Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 September 5

= September 5 =

Scunthorpe
What do residents of Scunthorpe call themselves? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1000kA (talk • contribs) 00:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The escape committee? Sorry, couldn't resist it. DuncanHill (talk) 09:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Dave, Steve, Andrea, Alison, Tom, Peter...But more seriously I (and I live around 40 miles from Scunthorpe) refer to the place as 'Scunny' and quite a lot of people seem to refer to it as that. To be fair that's more the place than the people though. I doubt they are called 'scunthorpians' (like mancunians or liverpudians) by anybody. There isn't distinctive enoguh of a Scunthorpe accent to warrant its own name/locational reference, plus it doesn't lend itself to a short-form description (for obvious reasons) as well as some would. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Per Google, the most common form is Scunthorpian, followed distantly by Scunthorper, Scunnyite, and Scunnier. Marco polo (talk) 20:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Scunthonian is more common and more correct than Scunthorpian

Translation requested
I'm translating Twinkle for the french wiki. However, due to my null understanding of French language, I'll like to request translation of the next words:

Deletion of articles
 * Notify if possible (tooltip: Notifies the original author)


 * General criteria
 * Not encyclopedic (tooltip: Pages that do not have encyclopedic importance)
 * Pure vandalism (tooltip: Vandalism)
 * Blatant advertisement (tooltip: Advertisement in articles)
 * User request
 * Redirects to nonexistent pages
 * Re-created material (tooltip:
 * Other reason (tooltip: Choose another reason)
 * (popup: Please write a reason)

Thanks, Macy 03:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You might want to go over to the French Wikipedia and ask about this, or find English pages with these words and see if there are French equivalents. The Jade Knight (talk) 03:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll give it a go (might be *slightly* off due to lack of context):

Suppression d'articles
 * Nofifie si possible (infobulle: notifie l'auteur originel)


 * Critères généraux
 * Pas encyclopédique (infobulle: pages qui n'ont pas d'importance encyclopédique)
 * Vandalisme flagrant (infobulle: Vandalisme)
 * Publicité flagrante (infobulle: publicité au sein des articles)
 * Requête utilisateur
 * Redirection vers une page qui n'existe pas
 * Re-création d'une page supprimée (infobulle:
 * Autre raison (infobulle: Choisir une autre raison)
 * (fenêtre pop-up: Veuillez donner une raison)

Equendil Talk 23:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest a slight emendation in : Notifiez si possible (infobulle: notifie l'auteur originel) ? Bessel Dekker (talk) 04:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

French instruction videos
Hi, I'm just curious about some videos that I had seen. They were for people learning French, and had a 1980s look to them. All the dialogues were in French, and the lessons were episodes with stories. The main characters were a young man and a young lady, and the young man's name was Vincent. He had a cute face and brown hair. The young lady was also cute, and reminded me of the teacher from Carrusel.

There are two episodes that I remember. One was where Vincent was invited to a family with kids. There was a budgie in a cage but Vincent made a mistake and the bird got away. Another episode was where Vincent and the young lady were working at the front desk of a hotel, instead of someone else. Vincent was saying things like "C'est facile!" and he was all smiles. But then lots of people rushed in at once and he ended up saying "C'est tres difficile," or something like that.

I think the video was sponsored by the académie française but I'm not sure about that. Does anyone have any idea what the title could be? --Kjoonlee 03:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It wouldn't be "French in Action", would it? I remember watching that in my high school French classes.  I don't really remember the plots of the various episodes, but I do my buddies and I drooling over the cute French girl in it.  Dgcopter (talk) 19:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's French in Action. I must admit I've only seen the first 26 of the total 52 episode of French in Action, but the young man's name is Robert, and in the first 26 episodes there's no scenario of Robert and Mireille (the young lady) working at a hotel. Granted, one of the later episodes could feature that I suppose, but the characters wouldn't just be saying "C'est facile" and "C'est très dificile" that late in the program.--El aprendelenguas (talk) 22:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Corrupted Spanish word for misprinted/overstock clothing worn by impoverished citizens in Latin America?
I have /heard/ this word in casual conversation 2 or 3 times in the past year. It seems that there is a Spanish or "Spanglish" TERM used in the United States for misprinted/ overstock/ teams-that-didn't win clothing that is donated to charities an worn in Latin America.

No amount of Google-ing or other research is giving me any answers...perhaps because I have no Spanish language skills and additionally no memory of the way the word sounds!

Thanks in advance.

221.218.168.101 (talk) 14:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)KB_in_Beijing

As a note, I DID find information about Africa:  In Togo, the castoffs are called "dead white men's clothing." Few people in that West African country believe that a living person would throw away anything this good. Consumers in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania call the used clothing mitumba, the Swahili word for bale. 221.218.168.101 (talk) 15:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC) KB_in_Beijing


 * I spent some time on Google España looking at pages in Spanish that talk about mitumba, but even though they actually borrow the Swahili word mitumba in the articles, they make no single-word Spanish equivalent. The best they can say is ropa de segunda mano (="second hand clothing"). If there were a popular Spanish word for this, I'd expect one of the article to say "...mitumba, or _________ when it's donated to Latin American countries..." but I haven't found that. I'd guess the word you heard was a part of a jargon limited to the clothing industry. I also found this article, which refers to the clothing as ropa barata de hombre blanco (="cheap white man's clothing"), albeit a translation of what you said above with no evidence that Spanish people would actually use that term in conversation. I also found this page, which refers to "vintage" clothes as ropa de moda tata, but of course I'm aware that "vintage" and "second hand" are not the same thing. The word you heard might very well have been an English word in a Spanish accent (Spanglish, as you mentioned). If so, you might find an English term somewhere online that comes close to what you heard. (If you're interested in any of the Spanish articles here, you can run them through Google translator to read them.)--El aprendelenguas (talk) 22:42, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In Zambia it's called salaula, Bemba for "rummage".  That could pass for a Spanish word.... jnestorius(talk) 22:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Translation assistance request
Would anyone be interested in helping me with an English to Latin or Latin to English translation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.147.129 (talk) 16:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure, if it's not homework, we'd all be happy to help. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Unless it's a whole book or something, in which case you're really going to have to pay someone to do it. Algebraist 19:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You mean like Certe, Toto, sentio nos in Kansate non iam adesse? --- OtherDave (talk) 22:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)