Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 August 4

= August 4 =

spelling of '"sunami", sinami, sanami. meaning a violent tidal wave found in news items last year.
Re above. word not found in my dictionary. unsigned by User:66.249.35.28
 * tsunami Rmhermen (talk) 19:42, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The OP must be too young to remember the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which also made quite a lot of news at the time. --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  21:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Given that it's a Japanese word that only became part of English relatively recently (in linguistic terms), it's interesting that the spelling is so settled already. The obviously easier to spell and once quite common name tidal wave for the same type of event has faded almost completely from use during my lifetime. HiLo48 (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


 * That was always a misnomer, so it was overdue for obsolescence. It's not surprising the OP guessed tsunami is spelt with an s, since that's how 99% of anglos pronounce it.  We don't do very well with ts- words (Kostya Tszyu usually gets "zoo").  Some of us even have issues with -ts words.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  23:59, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it was a misnomer, but that usually doesn't stop us in English. HiLo48 (talk) 00:16, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I hardly credit that an Australian mispronunciation of a Russo-Asiatic name can be attributed to English speakers as such. The spelling of tsunami should hardly be surprising. English speakers have no problem with adapting foreign spellings or transliterations.  It's the pronunciation we ignore, not the orthography.μηδείς (talk) 00:29, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd like to hear how non-antipodean anglophones pronounce Tszyu's surname.
 * As for tsunami, you're right that we usually transliterate reasonably faithfully and then often pronounce some other way. That's why I coined the term "Schnitzel Syndrome" some years ago. This is where the process sometimes goes one further step: (1) Steal the foreign word, spelling and all; (2) Mispronounce it, replacing the "sh" sound with an "s" sound; (3) Re-spell it as "snitzel" to conform to that mispronunciation.  Result: many restaurants claim to offer "snitzels" these days.  Step 3 hasn't happened yet with "tsunami", but the very fact that the OP had no idea there was a t in there at all tells us how common the "sunami" pronunciation has become.  I expect it will get respelt "sunami" sooner or later, and this will find its way into dictionaries as an accepted variant.  Time will tell.  I'm not advocating any of this, btw; I simply foresee it.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  03:54, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Not looking the name up, I'd say "Chew". As for snitzel, that is the diminutive of snot. μηδείς (talk) 18:33, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What game are we playing now? "My mispronunciation's better than your mispronunciation"? --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  20:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Um, it was you who said, I'd like to hear how non-antipodean anglophones pronounce Tszyu's surname, wasn't it?
 * I approve of snitzel. It's a sort of calque by analogy: many German words with schn– have English cognates with sn– (and likewise for other consonants after the s(ch)). (If one were to take it all the way it would be snittle.) —Tamfang (talk) 06:20, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't really see the point of stealing a word from another language if you're not prepared to pronounce it as faithfully as your own language's repertoire of familiar sounds permits. Anglophones have no problem in telling others they're schmucks, not "smucks", or they should go and see a shrink, not a "srink", so the "shn" sound of 'schnitzel' is well within our grasp.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]
 * I'll bet you customarily pronounce Latin words less faithfully than you can. —Tamfang (talk) 22:06, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * To respond to such wild and baseless speculation would be infra dig. --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  04:48, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Dammit, if we're not careful, it'll tsun affect the spelling of other words. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Gueaux ghoti, μηδείς (talk) 03:31, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Just like lots of loan words, which get pronounced 'wrongly' or end up with an entirely different meaning, such as 'sushi', which in English has come to mean 'raw fish', but in fact in Japanese just means 'something cooked with rice and vinegar' and has nothing to do with fish. Some words get borrowed twice, like guardian and warden, which both come from the same Old French word 'guardien', because 'warden' was too Anglo-Saxon, so we had to borrow it again. Maybe 'tsunami' will have multiple spellings in the same way. KägeTorä - (影虎) ( TALK )  05:11, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure English usage of "sushi" extends to vegetable maki and other stuff you find in sushi restaurants with no fish in it. I would agree that people associate it with "raw fish" when they hear it but I don't think you'd hear someone describing Gollum as eating "sushi" in Lord of the Rings. Anyway, perhaps a closer example to tsunami is the word Tsar adapted from Russian, which can also be Czar from Polish, but is usually pronounced "zar" regardless of spelling. - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   15:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant that 'sushi' is generally thought of as 'raw fish prepared in the Japanese way' (for most people who have never been to a sushi restaurant), and not just simple raw fish. Also, samurai in English means a man in a kimono carrying a sword, despite the fact that men did not wear kimonos, and many did not carry swords in daily life. Geisha in English brings up the image of a prostitute, despite the fact that geishas are highly educated in art, and very very rarely (if ever) provide sexual services for their clients. Words are misunderstood, and then borrowed, very often, and this is the point I was trying to make.