Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 February 27

= February 27 =

Mother Hubbard dress
What is the etymology of Mother Hubbard dress?174.3.99.176 (talk) 00:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Most likely from the nursery rhyme Old Mother Hubbard, or more specifically, from the illustrations used in printed versions of the rhyme. -- LarryMac  | Talk  00:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Old Mother Hubbard / Went to the cupboard / To get her poor daughter a dress / When she got there / The cupboard was bare / And so was her daughter, I guess. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

German vocabulary in Quantum Physics
Does anyone know the German word for "step potential" Step potential ? (If you also had a source I would be overjoyed) 99.11.160.111 (talk) 09:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This page uses Stufenpotential in its abstract and step potential in its list of keywords, so I assume they're referring to the same thing. +Angr 09:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * THANKS! Fits like a glove. ;-) 99.11.160.111 (talk) 12:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

How many words does French have?
While watching the famous UK TV show QI last night, a statistic popped out that I have not heard since school and which I have been trying to prove ever since. It was said that French has around a quarter of the words that English does. How can we go about substantiating such a claim?

As a linguist, I am aware of a few basic principles, such as the fact that it depends on what you actually classify as "a word", and that the field of Science adds thousands if not more words to the lexicon, or that made-up words pose a problem to answering the question. But I am still convinced that in spite of these things English still has a much richer variety. I can think of a few reasons for this:

1) English is spoken by more people and has a plethora of countries from which to draw on, as opposed to French which, although its language is spoken in 30-40 countries, is not the lingua franca of more than a handful.

2) English has been around longer. In 1880 only 20% of people in France could speak something resembling what we now call French, with the rest speaking not just different dialects but totally different languages (Basque, Occitan, Breton etc).  And before that Latin was the top dog and the main predecessor to this elite form of French.  In England, some form of "English" has been around for centuries, drawing over time upon other languages, notably from its vast colonies, presumably allowing more time to create a richer and much more complex vocabulary and more oddities, particularly in terms of pronunciation.

3) English has undergone no formal process of standardisation, à la Académie française, essentially giving it more free reign for the language to take its own course and develop more sporadically, governed almost arbitrarily by the actual usage instead of what an elite body tried to prescribe. (On a side note, French people to this day seem to have much more concrete a notion of what is and isn't  le mot juste or le bon francais than English people).

4) English in many respects has drawn upon French for centuries since the Norman Invasions and integrated a huge proportion of French words into its lexicon, the roots of which most people would now be unlikely to recognise. If I have understood it correctly, this has created a kind of system where many words (I would love to know in what fields particularly if anyone can shed light on the subject) that still have an obvious non-French root still have a French equivalent that has been incorporated into English, giving rise to a massive body of concepts that can be described by at least two words ( (illness and malady, boredom and ennui, for example). Tiny nuances between such words can be used to convey certain things that French could not. In the case of the two above examples, merely using the words in their French form implies a certain sense of linguistic nous, with the French versions sounding more educated and of higher class, which could be used simply to demonstrate one's knowledge or could be employed for humourous effect.

5) English slang appears to be more flexible and ever-changing.  Not that the use of verlan and les emprunts, to name but two, has not enrichened or developed the French language, but it just seems that we are constantly inventing new words. A higher proportion of movies, music, celebrities, websites and press organisations across the English speaking world may have something to do with this, but it also seems to be a willingness on our part to keep doing this and also that our language simply allows more flexibility us to invent our own words on the fly.   Consider adding simple suffixes to normal words, then consider that everyone would understand the sentences that follow (mostly used for comic effect again):

-age: I'm starving, let's get some foodage and then do a bit more workage on our website.

-ish: He was being a bit cockish and childrenish the other night.

-y: All the furniture he had in that bloody room, it made me feel so wardrobey by the time I left.

These are just some of the examples I can think of, but what I am looking for are (dis)confirmations and some concrete evdience of what I am talking about, especially numbers:

How many words does the average educated French or English person know? What proof can we find that English has more words?

Also, please reply directly to any of the points I make in the five paragraphs and name and shame me if I have got something utterly wrong.

