Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 February 16

= February 16 =

Quick translation question
English: Wildfire → Russian: ________ & Italian: _________. Google translate failed epically on these. Thanks in advance, Ks0stm (T•C•G) 00:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * English en:Wildfire --> Russian ru:Лесной пожар. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:20, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The Italian noun incendio means "destructive fire", which is probably less specific than "wildfire". The adjective silvestre means "of a/the woodland".  Therefore, I suggest incendio silvestre.  See wikt:incendio and wikt:silvestre. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * incendio boschivo is the term commonly used in Italian. ---Sluzzelin talk  03:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The plural of incendio boschivo is incendi boschivi, as in http://www.incendiboschivi.org/. Wavelength (talk) 17:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

A greek nose for the future
A Greek friend tells me there's a word in her language for people able to sense the future through their nose, also used to describe dogs' sense of smell. She doesn't know how to spell it -- phonetically it's os-fri-ssi -- can anyone give me the word?

Efgaresto in advance Adambrowne666 (talk) 00:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It must be derived from ὄσφρησις . Osphresis exists in medical texts. Freud used the term osphresiolagnia. ---Sluzzelin talk  02:18, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, Sluzzelin, nice to see you, and thanks for the answer - this is my girlfriend's response: 'I think that the word osfrissi is a general word for smelling! Humans who make excellent predictions regarding the future are told that they have a good osfrissi. My parents who are primary educated described it to me years ago and i was misled to think that it referred to dogs who have an excellent sense of smell and humans who can sense the future.' - so was she misled? Does the word mean 'sense of smell'? is it sometimes used idiomatically to refer to someone with a keen precognitive sense? Adambrowne666 (talk) 11:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * "osphresis" is an English medical term (derived from Greek) that refers to the sense of smell. I don't know about the idiomatic usage, but it wouldn't surprise me. People often use smelling metaphors when describing intuitions. "I smell a rat", "Something smells fishy here", etc. Indeterminate (talk) 23:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I asked for help at WP:GREECE. ---Sluzzelin talk  00:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The noun is όσφρηση and the word described as "smelling something likely to happen" is μυρίζομαι (pronounced: mi-rii-zo-me, I don't know how to use phonetics...). Hope I was to some help! This is also posted on the WP Greece page. Pel thal (talk) 13:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Is όσφρηση in Ancient Greek or is it in Modern Greek? -- Wavelength (talk) 19:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Όσφρηση is modern Greek and όσφρησις is ancient Greek. Pel thal (talk) 20:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Pel thal. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * And thanks everyone - wonderful work. Adambrowne666 (talk) 08:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Strait the gate
What does this mean? For example "It matters not how strait the gate" in Invictus. I think there is a novel with a similar title in translation Strait is the gate by Andre Gide. The discussion page of the Invictus article claims there was another very similar poem with the same phrase. And any reason why it is strait rather than straight? Thanks. 78.146.222.3 (talk) 02:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Strait' means "narrow." It's a little archaic and most often found in biblical quotes or references such as the ones you cite, or in established phrases such as "straitened circumstances" (which refers to temporary poverty). However, "strait/straits" is also a still-current geographical term (often used in the plural form) referring to a narrow seaway, such as the Strait of Gibraltar or the Strait of Malacca. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 02:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In case it's not clear, the phrases you cite are an allusion to Matthew 7:13–14 in the King James Version of the Bible: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Deor (talk) 02:49, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

