Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 November 29

= November 29 =

Lunchbox in Portuguese, posted May 19 2006
Sorry for starting a new question. The word Manop was looking for is probably “vianda” which corresponds to Yves Masure’s description, “a kind of lunch box consisting of a stack of typically three to five cylindrical containers, strung one above another by metal strips, that also form a handle on top”. Containers used to be made of aluminum. Nowadays the term is applied to one-way packages for warm food. “V” turns to “b” when passing from Portuguese to Japanese. Then *bianda would converge with the existing word bento (convenient). “Vianda” has a latin origin (life as in victuals, vivres – “viande” is meat in French and “vianda” is “edible roots” in Spanish). 1947rogs (talk) 15:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is a link to the original question for reference. Falconus p t   c 00:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Angr & Falconus! 1947rogs (talk) 13:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Translation from Dutch
How does "Bedankt dat je me geen Holland noemt." translate from Dutch. I'm having a little trouble with auto translators on that one. --188.220.46.47 (talk) 19:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems to mean "Thank you for not calling me a Holland". I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, though. Angr (talk) 19:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Is the 'a' a part of it? It should translate as "thank you for not calling me Holland" as though the nation of The Netherlands was speaking the line.  --188.220.46.47 (talk) 20:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't really know Dutch, but I know German, and I'm pretty sure (like 95% sure) that Dutch geen works exactly like German kein and means "not a" as well as "no" (the determiner, as in "yes, we have no bananas"). If Dutch works like German here, then "Thank you for not calling me Holland" would have to be "Bedankt dat je me niet Holland noemt" rather than " geen Holland". Angr (talk) 20:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It would make perfect sense if the word was "Hollander" rather than "Holland". The point being that Holland is just a part of the Netherlands and not a complete synonym - in the same way that all Americans can't properly be called Yankees even though it happens quite often. Roger (talk) 20:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * --Itinerant1 (talk) 06:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. Holland is a part of the Netherlands, a place, so I'm not sure what you mean with your original phrase. It literally translates to "Thank you for not calling me Holland". But if you mean 'Hollander' instead of 'Holland' (the inhabitant of the place instead of the place itself), it would be "Thank you for not calling me a Dutchman". (source: native dutch speaker)212.123.1.140 (talk) 08:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * In English, that's a bit difficult as the adjectival form of "The Netherlands" is "Dutch". (In England (at least), "Holland" has been a synonym of "The Netherlands", but is less so now. Holland is also part of England, being one of the Parts of Lincolnshire.) Bazza (talk) 17:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess the phrase you read was "Bedankt dat je me geen Hollander noemt." (thanks for not calling me a Hollander). This would be said because the only two provinces of the Netherlands are named Holland (North Holland and South Holland). Historically Holland was one province and the most powerful of the provinces in the Dutch Republic. That's why Holland and the Netherlands are often used interchangable.


 * But someone from e.g. North Brabant or Limburg might be offended if you call them a Hollander, just like a Scottish person might be offended if you label them as English. It's basically the same situation as in the UK which often is named England by outsiders, which can annoy the Scots and the Welsh quite a bit. This is called a synecdoche, a part referring to the whole.


 * BTW I am Dutch so if you have more questions feel free to ask them but better leave a reminder on my talk page if you do as I don't check this page very often. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 13:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I googled "Bedankt dat je me geen * noemt." Except for one spurious YouTube comment from 2 minutes ago(!?), it found nothing. However, "Bedankt dat je me een * noemt" (the same sentence without the negation in the relative clause) appears to be an idiomatic expression. It appears that "Holland" is a typo for "Hollander" and that the intended meaning is "Thank you for not calling me a person from the Netherlands" (as opposed to a person from Holland, presumably). The relation between Holland and the Netherlands appears to be much like that between England and Britain, in that people from the Netherlands are by default considered to be from Holland and many don't know the difference. It's odd, because Holland has only a bit more than a third of the total population of the Netherlands, whereas 80% of the British population is concentrated in England. Hans Adler 20:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Like I answered above it has to to do with the historical position of Holland as the most powerful of the provinces (and before that it was a powerful county). BTW nearly half the Dutch population (7 million out of 16 million) lives in the Randstad which lies in North and South Holland, as well as in the province of Utrecht. This region is also the centre of the economy, the government and the cultural life of the Netherlands. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 13:56, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

To clarify something here, this sentence comes from a YouTube video in which a map of Europe is shown with a speech balloon saying "Bedankt dat je me geen Holland noemt" pointing to the Netherlands. As another native Dutch speaker I can confirm that it means "Thank you for not calling me Holland" (so without "a"). Usually "geen" is used in front of a noun where its meaning as "not a" makes perfect sense. But sometimes it is also used in front of names, where its meaning as "not" instead of "not a" makes more sense. I don't know how technically correct it is to use "geen" instead of "niet" ("not") in such cases, but saying "Noem me geen Peter" ("Don't call me Peter") sounds much better to me than saying "Noem me niet Peter". The analogy drawn earlier with German indeed stands and in fact I believe "kein" is used the same way as "geen" in front of names as well. "Ich heiße kein Peter" (German) and "Ik heet geen Peter" (Dutch) would both translate to "I'm not called Peter". Styath (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)