Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 May 1

= May 1 =

Egal
Is the word "egal" when used in German a borrowed French word? (In French it seems to mean "equal", just as the German "gleich" means "equal", but apparently in French it is also used in the sense that it has in German: French "ça m'est egal" = German "Ist mir egal" = English "I don't mind; I don't care". Michael Hardy (talk) 02:23, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Deutsches Etymologisches Wörterbuch by Gerhard Köbler has the following entry:


 * So, yes, it would seem that it does come from French (and ultimately, Latin). Gabbe (talk) 04:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems that this might be a fairly modern word for German, as French and Latin are Romance languages; I'm reminded of the Spanish "igual". Also: Wiktionary: Egal --Lazer Stein (talk) 04:36, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Does "18. Jh." mean it was used in the 18th century in German? It seems as if in the present day, Germans say "gleich" when they're talking about something being exactly the same as something else, and "egal" when that mean something is a matter of complete indifference, so "gleich" doesn't seem synonymous with "egal" in German, but maybe in French "egal" has that meaning. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:31, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly "unimportant" is the most usual meaning of egal in colloquial German, but according to my Duden, it can also mean "equal". Example sentences are Die beiden Teile sind nicht ganz egal ("The two parts are not quite equal") and Bretter egal schneiden ("cut boards [to] the same [length]"). Duden also says that dialectally, egal can have another meaning of gleich, namely "just now" (Es hat egal geregnet "It's just rained") or "immediately" (Er ist einer von denen, die egal meckern müssen "He's one of those people who complains right away"). I've never heard these other meanings of egal myself, but I'm not a native speaker, and I trust the editors of Duden to record the attested meanings of words even if they're old-fashioned or dialectal. —Angr (talk) 08:49, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't "Ist mir egal" an idiomatic phrase? If so then it's kind of pointless to try to hammer out the precise meaning of its constituent parts, it would be like asking "In the phrase 'kick the bucket', what does the word 'bucket' mean?". I've always assumed that the proper meaning of "egal" by itself was "equal", and that "Das ist mir egal" should therefore be interpreted as literally meaning "That is equal to me". So, a reply to "Would you like to go to the movies or a cinema?" could be "Das ist mir egal" → "That is 'egal' to me" → "Those two options are equal in my eyes" → "I'm indifferent as to which one". Gabbe (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm a native speaker (and reader). Die beiden Teile sind nicht ganz egal and Bretter egal schneiden are uses that are somewhat quaint, but which I have seen before, especially in technical or trade contexts. But I don't remember having ever seen or heard the temoral interpretation (Es hat egal geregnet, etc.). This is either a very old-fashioned or a very local usage. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:07, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Duden labels it "landsch., bes. ostmd.", so maybe it's something farmers in Thuringia, Saxony, and Silesia say or used to say. —Angr (talk) 11:47, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, c'est égal or ça m'est égal was once a very common idiom in French. I believe it has been superseded by c'est pareil. The French- and German-speaking areas are neighbours, with large bilingual regions (in Belgium, Luxembourg, Alsace, parts of Switzerland) in between, and up to the 19th century there was also a great deal of language interchange due to wars (the 20th century wars were less effective in this way, I believe) and the fact that the language of the Versailles court / the French Revolution was fashionable. So it's not surprising that German borrowed it along with thousands of other words and expressions.