See Matthew 7:14. It's archaic except in the phrase "strait and narrow." See http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/strait-and-narrow.html -- "it calls on a now rather archaic meaning of strait, that is, 'a route or channel, so narrow as to make passage difficult'. This is still found in the names of various sea routes, e.g. the Straits of Dover." nowadays people acept "straight and narrow," even though that's (probably) not the original expression: "The 'confined and restricted' meaning of strait still also lingers on in straitjacket, dire straits, strait-laced and straitened circumstances. All of these are frequently spelled with 'straight' rather than 'strait'. These spellings, although technically incorrect, are now widely accepted and only 'dire straights' comes in for any sustained criticism." Dire Straights -- now THERE was a cool band! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.17.55.100 (talk) 02:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Use of the word 'liberal' in America
I seem to be getting the impression that the word 'liberal' is used in the US as an insult, however I fail to see why. The word 'liberal' here in the UK can be used in politics to mean a number of things, all generally good, or at least neutral in felling. How did the word develop such negative connotations in the US? In fact, can anyone clarify to me what those connotations are? --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( A word...? )  17:53, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * My experience as a Brit living in the US is that it appears to be insulting to claim someone's further left on the political spectrum than you are. I have no idea why.  And "liberal" is used to mean "left-wing" over here, despite the presence of neoliberals on the US right.  (When people on the mainstream US left, which seems to be a little right of the UK centre, want to refer to their political position, they seem to use the word "progressive".)  This is all OR, of course. Marnanel (talk) 17:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "Liberal" in the U.S. is only an insult when used by people who wish it were one. And it only seems to mean "left wing" in the U.S., when actually people called "liberal" in America (like Obama and the Clintons) are right-of-center, and therefore match up quite nicely with the parties called "liberal" in Europe (e.g. LibDems, FDP). In fact, there is practically no left wing in American politics at all, just the right-of-center Democrats and the far-right Republicans. +Angr 18:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think any political spectrum must have a left wing and a right wing, even though the US left wing is not at all left-wing by the standards of much of the rest of the world. There are right wings of communist parties and left wings of fascist parties. Marnanel (talk) 18:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I would point out that there is a genuine left in the United States. Those are truly left do not identify as "liberals".  Liberals are seen as bourgeois, in the Marxist sense of the word. US leftists identify as radicals or progressives.  However, the true left is so demonized in the hegemonic media and in the mainstream political culture that it has been effectively marginalized.  The true left probably makes up less than 5% of the adult population and has almost no political representation thanks to our winner-takes-all electoral system.
 * People in the United States who do identify as liberal (a much smaller group than those, including many centrists, or even center-right politicians, who are labeled as liberal by the right) tend to support a strong regulatory and redistributive role for government, but, most liberals would argue, a role that advances the long-term interest of all sectors of society, including that of the capital-owning class. I would add that people in the US who identify as liberal tend to be highly educated and to belong to well-paid professions (though some poorer members of minority groups would probably identify as well.) The right has used the "liberal" label as a way to draw on the resentment of broad masses of moderately or poorly educated white people toward liberal professionals, labeled "liberal elites" by rightwing pundits, and toward liberal policies that seem to favor non-white groups or groups such as homosexuals who violate the conservative morality of many less educated (and religious) Americans. Demonizing liberals helps to mobilize these disfranchised white people against the government in general, which helps to provide popular support for a rightist agenda of eliminating government regulations that stand in the way of corporate gain or that redistribute the incomes of the wealthy through taxation. A book called What's the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank explores how this strategy works.  Marco polo (talk) 18:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Both 'liberal' and 'conservative' can be used as insults, although 'liberal' more so. I'm honestly not sure why and have wondered about this, too. 'Progressive' is the term sometimes preferred by liberals in the US.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) Oh, I'm well aware that there's a genuine (in the worldwide understanding of the concept) and largely unrepresented left wing in the US; I was trying to differentiate this from the merely relative left-wing in mainstream politics by my use of the word "mainstream". Perhaps this wasn't the best idea. Marnanel (talk) 19:08, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * any word is an insult if it's used to insult people, you silly morpheme .  generally the term 'liberal' is used in the US by highly conservative people to assert that basically moderate people are licentious, unscrupulous, and untrustworthy - it's a scarlet letter that has little to nothing to do with the actual political meaning of the word liberal.  the whole thing stems back to the Newt Gingrich/Moral majority days, when 'liberal' meant the remaining voices of the 60's/70's cultural revolution (civil rights, gender equality, gay rights, environmentalism, abortion - all the anathemas of kneejerk conservatism); it got adopted as a political code word and it stuck.  sooner or later, some radical will come along and flip-flop it again: adopt 'liberal' as an anti-conservative banner and re-elevate it to a good term.  might take another decade or two, though...  -- Ludwigs 2  19:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have no reference for this, but I think I'm right. This all started in the 1988 U.S. presidential election, when George H.W. Bush went out of his way in every paragraph of every speech to use the term "Massachusetts liberal" or simply "liberal" to deride his opponent, Michael Dukakis, who weakly responded that it was OK to be a liberal.  There were editorial cartoons showing Bush saying "Liberal liberal, liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal!" in campaign speeches.  When Dukakis did the tank ride and looked ridiculous, and then when he lost the election, it may be that the associated term "liberal" was tarnished by proxy.  This link claims that "Dukakis has been blamed for allowing "liberal" to be considered a bad word", so it's not just me.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In the USA, it's this way: progressive = liberal = socialist = communist. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * IMHO this is getting quite off-topic - especially for WP:RD/L - and might be worth moving to the Humanities desk, despite KageTora's wording of his question. -- the Great   Gavini  20:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Right, so basically what I'm understanding of this is that 'liberal' can be used by right-wingers to refer to anyone who is not as right-wing as them, and while the normal meaning of the word (at least in the case of UK politics) is 'centre' (and therefore not as right-wing as right-wingers), it can be used to refer to people who are left-wing (who, of course, are also not as right-wing as right-wingers) even though in the UK sense of the word these people would never be considered liberal. Also, as right-wingers generally have a contempt for left-wingers (and everyone else - even other right-wingers), the term 'liberal' (meaning in this case 'left[-of-me]-winger') can be used as an insult. Interesting, thanks. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( A word...? )  00:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That sums it up well. But before we who consider ourselves liberals get too high and mighty, it would be well to listen to, or read the lyrics of, "Love Me, I'm a Liberal", by Phil Ochs. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Nowadays anybody who doesn't agree with the Republican agenda is equally a liberal, Socialist, Communist and Fascist. Woogee (talk) 08:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

