Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 August 14

= August 14 =

"Texas" in Russian
It is spelled "Техас", so is it pronounced as in Spanish? L ANTZY T ALK 14:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It is really a coincidence that the Russian spelling looks so similar to the English spelling -- the Russian alphabet does not directly correspond to the English alphabet. Here, for example, is a Russian sentence about Texas: "Наш Техас единственная газета, издаваемая в Техасе на русском языке.". Looie496 (talk) 16:35, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It's probably a true language 'remnant' rather than just the resemblance of the latin X and the cyrillic Χ. It's already in use in 1838 for instance, as Техасъ, before Texas was ceded to the United States. Same thing happens with a lot of other languages really. In ours, for example, Germany is still 'Alemannia' (Alemanya), and Spanish is still 'Castilla' (Kastila) rather than 'Español'. I guess the English 'Taiwan' and 'Burma' are also other examples of this.--  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   16:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Apparently yes. To an english speaker it would sound something in between 'tehas' and 'teghas'.--  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   16:46, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Audio recordings are found here. They pronounce it, roughly te-KHAS, which is indeed based on the Spanish pronunciation. --Theurgist (talk) 18:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The Russian pronunciation would have to be spelt Tijás in Spanish, wrong stress and wrong initial vowel qualities. μηδείς (talk) 16:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * As for the wrong stress, there are also Вашингтон, Альберт Эйнштейн, Адольф (Гитлер), волейбол and others. As for the wrong vowel qualities, see Vowel reduction in Russian. --Theurgist (talk) 22:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Do as emphasis
How do you use as emphasis in the past? "I did say that" or "I did said that"?Quest09 (talk) 14:27, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "I did say". "Do" is an auxiliary verb in this case, so "say" must be in the infinitive. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Being a murder
Why do we never say "he was a murder"? Excluding the case when someone is dead. Why are you a murder for life? If you were a taxi-driver, teacher, or whatever, you can stop being it. Quest09 (talk) 14:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you mean a murderer, or a murder? r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 14:46, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Murderer, thanks.Quest09 (talk)
 * The difference is whether the term is a description or temporary identification, such as a job. (Some languages make a grammatical distinction between these two kinds of description, but English does not). "Taxi-driver" is a job: if the person stops driving taxis and starts working in a factory, they would no longer be described as a "taxi-driver". "Teacher" is usually a job, but it can also be used as a description, though it needs some context to establish this meaning (eg "He works as an accountant, but as long as I have known him he has been a teacher"). "Murderer" is a description of the person: while it would not normally be used unless the person actually had committed or tried to commit a murder, the condition is not tied to the particular event.
 * Actually, I think "he was a murderer" can occur, though it is rare: it would imply not just that the murder was long ago, but that the person had so much changed that "murderer" no longer describes the person he now is. --ColinFine (talk) 15:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Some actions characterise a person for life. It reminds me of a joke. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:55, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Simple. You stop being a murderer when your victim ceases to be dead. μηδείς (talk) 16:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair point. But do you stop being a bank robber or a tax cheat when all the money has been recovered?  Hmmm.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Not just recovered. I don't cease to be a bank robber because the money was recovered without my help.  I suppose you could say "I used to rob banks" if you had stopped and made ammends.  But you would always be a former or ex-bank robber.  Murder is unique since there is no restoring the victim.  It is the crime per se.   This is more an ethical or literary matter than linguistic.μηδείς (talk) 21:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

