Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 March 17

= March 17 =

whats mulling mean?
Specifically in this sentence.

"Olympic official: athletes mulling Beijing boycott"

Does it meaning, complaining? considering? anxious? what? The wiktionary is no help. All every dictionary says is see mull. And it means something about windows...seems to need an update.W-i-k-i-l-o-v-e-r-1-7 (talk) 01:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know which dictionaries you've checked, but either chuck them out or you may need to consider getting your eyes tested. My dictionary gives 3 definitions of the verb mull:
 * to ruminate over, especially in an ineffective way; to ponder
 * to make a mess or failure of
 * to heat, sweeten and spice a drink.


 * It's the first definition they're using here. They're thinking about it, but haven't come to a decision yet.  I have no idea what the references to windows is, but I've never heard of such a meaning of "mull".  --  JackofOz (talk) 01:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe you ran across "mullion" looking for "mulling". I like onelook for an online dictionary. "Mull" is headline lingo for "consider"; they use it because it's shorter. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, be aware that "Olympic official: athletes mulling Beijing boycott" is a headline, and consequently written in headline-speak. In normal language, in the sense we're talking about, you don't "mull" something, you "mull over" something.  --  JackofOz (talk) 01:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Mulling can tire, as Sir P. McCartney pointed out after pondering lengthily about a settlement.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Oriental or Asian?
What is the difference between the words Oriental and Asian? I remembered there was a difference, but I forgot what it was. -- MusicalConnoisseur  Got Classical? 01:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * While Asian has a very specific, clear-cut meaning, Oriental is a term of relative connotations whose meaning has changed through time. The article Orient mulls over these differences. Pallida  Mors  03:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Another difference is that it used to be common in English (at least American English) to refer to people of East and Southeast Asian origin as "Orientals", but today that term is considered politically incorrect and "Asians" is preferred. My mother will still describe someone as "an Oriental" when she means he was either Chinese or Japanese, but she doesn't know which. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 05:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Oriental is not only Asian, but also North African, specifically Egyptian. Look at this article: . --Omidinist (talk) 05:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Geographically speaking, the Orient might include the Middle East and Magreb (especially in its contrast with the Occident), or else just East Asia; but it seems that Oriental as an ethnic term is used in the vernacular for mainly East Asians (from Malaysia to Japan, roughly). Paul Davidson (talk) 07:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * To me, the commonplace meaning of oriental is restricted to the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and maybe Mongolians. I don't normally associate Filipinos or Malaysians with the word, though the fact that many of them are ethnic Chinese complicates things a bit. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * "Oriental" means "eastern", and hence is a relative term (east of where, exactly?). This presumes that the speaker is from somewhere west of the "Orient", and regards that as the absolute, normal or unmarked state. "Asian" is an absolute term, in that the position of Asia does not depend on the position of the speaker. "Oriental" can only have meaning in a western-centric view of the world. (Which is pretty much what Pallida Mors says, only in more words!) SaundersW (talk) 09:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Colloquially in the UK, "Asian" means "Indian subcontinental" (India, Pakistan, etc) and "Oriental" means "North east Asian" (China Korea Japan, etc). Elsewhere, "Asian" means the same as "Oriental" colloquially, but Oriental is often seen as archaic and slightly derogatory because of its Euro-centric perspective.

Although - if one thinks about it "Asia" is rather Eurocentric, too, since it started out as a European term meaning a small bit of land near the east coast of the Mediterranean, and has somehow been adopted - even by Far Eastern countries - to refer to bits of the continent which 400 years ago would have had no idea what "Asia" meant. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The switch from Oriental to Asian in North America mainly or at least at first is a fascinating example of how the arbitrary quality of words is both denied and justified. In the US, Oriental really only usually was equivalent East Asian before it began to be condemned as Eurocentric. It's proposed replacement is of course, as has been pointed out, just as Eurocentric in its origin. In fact, the division between Europe and Asia is really Eurocentric too, Europe being culturally and geographically less coherent as a unit than other parts of what is called Asia. mnewmanqc (talk) 18:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * In British English these terms have specific meanings, and yes, it can get confusing. Some years ago I was told that a Chinese woman was black in the inclusive sense (i.e. not white, see Black British) but not Asian in the colloquial sense (i.e. not British Asian, from the Indian subcontinent). BrainyBabe (talk) 07:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * A Chinese-American person I once knew used to say that rugs are Oriental but people are Asian. Just goes to show you that every minority group must at some time change its name. As noted above, "Asian" is also a European term, originally used by the Greeks to refer to what's now Turkey and vicinity. When the Chinese transliterated the European word "Asia" in to Chinese characters, they got 亞細亞, or 亞 for short; 亞 means "inferior." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 11:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I can recall that Liang Qichao began calling his native continent as 亞細亞 in the 1890s (like writing political stuff in his journals), at the time when the Chinese had names for Belgium, Poland and Turkey, etc. I'm afraid, though, that I can't be certain whether "Asia" was a name coined by Chinese scholars like him or people like Matteo Ricci.--Fitzwilliam (talk) 01:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm almost 100% certain that 亞西亞, like almost every other neologism that appeared in Chinese at the turn of the 20th century, was a western concept that was transmitted via Japan and Japanese. Note the three syllables and their composition, which directly correspond to アジア. Pre-modern Chinese distinctions between domestic and foreign didn't focus on geography per se, it emphasized center-periphery relations and classified foreign nations according to the (perceived) direction relative to China. In contemporary Chinese, in both Mainland China and Taiwan, Oriental (遠東、東方) seems to be strongly preferred, Asia/Asian (亞西亞) is only used for direct transliterations. 66.30.12.44 (talk) 04:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC) Sorry, Just remembered my password...Aas217 (talk) 05:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

strain in spanish
how do you say strain as in virus strain in spanish?W-i-k-i-l-o-v-e-r-1-7 (talk) 03:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the translation is "variedad" as in "variedad de virus". --Victor12 (talk) 11:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Cepa. Pallida  Mors  16:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

