Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 June 13

= June 13 =

Nothing like good sesh
This movie review refers to a "sophomore sesh jinx". What does that mean? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * 'Sesh' tends to (in British English, at least) refer to a 'session'. Best I can do, not knowing the rituals and secret 'fraternities' and 'sororities' that American teenagers like to get themselves involved in. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 02:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a whole article about that meaning of sesh, but it doesn't make sense (or even senshe) here. And the review's not written by a teenager, nor is Variety aimed at that audience. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I wasn't implying it was written by a teenager. The word 'sophomore' gave me the idea, and I believe 'sophomore' means somebody in first second year at university. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 12:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, but it is written for an audience that is used to Variety's own peculiar phrases and writing style ("Sticks nix hick pix" etc). They're still using as recently as this week, where it appears to mean a movie's second full of week of playing on screen. For Local Hero, as Clarityfiend linked to (the quote also appears in our article), however, it seems to mean the director's second movie. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * @KageTora: For the general concept, see Sophomore slump. I too am bemused by the insertion of sesh in this case, however. Deor (talk) 14:11, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Flaming June
I see that our article Flaming June is about a painting by Frederic Lord Leighton. But is that the source of the journalistic expression? (For people outside the UK, ‘Flaming June’ is a much used headline in the popuar and not-so-popular British press; the articles will either be undisguised excuses to put bikinis on the front page, or moans about inclement weather.) Perhaps they both have a common source. Something tells me it’s Shakespeare—but I can’t pin it down, and I have been half-heartedly trying to for years. Ian Spackman (talk) 13:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There seems to be a lot of evidence that "flaming June" is a stock expression—a Google Books search finds occurrences of it in books on gardening, in poems, in novels, and in other contexts—but it's rather curious that I can't turn up any occurrences that predate Leighton's painting (other than juxapositions like "a flaming June day" in Pudd'nhead Wilson). For what it's worth, the expression is listed in the "Heat" entry in a 1958 edition of Roget's Thesaurus but not in the corresponding entry in the 1911 edition. If Leighton had used a familiar expression as the title of the painting, one would expect to turn up some previous record of it; I'm drawing a blank, though. Deor (talk) 13:58, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Eris Quod Sum
That's the title of a Heroes (TV series) episode. Please translate it from Latin for me, and be my hero. StuRat (talk) 14:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "You will be what I am"—see the explanation in the lead of our article on the episode, Eris Quod Sum. Deor (talk) 14:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow, we even have an article on each episode now ? Amazing.  But how can only 3 words mean all that ? StuRat (talk) 14:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Because Latin doesn't (normally) use personal pronouns, and the future tense is built in to the verb. "Eris" = "you will be" and "sum" = "I am". Adam Bishop (talk) 14:10, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * And "quod" = "what" ? StuRat (talk) 14:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup, but only as a relative pronoun (so you could also translate it as "that which"). Interrogative "what" is "quid". English is kind of deficient in wh-words, so we use the same ones for relatives and interrogatives. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * See Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 June 3.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 14:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * See Nemo dat quod non habet and Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 14:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, this is the end of the Horace epigram "Eram quod es, eris quod sum" (I was what you are, you will be what I am [i.e. alive, then dead]). Similar phrases found on tombstones are memento mori and et in Arcadia ego. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:16, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * If you think about it, Stu, you'd already know that Latin often uses fewer words than English. I'm sure you'd have heard of "Cogito (I think) ergo (therefore) sum (I am)".  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Does that mean I can swear more efficiently in Latin ? :-) StuRat (talk) 15:06, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes! See Catullus 16. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * LOL. StuRat (talk) 03:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I think what you really need is Latin profanity. --  JackofOz (talk) 07:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation
In an above disacussion about papier mache, I saw someone write "/ˌpeɪpɚ məˈʃeɪ/" to explain how to pronounce it. Where might I find out how to read that? Vimescarrot (talk) 15:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * IPA chart for English dialects may be helpful. Other information is linked in the main IPA article. Deor (talk) 15:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's all I need to know :) Vimescarrot (talk) 15:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

It's pronounced: paper mash-shay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.56.4.37 (talk) 17:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

How is a double L pronounced in Spanish ?
I believe it's a pure Y sound, but someone else told me it's an LY sound. The word in question was "tortilla". So, is there any Spanish dialect where the L sound is pronounced to make it "tortilya", instead of how I say it as "tortiya" ? Is there an English dialect where this is done to words borrowed from Spanish ? StuRat (talk) 17:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * , the LY sound that you friend told you about, is not a native sound of English and most have a difficult time distinguishing it from (a pure Y sound) so I'm pretty sure every English speaker pronounces it as  or .  The standard variety of Castile pronounces tortilla as, though other varieties have lost  and merged this phoneme with the consonant spelled with a Y, which itself is not a "pure y" sound because there is often greater articulatory constriction so that it might sound more like  or  (the sound of garage in American and British pronunciations, respectively). — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  18:03, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * see Yeísmo -- Nricardo (talk) 21:10, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, that article seems to be written by and for linguists, as shown by heavy use of IPA and linguistic terminology, and is thus unreadable to the rest of us. StuRat (talk) 15:00, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, the low-tech answer to your question, "how is a doubled L pronounced in Spanish?" is that it depends on the dialect. In some parts of Spain, it's pronounced differently from Y, namely as a sound similar to the "ly" sound heard in the English word "million". So when speakers of those dialects say tortilla it sounds a bit like "tortilya". This pronunciation is considered standard in Spain, but in practice only a minority of people in Spain pronounce it that way - and most of those who do are bilingual, speaking Spanish alongside either Catalan or Basque. The majority of people in Spain, and practically everyone in Spanish-speaking Latin America, pronounce "ll" the same way they pronounce "y". But the pronunciations of "y" also vary according to dialect: it can be like the English "y" in "yellow" (for example, in Northern Mexico, the dialect of Spanish most Americans from the Southwest have most contact with), or it can be a "zh" sound as in "measure" (for example, in Argentina and Uruguay), or it can be a sound halfway between them, more emphatic than the English "y" sound but not as noisy as the "zh" sound. So speakers of these dialects may pronounce tortilla sort of like "tortiya", "tortizha", or "tortiyya". +Angr 15:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * See (and hear) http://forvo.com/search/tortilla/. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all. StuRat (talk) 03:17, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