George Chakiris
how do you write George Chakiris in Greek? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.95.189 (talk) 15:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know for certain, but "Τσακίρης" (Tsakiris) is a Greek name which gets several hits, eg el:Ιωάννης Τσακίρης. "Τσ" is the conventional way of representing the English "ch" in Greek, eg el:Τσακ Μπέρι, (Tsak Mperi) for Chuck Berry. --ColinFine (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Greek Wikipedia does indeed spell his name "Τζορτζ Τσακίρης" (see el:16 Σεπτεμβρίου, the Greek article on September 16, Chakiris' Birthday) ---Sluzzelin talk  16:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * However, the English "ch" sound does not exist in Greek, τσ (ts) represents English "ch" due to the lack of a nearer equivalent, and ‹ch› is the traditional Latin representation of the Greek letter Χχ (chi), which writes the "kh" sound in that language. I therefore suspect that the authentic Greek variant of the name could be something like Χακίρης; googling that yields a couple of hits, which cite the name as Γεώργιος (Γιώργος) Χακίρης (transliteration: Georgios (Giorgos) Chakiris, roughly phonetically: Georgios (Yorghos) Khakiris).
 * My point is that you cannot arrive at Chakiris when transliterating Τσακίρης from Greek (this would give you Tsakiris instead), but you can get Τσακίρης as a result of a transcription from English. --Theurgist (talk) 19:35, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You're resting that case on the assumption that "Chakiris" is pronounced with an /x/; but the evidence is otherwise - as Sluzzelin shows. If the Greek were 'Χακίρης', it would be much more likely to be transliterated either "Hakiris" or "Khakiris": as you say, "ch" is a classical rendering of Greek 'Χ', not a modern one. Secondly, 'Χακίρης' gets no hits at all in the Greek Wikipedia. (I'll see your two ghits and raise you 413000 for 'Τσακίρης').
 * In fact, 'τσ' is regularly used to transliterate the Turkish "ç" (pronounced like English "ch"), and sometimes the Turkish "c" (pronounced like English "j") in the many words and names which Greek borrowed from Turkish during Ottoman rule. I think it very likely that the name "Chakiris" is actually a Turkish name, probably after one of the places called "Çakır", such as tr:Çakır, Yenice. --ColinFine (talk) 00:07, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * My post was just a guess, which seemed quite plausible to me at the time, but yours prompts me to reconsider some things. Χχ is universally romanised as ‹ch› in Ancient Greek contexts; many systems of romanisation of Modern Greek likewise prefer ‹ch› as a representation of that letter, and that way of representing it is not at all uncommon today (see e.g. all articles starting with "Christos", also Chalkidiki and many others), although there are quite a few Greeks who would prefer an "h" for their names (the surname of this person, as given in our article, exhibits two different renditions for the two instances of χ in it: Chrysohoidis, Χρυσοχοΐδης). It is true that Greek uses iota (Ιι) to transcribe Turkish dotless ı, again due to the lack of a nearer equivalent, but even if there could be an etymological reference to Çakır/çakır, one could ask why would the family choose to restore the Turkish pronunciation of their name when moving to America, instead of choosing a letter-by-letter transcription of Τσακίρης, namely Tsakiris, as one would normally expect.
 * George Chakiris is a native-born American, and his name is apparently pronounced with the "ch" sound in the U.S. I was thinking of Noam Chomsky, also a native-born American; the name his clan originally has a "kh" sound, but particularly Chomsky's surname has gained currency with the American fashion of reading, that is with a "ch" sound. But maybe you're right that Chakiris is actually Τσακίρης, which seems, judging from the numerous Google hits where it's combined with various Greek given names, to be a reasonably popular Greek surname.
 * As for the sound spelt in English as "j" and in Turkish as "c", its Greek conventional representation is τζ, as in Τζορτζ Μπους or Ρετζέπ Έρντογαν. --Theurgist (talk) 03:03, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Grammar: United States debt-ceiling crisis
Which is correct, from a grammatical/orthographical point of view: or Why? Is debt-ceiling a "compound modifier"? If not, what is it? I think the words debt and ceiling are being used in apposition but I'm not sure. You can have a debt crisis but a ceiling crisis doesn't make much sense. I agree that the word 'debt', as used in this context, is a noun. Isn't 'ceiling' also a noun? Does that make any difference to the hyphen?
 * United States debt-ceiling crisis
 * United States debt ceiling crisis (without the hyphen)

(There is a conflict over which of these should be used as the main subject of a Wikipedia article. The MOS says this about hyphens.)

I'm directing this posting to the language reference desk, instead of the Village pump, because it appears to be a straight grammatical question. I've already posted it to the humanties desk (here) and some people there think that I should also get your advice. Thanks. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:13, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Looking through the links and references in United States debt-ceiling crisis, it looks like both are used. I don't think either one is more grammatically correct than the other, I think this is just a style issue. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 16:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * This has already been discussed at considerable length on the Humanities page. Please add any additional comments there: Reference_desk/Humanities

French
hi. i am learning french right now and i have a question with regarding to the use of dont vs that of [prep] + lequel. For example, in the sentence 'Pourquoi dois-tu toucher à toutes les choses [???] tes yeux descendent ?', would i need 'dont' or 'sur lesquelles'? How do I differentiate in the really ambiguous cases like this? Or arthiey just interchangeable? Thanks. 118.98.102.189 (talk) 21:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC) .


 * Dont is only for whose or of which. If you have in mind a preposition other than 'of', like sur you cannot use dont.  μηδείς (talk) 22:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec) As far as I know, dont can only be used in place of de laquelle, etc., not versions with other prepositions. I don't know if there are other nuances of meaning, though; I use them interchangeably but my French is not great. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 22:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * In general lequel is used after a preposition. In the OP example, prep = sur: "les choses sur lesquelles tes yeux descendent". The preposition can be de: "la maison de laquelle je suis propriétaire". In this case dont can be used instead of de laquelle: "la maison dont je suis propriétaire" (the usual form). Dont is equivalent to a complement introduced by de. In most of cases dont can be replaced by: de qui, d'où, duquel, de laquelle, de quoi. Sometimes dont cannot be replaced; it is the case if the antecedent is: ce, cela, rien: "ce dont nous parlons". As usual in French, there are exceptions: you cannot always replace duquel by dont, moreover there are exceptions to these exceptions. But only pedantic persons would notice the mistake (even by French native speakers). My reference: Grevisse — le bon usage— by André Goose (12th ed.), §692, §693 and §695. — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I learned in school that "dont" was for people and "duquel" (etc) was for things, but I don't think actual French people make that distinction (and I see that various places on the Internet both agree with me and list them the other way around). And not that this matters here, but "dont" can also mean "including" (in place of "y compris" I guess), as in "stationnement interdit, dont les livraisons". Adam Bishop (talk) 07:55, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * About this distinction. The Larousse des difficultés de la langue française (1971) states: "dont peut représenter des personnes ou des choses, et s'emploie pour de qui, de quoi, duquel, desquels; [.....] lequel [...] duquel [...] peuvent s'appliquer à des personnes ou à des choses". But Le Larousse des difficultés specifies that it is mandatory to use duquel (etc.) instead of de qui when it is preceded by a preposition when the antecedent is a "thing". Example: La maison à la conservation de laquelle il tient tant.; not: La maison à la conservation de qui il tient tant. Notice that in this case the first preposition is "à" (tenir à): il tient tant à /la conservation de la maison/. Therefore you should use laquelle not dont, compare with the following (correct) sentence: la conservation à laquelle il tient tant. (Once again, there are exceptions) — AldoSyrt (talk) 09:12, 15 August 2011 (UTC)