Egal really exists in (modern) German only for this idiomatic use. You can replace egal by gleich (the German word with the same meaning) or einerlei. But this sounds a bit artificial. It reminds me a bit of 19th century Romanticist attempts to rid German of words of non-Germanic origin. Hans Adler 10:56, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That last topic reminds me of Uncleftish Beholding, an essay written in a sort of English that is the author's guess as to what English would be like if it had no non-Germanic words. "Firstbits have a forward bernstonish lading" is incomprehensible if taken out of context, but if you start at the beginning, then by the time you reach that sentence, you understand that it means protons have a positive electric charge.  The term firstbit rotting never appears, but it would have to mean proton decay. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:30, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the pointer. That's incredibly cool. Hans Adler 23:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Gabbe, Lazer, Angr, and Stephan. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Chinese question
Hi all. I'm taking a Mandarin pilot course at school as a curiosity. I want to write "he failed the test", but I can only think of 不及格 (not pass) or other expressions saying what he didn't do (他最近的考试没考及格). How does one say "fail" in Chinese, but directly, not through saying what he didn't do? The dictionary suggets 失败 but a native speaker has advised me that one does not usually use 失败 to describe a test, and also recommended 不及格. I want to put high negative emphasis on the fact that he failed, which saying it indirectly des not allow. THanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 04:09, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, in Hong Kong we would say "肥佬". F (talk) 14:00, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting question, the only ways I know of to say this are all negatives, 考不及格 or 不通过, etc.
 * F, is your suggestion Cantonese, or Hong Kong Mandarin? r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 23:34, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's Cantonese, but sometimes Mandarin has a habit of borrowing HK terms. F (talk) 05:56, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * AFAIK 肥佬 is borrowed into Mandarin only in the sense of "fat guy" and not in the sense of "failing an exam". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:28, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Depending on the test, 落第 (literally fallen off the rankings) or 落榜 (literally fallen off the roll) is a way of saying "failing the test" where the test is some sort of qualification or entrance test, in other words "failing to make the cut" (by failing the test). The original context is in the Imperial Examination where the names of those who pass are listed and if one's name is not listed on the roll then one has failed the examination. These days it is quite often used for the National Higher Education Entrance Examination, where somone who has failed to secure a place at a university or college is said to have "落榜". More poetic variations include 名落孙山 ("name fell behind Sun Shan"). Another way of expression the same idea might be 未通过, though that still has a negative element.
 * 不及格 is the closest equivalent of the English concept of "failing" a test, and in Chinese is usually conceived as a "single" concept rather than the negative of passing. Is there a reason why you cannot use "不及格"? Perhaps someone here can suggest another way of expressing the idea you are looking to express. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

English to Norwegian please
Dock leaves. -- Kittybrewster  &#9742;  11:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Which meaning of "dock" and which meaning of "leaves"? —Angr (talk) 11:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The plant grows next to nettles. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  11:50, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The interwiki link points to no:Syreslekta. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * According to Norwegian Wikipedia, the genus Rumex, some species of which are called "dock" in English, is called syreslekta or just syre in Norwegian; so I suppose syreblader (cf., ). —Angr (talk) 11:59, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * According to Store Norske Leksikon ("the great Norwegian encyclopedia", or at least it used to be great before the Norwegian Wikipedia came along) it is hagesyre (lit. "garden acid"), see http://www.snl.no/hagesyre . Found by googling "Rumex patientia" (from the en.wp article) with "only display results in Norwegian". Google translation to English seems readable. Jørgen (talk) 20:24, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

"to my wedded wife/husband"
Recent events in the UK reminded me of a language point that's always confused me. In a traditional wedding ceremony, the parties say something like "I take thee, so-and-so, to my wedded wife/husband". To me, this doesn't make any sense (or certainly doesn't mean what it's intended to mean). Surely it should be "to be my wedded wife/husband"? Does anyone know the origin of this odd phrasing? 86.181.205.4 (talk) 11:59, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't answer your question, but I myself have always simply assumed it was an aspect of Early Modern English grammar that no longer holds in today's language. —Angr (talk) 14:54, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The OED has this under sense 11b of "to": "Indicating resulting position, status, or capacity: For, as, by way of, in the capacity of. Obs. or arch. exc. in certain phrases, as to take to wife, to call to witness, etc." It makes slightly more sense if we think of "husband" and "wife" not as words for people but as roles that the person "thou" is figuratively moving into. Lesgles (talk) 15:57, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, in the US we have abandoned that and we do use the "be". Some other vestiges of older English, though, still crop up; depending on where the wedding is, sometimes people will still use "till death us do part" rather than "till death do us part" (and when I think of it, even the former latter is not exactly modern English). r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 17:02, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Even "Till death us do part" started out as sort of an eggcorn. In the earliest version of the Book of Common Prayer, it was "Till death us depart" using an obsolete meaning "separate" of depart. That meaning was already obsolete by 1662, when the stable edition of the BCP was published, so depart was changed to do part since that's what people thought they were saying anyway. (And I think you mean "even the latter" rather than "even the former".) —Angr (talk) 17:23, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (oops, you're right! corrected r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 17:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC))


 * Cf "take to bed". BrainyBabe (talk) 17:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the replies. 86.160.84.52 (talk) 02:42, 2 May 2011 (UTC)