What is this language/alphabet?
Hello,

I found this on Dave Sieg's Scanimate DVD (see this website); it seems to be from some kind of commercial from the early 80s, but I have no idea what country, language or alphabet this is. It looks like it's derived from some kind of Latin/IPA alphabet, but I am totally clueless as to what country uses/used it.

Can anybody with a greater knowledge of language than myself figure this out? It looks like it says something about wafers, but I don't even recognize some of the symbols here. Here's the image.

Thanks for any help anybody can give.--99.167.195.150 (talk) 19:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * See List of writing systems. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

It's ThaiAas217 (talk) 19:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That's what I thought at first, but those look like Latin/IPA-style symbols. The actual Thai alphabet, as seen on Wikipedia, doesn't look like that. Unless it's Thai in a typeface made to look like Latin/IPA symbols, which I can actually buy if I think about it...--99.167.195.150 (talk) 19:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I would never have been able to identify that as Thai, but if it is, it's definitely using a typeface designed to resemble a sans-serif Latin face like Helvetica (the face that the "180" is printed in). +Angr 20:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * For a translation, see Category:User th. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:21, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Funny, I can't see a translation of it on that page. --ColinFine (talk) 23:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a list of users that speak Thai. Ask one. Xenon54 (talk) 00:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a pity that most references for foreign scripts show only a single formal style; it can be hard to guess what's essential and what's equivalent to a serif. I have one book (Writing Systems of the World by Akira Nakanishi) which ameliorates the problem by showing, for each major script, the front page of a newspaper; this typically contains at least three styles. —Tamfang (talk) 06:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

see this link for a description of the font (Manoptica), which was developed in the '60's and designed to emulate Helvetica http://www.thailandqa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=728

Aas217 (talk) 01:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The entire page looks completely English to me (including the two embedded YouTube videos), or have I suddenly become so fluent in Thai that I can't distinguish it from my own native language? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 07:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I suspect you've clicked the "see this website" link and not the "Here's the image" link. - Nunh-huh 08:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes, I thought the OP's second paragraph was a post from someone else. Yes, it is Thai. Anyway. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 09:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I can't find any interesting point on the website you gave at first. For the second link, it is just a toothpaste ad in Thai. Please re-arrange English grammar. --Octra Bond (talk) 04:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "ฟลูโอคารีล ไบ-ฟลูโอเร่ / ฟลูโอไรด์เพิ่มส่วน 180"
 * Fluocaril bi-fluorè / Fluoride plus 180 parts (I have no idea what 180 is. I have never used this toothpaste.)
 * "ยาสีฟันที่มีการพัฒนาสูตร / จากผู้มีประสบการณ์ / เรื่องฟลูโอไรด์ นานกว่า 36 ปี"
 * Toothpaste that have formula development / from experts / knowing fluoride for 36 years.


 * I do not know how to re-arrange the first line so as to make a meaningful sentence.
 * For the second line, the best re-arrangement that I can find is as follows.
 * Toothpaste whose formula has been developed by experts who have studied fluoride for 36 years.
 * Thank you again for your help. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:04, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Response to sneezing in English
Our article says that 'Bless you' is commonly used, but in some places 'Gesundheit' is also used. Can somebody tell me the source for it, or the places where this practice is in common of saying 'Gesundheit' as a response to sneeze. This has to be in a English speaking country or community. Thanks - DSachan (talk) 22:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

See Gesundheit --pma (talk) 22:52, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * (ce) "Gesundheit," I think, would be recognized as a response to sneezing in most areas of the United States. It certainly was the standard response in my family; but the family was of German descent in an area (St. Louis, Missouri) with a large German-American population. Deor (talk) 22:55, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Sneezes Around The World will help? Personally, since my family is of German descent, we use "Gesundheit", but where I live (northern Virginia), "bless you" is almost universal. Xenon54 (talk) 23:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * To the best of my knowledge, there is no German background in my family, and yet "gesundheit" is what we all say, and always have. "Bless you" would have been for believers, I suspect. Almost anyone who has grown up in eastern Canada would recognize and accept either. // BL \\ (talk) 01:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've lived in three different US states and have heard it commonly in all three as well as said it in all three and not received any funny looks. And yes, if it matters, I'm part German but only a little.  Dismas |(talk) 02:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * In the southern UK "Bless you" is very widely used, only occasionally will you hear Gesundheit. Whenever I hear 'Gesundheit' I always think of []. Richard Avery (talk) 07:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * My immediate family is also Southern UK based (with some northern ancestry), and we regularly use "gesundheit," especially on a second sneeze: it's an affectation from living a few years in Germany after my father, an ex-regular soldier, was posted there. Army service is not uncommon in the UK and a significant proportion of the British Army is stationed (accompanied by family) or at least trains (unaccompanied) in Germany at some point, so this route may be a significant source of such expressions. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 10:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The second sneeze thing is presumably related to superstitions about saying "bless you" twice being bad luck. --Tango (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I (in the UK) usually hear "bless you" (although usually pronounced as "bleshu"). Gesundheit would probably be understood, primarily due to exposure to American TV. --Tango (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2009 (UTC)