Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 January 20

= January 20 =

Talking products and shopping stores
I'm here to ask about the odd, unnatural "almost-English" that commercial marketers seem prone to. Examples:
 * Many large stores in my country have signs near the exit that say "Thank you for shopping K-Mart" (or whatever the name is).
 * We see TV ads with some celebrity endorsing some product, and it's set up as a conversation introduced by something like "Don Burke talks Selley's".

Who actually talks like that? Does a concerned parent say to their partner "We need to talk Kevin"? Nobody I've ever heard says they "shop K-Mart" or "talk Selley's". They might shop at K-Mart or talk about Selley's products. We do "talk turkey", but that's a very particular expression that isn't generalised, afaik.

What message are the marketers trying to convey with this strange prepositionless language? --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  08:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That they are sooo cool that they can't be bothered with prepositions, and will get away it? --Lgriot (talk) 09:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The "talks X" usage seems a fairly reasonable extension of expressions like "let's talk business", but I've never seen the "shopping" example here in the UK. To me, "shopping K-mart" can only mean reporting them to the police for some misbehaviour. (shop) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Well Jack, one thing it's done is caught your attention. Now, next time you need a product which could come from those suppliers, you will go directly there. That's how it's supposed to work anyway. HiLo48 (talk) 09:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That works in reverse for me. Have you by chance encountered those truly shocking ads for Harvey Norman, which SHOUT all their messages at us at an incomprehensibly fast speed and end with a gaggle of women screaming Go, Harvey Norman! GO!?  I always turn the sound off, and I will not set foot in their stores or buy any of their products until they can communicate with us in a civilised manner.  Not that my silent protest will make the slightest difference to their profits, but it makes me feel better.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  05:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * My subjective impression, based on the USA-originated general literature and specific linguistic material I've read over the decades (e.g. Leo Rosten's The Joy of Yiddish), is that such usages are consistent with others that derive from German and Yiddish, having entered general US linguistic culture from immigrants with those native tongues. Consider, for example, such Yiddish-English expressions as "Would you like a cup coffee?" eliding the "of" natural to British English.
 * I believe it's uncontroversial that the 20th-century advertising industry, as with the comic book industry and Hollywood, had a higher than average proportion of Jewish participants (NB: this is in no way a negative observation – I'm partly of Jewish descent myself), and as a consequence expressions characteristic of that linguistic community may have entered US English preferentially through advertising. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.242 (talk) 10:47, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "...Then Sammy he crumbled, just like a piece halva..." (courtesy of Allan Sherman). I don't think it's necessarily a Jewish thing, it's just a trend in written advertising to have as few words there as possible. In spoken English, it's done more conventionally: "Thank you for shopping at K-Mart." During the holiday season, Mike Rowe had a number of ads for Ford automobiles which all began: "What do I do during the holidays? Come to the mall. Talk about Ford." Not "talk Ford". Although he did leave out the subject "I", that being understood. There are spoken expressions such as "let's talk business" or "let's talk turkey". Those are kind of specialized. "Business" is often used without an article. "How's business?" for example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It does seem to be a modern and mainly American phenomenon, merging the preposition into the word. This book makes a brief reference to it. In the UK "thank you for shopping X" is unheard of, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear/read "thank you for flying British Airways". the wub "?!"  17:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * See "flying British Airways". Similar results for "flying Qantas" etc.  Somehow it seems perfectly OK to say "I usually fly Qantas" but completely stupid to say "I usually shop Myer".  