Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 June 29

= June 29 =

Thanks, good work on orange
You all might not get many thanks, for all your work, so I thought I'd applaud you for answering my query on whether the color "orange" or the fruit came first *right ont he disambiguation page*. Interesting to see how it was rendered before, the word which would be translated into English "yellow-red." Fascinating.209.244.30.221 (talk) 00:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Language/word pronounciation
How do you pronounce the last name of Composer, Charles Gounod? And in the name "Rogie Clark" does the "g" have a soft sound or a hard sound?

Cozette Spinner —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.243.9.142 (talk) 04:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not too sure about the first one, but I'm fairly certain that the g in Rogie is hard. Paragon12321 (talk) 04:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Gounod is (or goo-noh for the IPA-impaired). —Angr 06:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you mean pronunciation? Paul Davidson (talk) 13:03, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Could the OP have possibly meant anything else? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:22, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

what is the meaning of “make a bomb"?
it is said that it means make a fortune, but why a bomb is a fortune? thank you very much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Good.louis1 (talk • contribs) 15:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe there's an association with "blow up" or "explode". Originally referring to detonations by an actual physical bomb or similar, these verbs are often used to mean make something occupy more space, or get bigger  e.g. when increasing the size of a small section of an image.  --  JackofOz (talk) 23:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

German question
How to translate "The men who hate women" and "The men whom women hate" to German? I keep coming up with Die Männer, die die Frauen hassen for both. Surely this can't be right? J I P | Talk 18:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, I'm afraid it's right. The German phrase is indeed ambiguous between the two meanings, at least in written form. My non-native speaker intuition wants to make a slight intonational difference between them in the spoken language though: "The men who hate the women" is "Die Männer, die die FRAUEN hassen" while "The men whom the women hate" is "Die Männer, die die Frauen HASSEN". —Angr 18:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Having a sequence with three occurrances of "die", twice an article, once a pronoun, is a bit awkward in German and reduces comprehension / legibility as the nominative is identical to the accusative in the plural. However, even if you were to prune it to: "Männer, welche Frauen hassen...", you are left with the same ambiguity / identity of cases.
 * To avoid confusion, it may be better to put the second clause into a passive form, "Männer, welche von Frauen gehasst werden, ..." It may be a bit clumsy, but, at least, it is clear what is meant.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

lorem ipsum
I was just wondering, what is the exact use or this piece of text. Is it used to display where there's going to be a picture? -- DA  PIE EATER   REVIEW ME  21:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you read lorem ipsum and filler text? Algebraist 21:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Klaus Kinski interview
I'd be very grateful if someone could tell me the gist (nothing too detailed is required) of this wonderful interview with the great Klaus Kinski, in which he really goes off on one with the interviewer. Many thanks. --Richardrj talkemail 21:42, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The gist is "How dare you ask me such stupid questions?!" —Angr 22:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * In a nutshell: "As the sun shines brightly out of my ingenious anus, you miserable mortal turds should grovel humbly in your muck and express but hagiographic ecstasy at my divine flatulence."  Mind you, I still remember one of his recitals of Villon / Baudelaire in a small Kellerbühne, somewhere in the early sixties.
 * For all I know, his judgement of his fellow humans was right. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

"Enigma was among the first recording groups to use direct to HD recording studio and non-percussion musical instrument and vocal samples..."
What does "direct to HD recording studio": mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_%28musical_project%29?75.152.131.91 (talk) 22:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * HD = hard disc, i.e. they recorded their music directly onto computer rather than using audio tape. --Richardrj talkemail 22:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)