Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 December 2

= December 2 =

French word for Danish (food)
What's the French word for Danish (food)? --75.33.217.61 (talk) 01:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have seen "chausson danois", but oranais is the closest frequently used specific term I could find (though not exactly the same thing). More general: feuilleté (sucré) or viennoiserie. ---Sluzzelin talk  01:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Lard is what I think of when people talk about Danish food. DuncanHill (talk) 12:37, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Not danish pastry? --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  13:45, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Nope, Danish Bacon. DuncanHill (talk) 13:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Paradoxically the Danish word for danish is wienerbrød (viennese bread). ·Maunus· ƛ · 00:18, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought the Danish word for 'danish' was 'dansk'. I have never heard anyone say "Jeg er wienerbrød"... :) I presume you meant to say 'danish pastry'? --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  00:57, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Then there's the item called French Fries, which the French simply call Fries. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:04, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Technically they call them "potato fries" or "fried potatoes" ("pommes frites", with pommes being short for "pommes de terre" which means potatos). --Saddhiyama (talk) 01:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And technically in America they are "French fried potatoes", with "French fries" or just "fries" being the abbreviation. I had thought they were just plain "frites" in France, but it's been a long time since I was there, and it might vary depending on the restaurant. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:34, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, we call them chips in the UK - no reference to France at all. The thin spindly ones we get at MacDonalds are sometimes called fries - mostly by the people who work there - but we usually call them chips, too. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  01:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, in the UK they're called chips, presumably because they are "chipped" off a whole potato. In the US, "chips" are thinly sliced, more like what the Brits call "crisps", which is kind of hard to say, like "lisps" and "asps". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:14, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I will agree that 'crisps' can be difficult to say, which is why in my dialect (Scouse) we leave off the final 's', so all we say is 'crisp', even in the plural. I can't speak for the rest of the people on these islands, however. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  01:38, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Corblimey - even Cockneys can manage to say "crisps" - it ain't that difficult! Alansplodge (talk) 02:24, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Aye, actually I had this conversation wiv anavva savvnah yesterday, and he says he puts the 's' on the end, so it might be us Northerners. Might have something to do with them not costing £5:90 a bag up here :) --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  15:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In Danish they are "Pommes frites" usually pronounced {{IPA|[pɔm'frits]} or simply "Fritter" - chips/crisps however are called "Franske kartofler" meaning "French potatoes". ·Maunus· ƛ · 01:42, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * that is actually very interesting and... bizarre. It would be fun to make a table of which words contain/do not contain the word 'French' in UK English, US English, Danish, and French. There seems to be no overlap whatsoever, and the word 'French' is inserted at random. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  01:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Here are a few, although they left out French doors. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The best one is slang for a condom; in England it's a "French letter" and in France "une capote anglaise" (an English overcoat). Alansplodge (talk) 02:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To guard against VD, "the French disease". But why "letter"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Someone gives a derivation from "let" (i.e. a hindrance) here, but I can't vouch for its truth. Someone once said to me "Playing Scrabble with French letters is really difficult", and I couldn't resist saying "Yeah, nonoxynol-9 makes the board all slippery." Marnanel (talk) 15:59, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You have to know about this jargon to understand the following conversation:
 * "I've been invited to visit France".
 * "By whom?"
 * "I don't know. All I know is I got this French letter and it had "come" in it".  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   20:40, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Another geographically confusing viennoiserie can use France in its French name: the coeurs de France ("hearts of France"), but they are mainly called that in Swiss French, I think. In France-French, as in English, they are often called palmiers, without geographical reference. Swiss German uses the French language demonym for the German kingdom/state of Prussia, and calls them Prussiens. :-S ---Sluzzelin talk  05:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Germans apparently call them Schweinsohren, pig-ears. Rimush (talk) 14:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Sixties Slang
Which of the words "neat" and "cool" was used first as American slang? Ccountry (talk) 03:44, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Etymonline gives the first recorded use of cool at 1933, and first recorded use of neat at 1934. Hope this helps. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  04:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * BTW, the margin of error for the attestation of slang in writing is wide enough that the above cannot be considered evidence that "cool" is actually older than "neat". —Angr (talk) 11:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, yes - both words were probably in use in the spoken language some time before the first recorded use of them in litereature. However, this use is not recorded (hence the phrase 'first recorded use'). Strictly speaking, we can only go on the available evidence, and if the OP wants to know which of these two words came into general usage first (before their first recorded use), then that question cannot be answered (because it's not recorded).--  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  13:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * While it's hard to pin down a year, and hence the OP's question is unanswerable as such, the evidence still points out that these terms pre-date the 60s by at least 3 decades. Bill Cosby used that expression frequently in his early recordings, which suggests it was already well-established. "Cool" has persisted, while terms like "neat", "tough", "boss", "groovy", etc., have seen their day. There is an implied connection between "cool" and "neat", in that "cool" (and its companion "chillin'") implies calmness and hence a sense of things being well-ordered and under control; which is more directly expressed by "neat". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Both 'cool' and 'neat' are definitely still around. Lexicografía (talk) 15:11, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * True. I sometimes say "neat" myself, but hardly ever "cool" just because it's so annoyingly ubiquitous. I know folks who say "groovy" also. But I'm fairly certain that "neat" is not nearly so broadly used as "cool". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:14, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Both "neat" and "cool" fall into the category of "you just told me something that happened today and I wasn't really listening so I'll reply with a word that covers mostly everything". 'Groovy' is narrow enough to imply that you actually think so. Lexicografía (talk) 16:03, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that you can sometimes still hear neat and groovy. However, I don't think that they are really current slang in the way that cool is.  I don't think that anyone under the age of about 35 uses the word neat in this way.  As for groovy, I think it definitely has a retro feel and is typically used ironically or self-consciously by a person wanting to evoke the 1960s.  Marco polo (talk) 18:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I tend to use "hip".·Maunus· ƛ · 18:56, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly the same as nonchalant (not hot). 213.122.13.97 (talk) 00:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * True, but saying that somebody is "not hot" is way different from calling them "cool". Virtually the opposite.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   00:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And saying that someone is nonchalant implies nothing whatsoever about their popularity. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  00:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Nonchalant" literally comes from "not hot" but it means "indifferent to" or "not concerned about". The closest English equivalent might be to say that you're "lukewarm" about something, as opposed to being "hot" about it, meaning "enthusiastic". "Cool" is used differently. It can mean "hip" or in-fashion (in which case it's also "hot"); it also means "everything's OK", as in "it's cool". One old-fashioned expression for the latter would be "jake". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, but an earlier sense of "cool" is as in "playing it cool", with a sense of "calmly audacious", which smells to me very similar to "nonchalant". I don't really know what point I'm trying to make here, though. I just thought it was kinda nifty. :) 213.122.13.97 (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Even a cool cat needs a lot of sangfroid to be nonchalant after icing somebody in cold blood. L ANTZY T ALK 02:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You bet! "Playing it cool"... calm, collected, under control, low-key... appearing to be nonchalant, yes. Projecting the sense that "everything's A-OK". Keeping oneself under control, as discussed in one of the songs in West Side Story, as the gang attempts to settle down after their violent encounter with the other gang. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The 'nonchalant' sense of 'cool' has largely been replaced by 'chill', to avoid confusion with the 'hip' sense of 'cool'. Chill, dudes! Lexicografía (talk) 02:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, although "chilling" is the process by which someone or something becomes "cool"... temperaturewise, and temperamentwise. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, so, from all of this, I see it is OK for me to say that I think U2 are nonchalant? I am also nonchalant with the Tories and their cuts (<- random political statement used purely to illustrate this)? And if I should not be so 'chalant' about this (the opposite of 'nonchalant'?) then I should 'nonchalant'-out, as per Lexi's idea (=chill)? Nonchalant! --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  03:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, Kage Tora, that is not idiomatic anywhere in the anglosphere I'm aware of. An individual is said to be acting nonchalantly; even a group of people could be acting nonchalantly on a particular occasion.  But one is not said to be nonchalant about any particular person or thing; and if you really like a person or group and you regard them generally as "cool", it doesn't convey the same meaning to describe them as "nonchalant".  Sorry.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   06:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Jack. I neglected to put in the tag. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  16:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I feel that square needs to be mentioned. One can be square. And one can be a square. It's not cool to be a square. Bus stop (talk) 03:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oddly enough, though, it is Hip to Be Square. -- Jayron  32  04:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There are many images for "square hips". Bus stop (talk) 14:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Help me correct this phrases please.
Confusing about which tense should be use in the following phrases:

"'In this respect, when the court questions the applicant until it is ensured that there is a ground for issuing a warrant of arrest or search pursuant to section 59/1 and issues such warrant, it shall then submit to the applicant by means of facsimile, electronics or other appropriate means of information technology a copy of the warrant.'"

I am not sure that if writing as above would be correct.

Clumsily (talk) 14:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Not sure if this is the perfect way to phrase it, but I would put it something like this: In this respect, when the court questions the applicant until it is ensured that there are grounds for issuing a warrant of arrest or search persuant to section 59/1 and the warrant is issued, it shall then submit to the applicant by means of facsimile, electronics, or other appropriate means of information technology a copy of the warrant.
 * Hope this helps... Ks0stm (T•C•G) 14:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem with the second of the above amendments is that it changes active to passive. In general active is usually better as it removes any doubt as to who did what.  So if it is the court that issues arrest warrants then I would say it is better to leave it as in the original version, except that I would change "such warrant" to "such a warrant". --Viennese Waltz 15:23, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Such [count noun] is common in legalese.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 16:22, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Liebchen - sweetnessheart, what watch?" — "Ten watch." — "Such watch?" —Angr (talk) 19:00, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But, to answer the original question directly: as to tense the sentence is perfectly normal English. Non-native speakers often write "will question" etc in this context, but the result of that is not natural English. --ColinFine (talk) 21:16, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the tenses are OK, but the sentence is rather long for clarity and does include one passive. How about:
 * In this respect, when the court questions the applicant until it ensures that there are grounds for issuing a warrant of arrest or search persuant to section 59/1, and it issues such warrant, the court shall then submit to the applicant (by means of facsimile, electronics, or other appropriate means of information technology) a copy of the warrant.
 * I can't see a way to split the sentence.   D b f i r s   22:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The ensurance (to coin a word) comes not from the court but from the facts found.
 * is a ground means some specific tangible fact exists which suffices; I prefer it to are grounds, which in ordinary language could mean a broad vague impression. —Tamfang (talk) 22:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Points accepted. (I'm not trained in legal language, so my attempt to express the sentence in everyday English may have been misguided.)  I still think that the job of the court is to ensure that one or more valid "ground" exists.    D b f i r s   22:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Name for self-multilation
What is one called or what is it called when one likes to hurt onesself or does self-multilation?--Doug Coldwell talk 19:07, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * AFAIK the former is masochism and the latter is self-mutilation, sometimes called cutting.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 19:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Body modification? Apotemnophilia? Bus stop (talk) 19:20, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It could also be Munchhausen Syndrome. What it is called depends on the reason for doing it. Roger (talk) 21:03, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Self harm is the phrase most familiar to me (actually 'self-mutilation' above redirects to that article). --ColinFine (talk) 21:17, 2 December 2010 (UTC)