Many thanks, Lucas 83 12:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lukerees83 (talk • contribs)


 * Have you had a poke around on ? --TammyMoet (talk) 13:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the last example; I am at a loss to understand the meaning of the word "wardrobey". The intuitive translation "of or like a wardrobe [press]" makes no sense. Intelligent  sium  21:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * @Luke: I believe there were several published studies, probably a few decades ago, arguing that English has a larger lexicon than not just French, but just about every other language as well. I don't remember the names offhand, but I think the issue was brought up in Peter Trudgill's introductory sociolinguistics book. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 22:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Counting lemmas is one thing, but French conjugation involves more different words than English conjugation does.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 02:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * For the purposes of determining the size of a language's lexicon, I don't know of anyone who counts differently-inflected verbs as different words. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 02:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Though the same applies to words like cock-ish and children-ish above. I think much of the richness of English comes not from some list of existing words but rather from the acceptability of such creative word invention and quasi-idiom invention on the fly; other languages have similar devices, but they are often less acceptable - for social reasons, I guess. The argument that English has been around longer doesn't hold; both languages have existed and developed for a very long time, and French has had more continuity (in English, much of the original Anglo-Saxon word stock has been lost and replaced by French words); the use of English in other countries than England and Scotland is relatively recent in this millennium, and its use as a lingua franca is even more recent. As for the number of words in English, I suspect it has something to do with the habit of assimilating just about any obscure French or Latin sesquipedalian word formation into the lexicon - even though few people know them or understand them. If one takes the really frequent, familiar words used by the average person, I don't think English will be that different from most other languages.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 22:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

English has also had two different language stocks to take words from-the Anglo Saxon or Norse set with the Vikings/Celts and their groups coming from the North and the Romance languages from the south that came over with the Normans.As a result,many items will have two different words-one Norse or Germanic,the other Continental for example dog/hound,large/big,wide/broad. Lemon martini (talk) 01:00, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Shocked, dumbfounded, perplexed, stupified, open-mouthed, "huh?"
I had a business letter from someone in local government, replying to a complaint I'd made. Upon reading it I was amazed, shocked, dumbfounded, perplexed, stupified, open-mouthed, to read that they had done the thing I had complained about because although they had a particular goal in mind which I actually agree with, what they had done to achieve that goal will I'm sure have the opposite effect.

Has anyone else had the feeling where in a dispute someone says something that they genuinely believe about the situation that is so wrong that you are shocked into open-mouthed silence because your brain is preoccupied with going through the ramifications and many implications about the other person's thinking that this wrong belief has? It would not be merely a simple factual error, but things like for example logical flaws, unconcious contradictions, novel beliefs, or unexpected embeded assumptions about social rules and rights, that the other party has. Does this have a name? Are there other examples I could read about? Has anyone done any analysis of this?

But my main question is, what would be the best words I could use to describe this succinctly in a reply to the official, and without being rude?

