Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 30

= October 30 =

de:Kanzlei, da:Kancelli, etc.
What's the subject of the German "Kanzlei" article, the Danish "Kancelli" article, and interwiki-linked articles in other languages? I ran the German through Google Translate, which confused me greatly; it said that a Kanzlei was both a law firm (in general, not a specific firm) and a kind of registrar, so I suspect a bad translation. Nyttend (talk) 12:22, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * A Kanzlei is a chancellery or chancery, both disambiguation pages. Firm appears to be a misleading artefact of machine-translation. DuncanHill (talk) 12:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, in German, Kanzlei can have two meanings: 1) an office, in particular a law office; 2) the office of a chancellor, in particular the office of the German chancellor, essentially the prime minister. Marco polo (talk) 22:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've never heard the Chancellor's office being referred to as "Kanzlei" in Austria, and I don't think it's called that in Germany either. The common name for the office in both countries is Bundeskanzleramt. The Chancellor's office in Switzerland is called Bundeskanzlei, and the German Wikipedia article "Kanzlei" notes this as a kind of peculiarity: In der Schweiz ist der Begriff heute noch üblich für die Bezeichnung von Stabsstellen von Regierungen, vgl. Gemeindekanzlei, Staatskanzlei oder Bundeskanzlei. Rimush (talk) 08:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Germany had a Reichskanzlei from 1871 to 1945. DuncanHill (talk) 11:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Japanese coin
I have a Japanese coin that says "年一十正大". What does this mean? --75.33.217.61 (talk) 17:03, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The way you write it, it's read from the right to the left, and says "11th year of taisho", i.e. 1922. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:39, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Breaking it down a bit: 大正 = Taishō, 十一 = eleven, and 年 = year. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:05, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Names of French Origin
For native English speakers, it may be difficult to pronounce names of French Origin like Dubois, Moreau, Landrieu, Rozier, Balmont or Amelin. But I think that there must be lots of people in the United States, especially near New Orleans, who have names like that. How do they pronounce their names? Do they try to pronounce their names the way French speakers would pronounce them? Or do they pronounce their names just as if that were English names? Or do they do something in between, as near to the French pronunciation as it is feasable using the sounds which exist in English? -- Irene1949 (talk) 17:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really helpful, but Keeping up appearances immediately sprang to mind :) TomorrowTime (talk) 17:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * From what I've heard until now, Moreau is pronounced almost correctly (More-OH), Rozier might be pronounced ROH-zee-er or ROH-zhee-er, Balmont is probably pronounced BALL-mont. Don't know about the other ones. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 20:36, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Bossier City, Louisiana is pronounced BOZH-yer. I've heard Dubois pronounced DU-boyz.   Corvus cornix  talk  03:44, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a lack of consistency. Des Plaines, Illinois is pronounced "Dez Plainz", whereas Des Moines, Iowa is pronounced "Duh Moyn", not "Dez Moynz". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I propose an article similar to List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations,
 * namely, List of names in French with counterintuitive pronunciations.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 04:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, there's Brett Favre, whose French-origin last name is almost pronounced correctly, sometimes. Sort of.  The problem between French and English pronounciations is that nearly all vowels in English are diphthongs, whereas in French they are all monophthongs.  Thus, there is very poor overlap between the vowel sounds in English and French, which leads to lots of mutual butchering of each others languages.  -- Jayron  32  04:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for so many answers. -- Irene1949 (talk) 11:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)


 * "Landrieu" as in Moon Landrieu, a former Mayor of New Orleans, his son Mitch Landrieu, the current Mayor, or U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, the latter's sister, is usually pronounced "Landroo" rather than in the French way. The surname of the Afro-American historian and activist W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) is pronounced somewhere between "Dyoo-Boyz" or "Dyoo-Boyce", as those active in 1960's politics found out from mispronouncing the W.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America as the "DuBwah Clubs". —— Shakescene (talk) 06:29, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

"Ding dong the bitch is dead"
I came across that quote(?) in an article on the net. The author seems to assume that the reader will understand it as some kind of cultural reference. Where does that quote/saying come from? Does it mean something? Thanks in advance. --98.114.41.144 (talk) 17:15, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) contained a song that went "Ding, dong, the witch is dead/which old witch/the wicked witch/ding dong the wicked witch is dead". Famous movie, memorable moment, catchy tune, frequently plagiarized.  -- Ludwigs 2  17:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Citation or correction, please. Which people do you say have falsely claimed to have written the song? --Anonymous, 02:55 UTC, October 31, 2010.
 * I don't understand that comment, Anonymous. re you perhaps interpreting "frequently plagiarized" as meaning "frequently claimed to have been falsely attributed"? Otherwise I can't make sense of what you asked. --ColinFine (talk) 11:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, sure -- wikt:plagiarism means a falsely claiming to have written something. --Anon, 06:53 UTC, November 2, 2010.


 * Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead (note witch, not bitch) is one of the more popular musical numbers from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Never heard it said with bitch before. HiLo48 (talk) 17:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The witch is dead, the bitch is back. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ...Delaware politics??? -- Ludwigs 2  02:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Among the urban legends associated with TWOZ is that some of the Munchkins sang it that way. It might be true, but it's irrelevant, as the Munchkins were overdubbed by studio musicians and actors, and the voices sped up to give them a higher-sounding "chipmunk"-like quality. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Speech speed
In normal everyday speech, which is faster, (Paris) French or (Castilian) Spanish, and by how much? What about when speakers are trying to talk quickly? Thanks. 24.92.78.167 (talk) 20:15, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Both languages are stress-timed, so both can be spoken very quickly indeed, at least by the standards of English, which is syllable-timed. In practice, Spanish is more conducive than French to being spoken very quickly. Probably on account of its small number of vowel phonemes, Spanish can be spoken quickly without much loss of information. By contrast, when French is spoken very quickly, it tends to suffer a lot of reduced vowels and truncated consonants. This is because French is phonologically more complex than Spanish. However, a caveat: There are vast differences between one Spanish topolect and another. I've noticed that Iberian speakers often talk very rapidly, while most Latin American speakers take their time. L ANTZY T ALK 22:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Lantzy is correct that Spanish and French can sound very rapid to English speakers, but he has (probably inadvertently) reversed the labels. English is stress-timed, whereas French and Spanish are syllable-timed.  Marco polo (talk) 22:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 * So I did. Well spotted, MP. L ANTZY T ALK 13:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No worries, I very nearly made the same mistake just a couple sections above! r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 13:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Speaking of Spanish varieties, Chilean Spanish is, perhaps, the fastest Spanish machine-gun I have ever heard. At least, in what regards to everyday conversation. I know almost nothing of French to have an educated opinion, but my guess is that CS has no match. Pallida  Mors  09:40, 31 October 2010 (UTC)