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  15:04, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The tendency now is to use "czar" metaphorically (as in the case of various governmental "czars" of areas of administration), and "tsar" for actual historical rulers of Russia... AnonMoos (talk) 16:07, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Oddly enough, English speakers don't have a problem confusing the words "hits" and "hiss", and yet a word like "tsunami" often loses the initial "t" sound. I wonder why that is?  -- Jayron  32  19:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I suspect it's because all such words are foreign imports. We have no native English words starting with ts- .  It's not at all hard to pronounce, but for many people the unfamiliarity factor puts it beyond the impossible.  Tsetse (fly) usually becomes "tetsy".  It's not surprising when you consider how many people say "specific" in a way that is indistinguishable from "pacific", or make a meal of "statistics".   Maybe the government should force everyone to say "A tsunami of specific statistics on tsars and tsetse flys" 50 times before breakfast every day.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  20:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 't's right, that, Jack, well said.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  15:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Funny, tsetse is one ts- word I always pronounce correctly, even though I say soonami. I would be happy to hear everyone forced to say "squirrel strengths".  (I had to stop dating someone once who said "nucular" and "pixture".) μηδείς (talk) 20:34, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's perfectly understandable. HiLo48 (talk) 21:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * George Dubya Bush spoke of "noo-killer" weapons. Roger (talk) 22:24, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My standards for whom I will vote for for president are much lower than for dating. Ever seen four for's in one sentence before? μηδείς (talk) 21:33, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Because /ts/ doesn't occur initially except in loanwords. English tends to permit larger consonant clusters in medial position but limited ones at the beginning or ends of words. Irregular clusters are usually reduced, even in native words, like sixth (which usually loses the /s/ or the /θ/ of the final /ksθ/) - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   20:04, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Your general comment is spot on, but I have never heard "sikth" or "six" for sixth, only occasionally "sixt". μηδείς (talk) 20:28, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I had a school maths teacher who always said "sikth". --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  21:12, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * So he dropped the ess in sixth and added one to math? Sort of a conservation of ess? μηδείς (talk) 21:47, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that must be the explanation. I wonder if my former teachers of physic, statistic, ethic, civic and humanity are still alive.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  22:01, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Shirley, you mean your professors of physes, stats, eths, civs, and hums? Or did you never study analogy? μηδείς (talk) 03:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And do they call it anas or ans? —Tamfang (talk) 05:20, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I should have thought anals was obvious. μηδείς (talk) 18:13, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Your apology is accepted. Go and sin no more.  (Btw, who told you my name's Shirley?  I thought I could trust Wikipedia to protect my real identity.  Honestly, I just don't know anymore.)  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  21:17, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * sixth identifies "sikth" as a UK thing - my teachers used to say "sikth form". I definitely drop the "th" in assimilation sometimes but I guess that's a different issue - filelake shoe  &#xF0F6;   21:19, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've never really thought about it, but I think 'sikth' is how most (non-RP) Brits would pronounce it. Certainly it sounds right in my London/Home Counties accent. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:22, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Compare with older borrowings, mostly from Greek, where initial clusters that would've broken English native restrictions have been brought down to single consonant sounds: psalm, ptosis, pneumonia, ctenoid, mnemonic, xenon, cnidocyte, tmesis, gnosis, and (optionally) phthisis and chthonic. --Theurgist (talk) 02:46, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Replying to Filelakeshoe's assertion above:
 * "Czar" is not of Polish origin. The Polish equivalent is spelled car (pronounced "tsar"), while czar (pronounced "char", with "ch" as in "chair") means "charm" and is completely unrelated. According to Online Etymology Dictionary, "the spelling with cz- is against the usage of all Slavonic languages; the word was so spelt by Herberstein, Rerum Moscovit. Commentarii, 1549, the chief early source of knowledge as to Russia in Western Europe, whence it passed into the Western Languages generally; in some of these it is now old-fashioned; the usual Ger. form is now zar". — Kpalion(talk) 21:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)