Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 15

= August 15 =

Baidu
Why is the front page in black and white. Also, how do you say "not as much as I would like" in correct French? I mean this as a response to the question "Parlez-vous francais". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.228.198.120 (talk) 01:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know about Baidu, but for the French you could say "pas autant que je voudrais" (or maybe "...je le voudrais", or "...je le souhaite") Adam Bishop (talk) 04:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Lots of Chinese websites were in black and white on Sunday because China had a national day of mourning for the victims of the 2010 Gansu mudslide. 59.108.42.46 (talk) 05:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

German translation
Can someone help me translate this sentence? Nach dem Tod Friedrich des Strengen kam es zwischen den Brüdern Balthasar und Wilhelm sowie ihren Neffen Friedrich dem Streitbaren, Wilhelm dem Reichen und Georg zur so genannten Chemnitzer Teilung (13. November 1382), bei welcher Balthasar die Landgrafschaft Thüringen erhielt.--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 02:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * "The death of Frederick the Strict resulted in the so-called partition of Chemnitz (13 November, 1382) among the brothers Balthasar and William as well as their nephews Frederick the Belligerent, William the Rich, and George, where Balthasar received the Landgraviate of Thuringia." ---Sluzzelin talk  02:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * But the German does not say that Frederick's death resulted in the partition of Chemnitz, merely that it preceded it temporally. We don't want to introduce a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy into the translation where none was in the original. +Angr 15:23, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That is true, and I originally wanted to point that out, but couldn't come up with an unclumsy way of translating "nach ... kam es zu" (and it was late). "After the death of Frederick the Strict, the so-called partition of Chemnitz came to pass(?) ... happened(?) ... occurred(?)". Please help me out! ---Sluzzelin  talk  16:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "After the death of Frederick the Strict, Balthasar received the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the so-called partition of Chemnitz." +Angr 19:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! ---Sluzzelin talk  19:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Diversion: Landgrav iate cf. Landgrav ate
I was intrigued by Sluzzelin's use of "Landgraviate" above, so I checked it out. In my ignorance of such matters, I assumed the correct form would be "Landgravate", as the usual approach is to add -ate, not -iate, to words where such forms exist (cf. marquessate, protectorate). In WP, Landgraviate redirects to Landgrave, which recognises the -iate form only. I was expecting to see some mention of the -ate form, but no. Landgravate goes nowhere, yet if you do a search, you'll see it's used a few times on WP, and a google search finds a respectable 5,000 hits, compared with 31,000 for Landgraviate. Dictionaries recognise both forms, although it looks like -iate is the predominant form. I'm wondering where that stray "i" came from. This really does look like a verb (meaning, obviously, to fly an aircraft in such a manner that you end up in a grave, on land. :) --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   01:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, a simple answer is because it is "landgraviatus" in Latin, although where does that extra -i come from? "Margraviatus" is the same way, but not other offices like "episcopatus" or "principatus" or "comitatus". I guess that is because those last three are directly from other Latin words, and landgrave and margrave are Germanic terms. I was thinking that maybe in Latin the endings were considered to be similar to the word for "strong" ("gravis"), but that doesn't seem to be the case, since the office-holder is a "landgravus" and it is declined like any other -us noun (i.e. not like an -is adjective). Adam Bishop (talk) 06:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It is landgraviatus in Latin because one of the Latin expressions for a landgraf is landgravius (see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landgraf) and not landgravus. You'll find that it is very common to coin a Latin word by adding -ius to the vernacular.

The further suffix -atus is added to the stem in an analogous way to comitatus from comes, gen. comitis, etc. Ehrenkater (talk) 17:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah! How silly of me, I didn't even think to look for "landgravius" (I tried "langravus" and "landgravis"). Adam Bishop (talk) 20:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, now I know. Thanks.  I'm sure I'll be needing to use the word 'landgraviate' some time today.  :)  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   21:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Politeness: Spanish, and more
In English, I would say, "Could you please bring me more salsa? Thank you." The translation sounds off to me, so, really, I need to know the correct placement of 'por favor.' The wrong translation: "¿Puedes por favor trajarme mas salsa? Gracias." And, for bonus points, what is the etymology of 'gracias?' It always seemed to me to be a conjugation of the infinitive 'to thank' (graciar) to the second person, thus gracias. Thanks Wikipedians! schyler (talk) 03:36, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd translate it as "Por favor, traigame (un poco) mas salsa" (Please, bring me (a little) more salsa). "Gracias" isn't a verb - it's etymologically a plural noun, cognate with the English word "graces". Its meaning is somewhat different though, more like the religious concept of "grace", or "blessing", with an element of ritual added to it. Steewi (talk) 03:54, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It is from "gratia" in Latin, and presumably entered Spanish through the Latin phrase for "thank you", "gratias (tibi/vobis) ago" (more literally "I give you thanks"). Adam Bishop (talk) 03:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

So more a plural 's,' then (graces) schyler (talk) 04:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It is exactly a plural - to be precise, the accusative plural, which in transalpine Romance languages (French, Occitan, Catalan, Castilian, Portuguese) was generalised to become "the" plural. --ColinFine (talk) 12:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It should be noted that, in everyday usage, there isn't a singular or plural form of "gracias", "gracias" is the only word and it's used to thank either one or many actions.
 * The verb for the act of being grateful is "agradecer". Yo agradezco, tú agradeces, él agradece, nosotros agradecemos, vosotros agradecéis, ellos agradecen. MBelgrano (talk) 14:03, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * One example that comes to mind is a prayer before eating, sometimes called "saying grace", or "returning thanks" (to God). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The same holds for English. "Thanks" appears to be a plural noun, but one would never use "thank" as a singular noun (it is used as a verb, of course). --Tango (talk) 16:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The one before eating is called "dar gracias". MBelgrano (talk) 18:14, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "To give thanks", right? "Thank you" presumably is a shortened way of saying "I thank you", hence it's a verb. There's also the expression "a thank-you note", but that would still be a shortened "I thank you." Any German-speakers know whether danke is considered singular or plural? Obviously it's a cognate with the English word "thank(s)". I know almost no Mandarin, but "thank you" is "shei shei ni" or some such, which literally means "thank thank you". In French it's merci, which sounds like it would be cognate with "mercy", which is basically a synonym for "grace" in one context. In Spanish, usted is short for vuestra merced, which would translate as "your grace" in English. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, danke is actually a verb form, specifically the first-person singular present form of the verb danken ("to thank, give thanks"). I think it's a contraction of Ich danke ("I give thanks, I thank").  The noun is Dank, but it doesn't have a plural form and is equivalent to the English noun thanks.  Marco polo (talk) 01:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)