differentiate but that Brits pronounce completely differently. --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 23:57, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * They are not homophones in any dialect of British English that I have ever encountered. The "jar" in Jarndyce rhymes with the "jar" outside of jam, and the "jaun" in jaundice rhymes with the "lawn" in front of the house. I can't write in IPA. DuncanHill 00:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I can never keep those vowels straight.  If someone could point me to the relevant IPA symbols, that would be awesome (not ah-some).--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 00:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I've always pronounced both the "dyce" in Jarndyce and the "dice" in jaundice to rhyme with the "Diss" in Norfolk, but I have sometimes heard Jarndyce rhymed with the "dice" in Las Vegas. Dickens's names are fascinating. DuncanHill 00:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I've been running around with an audiobook version spoken by an excellent English actor; he pronounces "Jarndyce" exactly as a American Midwesterner might pronounce "jaundice." Though they bring a smile to my fat face, I find Dickens' names a little over the top and, as I implied above, sometimes cringingly obvious.  Critics say Pynchon and Borges inherited the mantle of playful, punny, suggestive names.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 00:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * IPA: Jarndyce= Jaundice=. The r in Jarndyce is optional. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

RE: the vowels, see Cot-caught merger. Re: apropos names, Dickens is himself being retro: see many eighteenth century novels (Humphry Clinker, Tristram Shandy), or the older and not-at-all-subtle The Pilgrim's Progress, which is more directly hat-tipped by Vanity Fair, written in Dickens' times. jnestorius(talk) 10:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)