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd chalk it up to a tendency of people in service jobs, perhaps as instructed by marketing departments, to substitute a verb for the customer's action for the verb to use. Whether this tendency then spread to the culture at large, or rather started as general use and then moved into flight-attendant-speak, I don't know. "Thank you for shopping Wal-Mart" = "Thank you for using Wal-Mart (for your shopping needs)." "Thank you for (flying Delta, or riding Amtrak)" are the other major uses I've heard. Now, it could simply be a dropped preposition as Bugs suggests; but I think it might instead be a general practice to commodify the product being sold, even if the product is a service rather than a physical thing. Flying Northwest is the same thing, from either a shareholder's or your internal linguist's perspective, as eating McDonald's (though nobody thanks you for that in so many words) or drinking Coke or reading The New York Times. These uses all make sense as a direct act by a consumer (speaker) upon a tangible object which is named identically to the company that produced it, and on this hypothesis a flight from Point A to Point B is just like a hamburger with lettuce and tomato, in terms of how language manipulates its meaning in a sentence. ☯.Zen Swashbuckler  .☠  20:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would have thought the cost of the sign would be a factor. There must be some saving in dropping "at" or "the". Of course you can always try complaining. My neighbour has a sign that reads "Beware of dog" that really irritates me, especially as he is never there. I complained about it but in the end I wrote "the" on a paper and stuck it on the sign. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 00:47, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Really? The cost of printing a single word on a few hundred signs, when compared with their huge turnover?  I can't believe that would be the reason.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  05:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If they want to save money, why not write it in Latin,[[Image:Dom dramaturga.jpg|thumb|Cave canem]] AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Maybe the sign means to say something like “Thank you for shopping. K-Mart”, with the “K-Mart” being a signature, and they're actually eliding punctuation marks rather than prepositions?  &#x2013; b_jonas 17:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Talking about saving money with shorter signs — Alcoa dropped an "i" from "aluminium" to save space and created the spelling "aluminum" as a result. Nyttend (talk) 20:39, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Aluminium has a rather more detailed and complex story, with no mention of Alcoa. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm with Jack on this Nyttend. Alcoa has extensive operations here in Australia and, as you'll see from its Australian web site, follows the country's convention of using the aluminium spelling here. HiLo48 (talk) 21:21, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've definitely heard the story before, but even Alcoa's website plainly attributes "num" to sources before the company's establishment. Now I'm curious where I heard that story...Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no citation to back this up, but the impression I have is that it's nothing to do with saving space or saving money. They want to kinda "sex-up" the language, inject some "chicness" into it. A person who "shops K-Mart" is on the ball and is up there with all the latest fashion and IT trends (a good thing, supposedly), whereas a person who merely "shops at K-Mart" could just be your frazzled and frumpish overweight housewife from the western suburbs with screaming snotty-nosed kids named Charlene, Kylie and Nathan. Any marketing gurus out there who can confirm my deepest suspicions? --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:43, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation
I'm looking for a word that satisfies the following 3 conditions: So far, I have one example: "wicked". Any other examples? 87.68.245.244 (talk) 09:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It ends in an "ed" (for indicating the Past tense, or the Past participle).
 * The "ed" follows a voiceless consonant other than t.
 * The "ed" is pronounced: /ɪd/ (i.e. not /t/).
 * Surely "wicked" (with the -ed pronounced) doesn't satisfy your first condition. Off-hand I can only think of the slightly archaic "blessèd". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, Etymonline suggests that the -ed is historically an adjectival ending in "wicked", and gives the similar example "wretched", where the -ed is also pronounced. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Does Etymonline mean Past participle, by "adj. use"? 87.68.245.244 (talk) 10:30, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "Knackered" in British English. Cheating, I know, but the "ed" follows the "k" sound.  Omg †  osh 10:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope. Sorry, the "ed" follows the sound, which is not a voicelss consonant, but rather a sound of a voiced vowel - following a voiceless consonant. 87.68.245.244 (talk) 11:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Cussed, to go with blessed. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Really? I've only ever heard cussed as monosyllabic. 86.21.250.191 (talk) 22:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Also crooked, learned, naked, rugged, and (two-, three- …)-legged, if we aren't limited to real verbs. More here--Cam (talk) 21:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, but naked was in Middle English spelt nacod; it doesn't contain an -ed ending of any kinid. 86.21.250.191 (talk) 22:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Forgive me, I am aged.--Cam (talk) 04:45, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Isn't the "g" voiced? Falconus p  t   c 22:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes it is, but the source gives also unvoiced examples: crooked, naked, wicked, wretched, blessed, markedly, markedness. As for the other "voiced" examples: aged, learned, rugged (and: two-legged), the source gives them just in order to claim that their "ed" is pronounced /ɪd/ rather than just /d/. 87.68.245.244 (talk) 01:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Greek, German, English