US vs USA
Why does it sound odd to say "USA forces" and "USA government", but entirely natural to say "US forces" and "US government"? 67.201.161.119 (talk) 04:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This is probably a topic in the realm of the purely subjective; I'd hazard an answer that it's a combination of (a) the familiarity of the "US" form which makes "USA" seem discordant and (b) the more comfortable liaison of the sibilant S in US with the following letters. The A in USA has a y' sound at the end which doesn't blend well with most following consonants. Retarius | Talk 04:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd hazard a guess that it's because "USA" is a short form of the name of the country, which operates overall as a noun, when what we need before "forces" and "government" is an adjectival expression. The same thing applied with the good 'ol USSR.  We talked of Soviet aggression, Soviet hegemony etc, rather than USSR aggression etc.  Perfectly reasonable.  --  JackofOz (talk) 05:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * With a "normal" country, we'd have an adjective for such purposes such as "government of France" - "French government". With countries known primarily as acronyms, it becomes difficult, so some other method of modification has to be found - in the case of the US, "US" has sounded okay-enough to have become common.
 * As Jack mentioned, one way is to substitute a non-derivative adjective: so Soviet for USSR, British for UK, American for USA. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Although it's interesting that we do also talk about "the UK government", "UK citizens" etc., as well as "British government", "British citizens" etc. Then there's The China Syndrome, not "The Chinese Syndrome", but that might be a different situation.  --  JackofOz (talk) 12:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * "China Syndrome" may be due to the fact that the syndrome isn't Chinese, it's about China. As in, the "China problem".   Corvus cornix  talk  16:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It may also have to do with prosody; a stressed syllable after the "A" in "USA" produces an awkward rhythm. 194.171.56.13 (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Expand it out: You wouldn't say the United States of America(n) government, but you can say the United States government. Or just follow Dos Pasos and say the Usonian government. — kwami (talk) 10:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Japanese Sound Symbolism
Has it always been in Japanese? Has onomatopoeia always been found since the start (or "dawn") of the language?68.148.164.166 (talk) 08:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Don't know how far back it goes, but similar subsystems are found in a number of languages: see Ideophone... AnonMoos (talk) 09:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, as far back as we have Japanese literature (early 8th century). A few examples include:
 * bisi bisi
 * kaka
 * ko2woro2 ko2woro2
 * moya moya
 * sawi sawi (also sawe sawe)
 * saya saya
 * tawa tawa
 * ura ura
 * Bendono (talk) 12:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * What are those 2s? --Masamage ♫ 20:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * ko2 contrasted with ko1. See Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai for a very poor description. Early theories were that OJ had eight vowels, but more modern research suggests that it was more likely a glide -w or -j. The issue is still highly argued today. Bendono (talk) 21:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure about the history of Japanese onomatopoeia, but Robbins Burling in The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved, points to onomatopoetic words as as iconic (resembling the thing that they stand for) while most words are symbolic (the connection between the meaning and form is arbitrary). As even captive chimpanzees have gestured spontaneously in an iconic (or indexical, that is, having some logical or physical association with the referant) manner.  It is very likely that human language developed from non-arbitrary iconic and indexical "gesture-calls" and on page 81 Burling states "Since gesture-calls first develop by the ritualization of instrumental behavior, they begin with the inherent iconicity of all istrumental actions.  With the passage of enough evolutionary time, communicative signals tend to become increasingly stereotyped and even to lose their initial motivation, but until stereotypy takes over completely, signals retain soem of their original iconicity or indexicality."
 * So I'd say that onomatopoeia has been with us for a while. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

How to say in Japanese...
Argh, I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure this out for a short composition due tomorrow; when I turned in my draft, my teacher marked what I had as wrong, but I don't see the correct form anywhere in the textbook or online. What I'm trying to say is "My brother had a lot of friends, but I did not have many friends"; I wrote 私の弟がたくさんともだちをもっていましたでも私はあまりともだちをもっていませんでした. (which romanizes to "watashi no otoutou ga takusan tomodachi o motteimashita demo watashi wa amari tomodachi o motteimasendeshita"). Apparently I can't use motsu to mean I have friends - what verb is correct here? I suspect it's one of those idiomatic phrases, like it'll be literally "friends there were a lot of" or something, but I'm so lost... thanks for the help. Kuronue | Talk 23:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * What about 'imasu', which is the equivalent of 'arimasu' but for animate objects? That affects where you use 'wa' and 'ga', too. I would also say 'kedo' rather than 'demo', since you're connecting two sentences, and you can probably leave off the 'watashi no' at the begining, since the informality of "little brother" makes it clear you're talking about your own. So that leaves you with "Ototo wa takusan tomodachi ga imashita kedo, watashi wa amari tomodachi ga imasen deshita." There might be a little more refining possible, but that seems okay to me. --Masamage ♫ 23:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, is that how I have to do that? I thought it was some idiom like that. My brother there were a lot of friends, of course, how silly of me -,- thanks a lot. Kuronue | Talk 23:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It's kind of 'has', but yeah. X) "As for my brother, a lot of friends existed." Anyway, I hope that works! I think I've said something similar to my teacher and gotten away with it, so I'll cross my fingers for you. --Masamage ♫ 23:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you need to say "takusan no tomodatchi" — or even better, 弟は友達がたくさんいます… Paul Davidson (talk) 07:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Paul's latter form would be normal. — kwami (talk) 10:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)