I have had to delay my reply because I've got to clear time to concentrate and try to elucidate and unpick the officials beliefs and assumptions and show him that these are mistaken. But that's another issue. Thanks. 78.149.201.215 (talk) 15:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * the best term for what you're feeling is probably culture shock, though taken in a far looser than the given definition of the term. The other phrase you could apply would be 'righteous indignation'.  The reason there is no adequate psychological term for the feeling is that it is basically shock at how offensively stupid people can be, but liberal society has (historically) precluded any argument that starts from the presumption that your opponent is offensively stupid.  I'd just forget trying to express the feeling, and focus on explaining the illogic of the position.  -- Ludwigs 2  16:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Having worked for a long time in UK local government, (1) nothing surprises me, and (2) starting a reply by stating how shocked etc etc you are probably isn't going to achieve your desired result. I suggest you should start by explaining that you have a common goal, and then explain why you think the person's actions will have the opposite effect from achieving that goal.  You don't say whether the response was from an officer or an elected councillor. (I assume from your contributions elsewhere that you are in the UK.) If it was from an officer, there is always a more senior officer to whom you could express your concerns.  Or, you could complain via your councillor.  Or, if the councillor is the problem, you could complain to their party leader, or to the authority's chief executive.  Or, in the last resort, to the Local Government Ombudsman.  Good luck.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have only enough time to refer you to Deborah Tannen. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * 'Slack-jawed with stupefaction' is a handy phrase. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   20:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Dumbstruck. (I'm also fond of the word "gobsmacked", but I'm not sure it carries the right meaning.) +Angr 20:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * "Gobsmacked" would seem to me to lean toward the "Slack-jawed with stupefaction" side of the feeling, but be more or less in line with "dumbstruck" (though less formal). I made a very cursory browse through a few online dictionaries, and the two words' definitions seem basically aligned.  I'd go with "dumbstruck" in a letter; "gobsmacked" seems to me more suited to spoken English, unless you can manage something exceptionally pointed to follow it with.  "does not compute" would be along the same lines, I suppose.  "Smoke is coming out of my ears," is a possibility, although that one can mean just plain angry, too.
 * In terms of the feeling, "double bind" and "cognitive dissonance" both come to mind, but they're not perfect matches. "Analysis paralysis" doesn't really cut it, but that led to Anti-pattern, which has a metric boatload of terms within the article, and its own category, but having a software design provenance, that gets pretty hackish.  Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 23:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Car or automobile
"Automobile" is American English. Are there any rules or reasons in the US for choosing between saying or writing "car" or "automobile"? Thanks. 89.243.151.239 (talk) 19:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's very formal. In most normal situations you would say "car" (just like in normal situations you say "buy" instead of "purchase"; they mean the same thing, but I would never tell my buddy "I'm gonna go purchase some new shoes"). r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 23:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The term "car" has been around for a very long time, and refers to any vehicle "moved on wheels", be it under its own power or hauled. That includes the automobile, railroad cars, and even the cab of an airship. The word is related to "cart", "carriage", "carry", "cargo" and "chariot". An "automobile" is a narrower term, meaning something that is "self-moving", i.e. its means of propulsion is self-contained. All that as per my 1960 Webster's. In modern times, "car" is probably heard most often in reference to an automobile. "Auto", when used by itself, is typically short for "automobile", although it seems to be heard less often nowadays than "car". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You might refer to your ride as an automobile if it cost you more than $250,000. Woogee (talk) 07:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Pee or Wee
How come girls have a wee while boys do a pee? Kittybrewster  &#9742;  21:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * My mother wees when alone, but pees in company. I urinate. Assuming this is personal experience, wherabouts are you? That'll make a huge difference, I bet. 90.195.179.84 (talk) 21:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * UK. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  21:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Your mother pees in company? Ew. Everyone in my family delicately "has to go to the bathroom" with no specification as to what they have to do there. At any rate, I have definitely heard girls/women from outside my family say they have to pee. I haven't heard "wee" in the sense of urine/urinate often enough to judge. +Angr 21:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * When I was a small boy (in Canada, but we had recently moved from Britain) the word used with me was "wee", but after that I pretty much never heard it again; it became "go to the bathroom". I always assumed that "wee" was a second-order euphemism ("piss" as a rendering of the sound, "pee" for its first letter, "wee" to rhyme with that) and was considered an extra-inoffensive term suitable for use with small children.  I don't associate either one with one or the other sex.  --Anonymous, 22:50 UTC, February 27, 2010.

Maybe, men pee, women wee, British children go wee wee and French children do (fait) pee pee while old men just decorate the floor? - Kittybrewster  &#9742;  23:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * And what was the little piggy doing going wee, wee, wee all the way home? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.146.245 (talk) 18:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * (American English here) I've never heard anyone use "wee" seriously. I agree with Angr and Anon that "go to the bathroom" is most common around here (people I know who were educated with more British English often say "go to the toilet", which I never liked--too gross). Interestingly, when people do say "pee" instead of "go to the bathroom", in my experience it's girls--specifically, I have the impression that my past girlfriends have tended to say "pee", I don't think platonic friends have. As for men, it's "go to the bathroom" when in civilized company, and "take a piss" or something along those lines when with other guys (that is to say, uncivilized company). r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 23:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm always amused (doesn't take much) when Americans "go to the bathroom" in a room that doesn't contain a bath. Alansplodge (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * True...some people do say "go to the restroom" if it's not a real bathroom, but personally I find that terribly jilted. Then of course there are great variants like "go to the little boys' room"... r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 23:52, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Here abouts for location we use the term "Head", and for the biological function it's referred to as "Drain the main vein".A Glass Bubble (talk) 00:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Then there's the Cheech and Chong recorded bit where they're junior high school students, and Chong keeps saying, "I gotta go to the can, man." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:10, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd spend a penny to be rid of this thread. (Oops.  It comes up red.  Somebody better write the article.) PhGustaf (talk) 08:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Reference! 86.177.121.239 (talk) 21:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Several years ago I was eating breakfast in the cafe of a rather expensive hotel in Seville, Spain, when a large, boisterous group of Americans (sounding like they came from Texas or someplace close) came in, sat down, ate, made a great deal of noise, then got ready to leave. All but one headed off to the exit of the restaurant, but one woman went towards the hotel lobby.  When her party told he she was going the wrong direction, she yelled across the width of the entire cafe, "Y'all go on without me, I gotta go pee."  I tried very hard to crawl under my table.  Woogee (talk) 07:25, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's technically known as "TMI". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't anyone else "take a leak", or is that Australian English only? 220.101.28.25 (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * We do that in the US, too. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 17:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hence The Galloping Gourmet's recurring joke, "...and now I take a leek..." also the title of a cookbook by Maxine Saltonstall. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Some Italian Part 2
Hi again. Just reading through a book on Italian verbs, I'm a little confused by the following.