To put it a little bit bluntly, "liberal" in the US has a shade of dog-whistle politics. It became a perjorative in US politics in the 1980's or so, when conservative politicians characterized the social programs of the 1960's (e.g. Great Society) as taking away the hard-earned money of (cough) real Americans, in order to give it away to lazy do-nothings (which basically meant anything that benefited people of the wrong skin color). Much of the energy in this movement came from resentment in various demographics against the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's (i.e. by racism). See also southern strategy. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 08:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

All very good, but we liberals are quite proud to offer an alternative to whacko right wingnut fundamentalist fascists. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the term has been rehabilitated somewhat in the past few years. Until the mid-2000's even actual outspoken followers of social/economic liberal ideology were afraid to be called liberals, and instead used the term "progressive" (which is still in use). I don't remember ever hearing anyone call himself/herself a liberal (in the US) til towards the end of the second Bush administration. I had a European houseguest in the late 1990's who was into leftwing politics but referred to it as "liberal" and I had to remind myself that the term didn't carry the same sense in other countries. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 09:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Right, so in terms of its modern usage in the US, I would be safe in assuming that, as it now encompasses basically everyone besides the speaker, it is basically just a meaningless insult (which is, of course, what many insults are - you can call someone a bastard without having any knowledge whatsoever of the circumstances of his/her birth). Thanks for the replies, guys (and gals). --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( A word...? )  16:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think its connotations (when used as an insult) are somewhat more specific, as described above. It could be taken to mean something like "weakling".  It connotes somebody who is excessively sympathetic to the Other (i.e. members of the wrong race, religion, ideology, etc.) and wants to impoverish or endanger the speaker's group for the Other's benefit.  An example might be someone who proposes subjecting accused Middle Eastern or Muslim terrorists to regular criminal trials, instead of simply torturing them til they expire.  That person would be a liberal weakling, because of the "otherness" of the accused.  On the other hand, if a regular American (rather than an Other) is accused of terrorism, it's just normal due process, not liberal weakness, to put the accused through a regular trial.  66.127.55.192 (talk) 02:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)