"Verbs ending in -iare omit the i ending of the 2nd person singular of the present tense if the t is not in the accented syllable. Examples: (studiare) studi, not studii and (avviare) avvi, not avvii."

I don't understand the difference. Standard rule of Italian is, I believe, that the second last syllable is stressed, which in both cases would be the 'i' of the stem of the verb. Or is avviare stressed elsewhere? Or is my whole understanding of the above flawed? Thanks. 131.111.247.136 (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a very technical question. As far as I know (and I'm a native speaker) it's: studiare > studi, avviare > avvii. I don't think avvi is an Italian word.--151.51.1.230 (talk) 01:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Italian Verbs - Coniugazione verbo avviare says "tu avvii". -- Wavelength (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Terminology
There's
 * parallel slalom
 * giant parallel slalom
 * parallel giant slalom
 * giant slalom
 * parallel slalom

What do all these words mean?174.3.99.176 (talk) 23:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Slalom skiing, Giant slalom skiing and Super Giant Slalom skiing might be informative. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   22:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * What about parallel?174.3.99.176 (talk) 23:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This means that two competitors simultaneously race on two courses which are adjacent and identically flagged. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 00:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Further they race twice, once on each course with the lowest total time winning the heat. -- Flyguy649 talk 04:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What's the point? Why don't they just race one at a time if the course is identical, and do away with the other course.174.3.99.176 (talk) 00:30, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Variety. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:45, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Possibly TV ratings? If the particular event is popular & looks exciting on TV. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 11:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Connected with that: More events = more medals to hand out. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I would say another reason. The courses just can't be exactly identical, and a win in such a competition is a question of hundredths of a second. --62.204.152.181 (talk) 19:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I mean the difference between a win and a loss may be just a few hundredths of a second. --62.204.152.181 (talk) 19:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

What's a tassie?
The opera The Silver Tassie is not about a Tasmanian with grey hair. Not at all. It's set in Britain and the “tassie” is apparently a sports trophy, of all things. Does this term refer to a specific type of trophy? The closest thing I can see on wiktionary is: A cup or goblet for drinking wine.

When I search for “tassie” here, apart from what I already knew, I get James Tassie and William Tassie, Scottish gem engravers, uncle and nephew. Did they lend their name to these decorative objects? --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   23:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The original story of The Silver Tassie was written by Sean O'Casey, who was Irish (not British!), and the "goblet" definition for a type of trophy seems appropriate (presumably, a Cup without handles). Dictionary.com gives its etymology as relating to the French tasse, Italian tazza, and Arabic tassah (basin) - which also seems plausible.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 00:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Robert Burns's "My Bonie Mary" (1788) starts out with:
 * "Go, fetch to me a pint o' wine,
 * And fill it in a silver tassie;
 * That I may drink before I go,
 * A service to my bonie lassie."
 * When performed as a song, the poem is often referred to as "Silver Tassie". John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language groups "tassie" together with "tais", "tas", "tasse", all meaning "A bowl, or cup", and gives the same etymology Ghmyrtle gave. ---Sluzzelin talk  10:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * My 1960 Webster's merely says, "Chiefly Scotland - a small cup." No specific etymology. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you, all. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * See also tassie.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 18:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but please re-read my question. That was the 1st place I looked.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No one has mentioned the OED, so I will, not that it helps much. It says that tassie means "A small cup or tass", with the etymology, "dim. of TASS". And the entry for "tass" says it means "A cup or small goblet, esp. one of silver or the like; the contents of this; a small draught of liquor", with the etymology, "a. OF. tasse goblet (1380 in Godef.), in mod.F. cup = Pr., Cat., med.L. tassa (1337 in Du Cange), Sp. taza, Pg. taça, It. tazza, app. a. Arab. ṭass, ṭassah basin, usually held to be ad. Pers. tast cup, goblet." Well, I said it wouldn't help much. Pfly (talk) 09:02, 3 March 2010 (UTC)