In the realm of paleontology, how do the words "πλατεία", "breiter Weg", and "broadway"? What would be a better translation of the Greek into English (or German, for that matter). Bielle (talk) 10:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * According to my condensed Liddell and Scott, Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (alternative dialect form πλατέα) is the feminine singular of the adjective πλατύς "Flat, wide, broad". Unfortunately, the word "broadway"[sic] is used prominently on article plateosaurus in a way which really doesn't make any sense according to the meanings of "broadway" listed in English dictionaries, and some of the authors of this alleged featured article react strongly to that being pointed out... AnonMoos (talk) 11:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The big L-S says that πλατεῖα was also used substantively to mean "street" (i.e., πλατεῖα ὁδός)—see sense II at the page I've linked. I agree that "broadway" is a poor translation either of πλατεῖα or of breiter Weg. Deor (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I saw the "discussion". What has me curious is that Google translate uses the Greek word as one of the two words meaning "public square". A public square is a "broad road" or "broad way". There is no use of the single word "broadway" that I know that isn't specific to the world of theater. A public square is usually paved with large stones; is that the connection, I wonder? Can "πλατεία" mean "plate" as in "large scales" or even "tectonic plates"? The whole argument seems to hinge on a translation into a phrase that isn't English. Bielle (talk) 11:21, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Η πλατεῖα can mean "street" (literally "the flat one"), as mentioned by Deor. I don't see anything about public square in the dictionary, and no-one knew about tectonic plates until the 20th century... AnonMoos (talk) 11:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the "public square" meaning is peculiar to Modern Greek, probably influenced by (or having developed along the same lines as) Italian piazza, Spanish plaza, etc. Deor (talk) 11:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, Lewis & Short's first definition of the Latin equivalent platea is "a broad way in a city, a street". Breiter Weg = "broad way", but the OED entry for solid broadway (with the parenthetical note "now usually as two words") says that as a common noun it meant "a wide open road or highway, as opposed to a narrow lane or byway", which seems to lack the urban focus of the Greek and Latin words. Deor (talk) 11:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You accidentally a word. 80.122.178.68 (talk) 13:40, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The subject is detailed at length in de:Plateosaurus. Unaware of von Meyer's intentions, Latin platea allows a possible sense of Plateosaurus' bones discovered when building a new road or near a road (we don't know). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 14:10, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Von Meyer describes breite starke Gliedmaasenknochen von 1 1/2 Fuss Länge (broad big limb bones of 1 1/2 feet length), here. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

at (the) Technische Universität Berlin
According to the styleguide of my university, the term "Technische Universität Berlin" (literally Berlin University of Technology) is not translated in English texts. But does this term need an article (c.f. "at THE University of Texas") or not (c.f. "at Stanford University"), so will it be "I am studying at THE Technische Universität Berlin" or "at Technische Universität Berlin"? 130.149.229.180 (talk) 10:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I think either one could be used, depending if you want to effectively "Anglicize" it a little (by including "the") or treat it as a purely foreign name (by omitting "the"). AnonMoos (talk) 10:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I have no source to back this up, just my own experience of how we say things in the UK, but I reckon that if the name is given as 'xxx University' there is no article, but if you have the word 'of' in the title, you need an article. Therefore you get 'Oxford University', 'Westminster Academy', 'City University', but 'the University of Oxford', 'the University of Nottingham', 'the Royal School of Mines' and so on. Therefore I would plump for either 'Technische Universität Berlin' (which I would personally translate as Berlin Technical University, therefore no 'of' and no article) or, if translated as above, 'THE Berlin University of Technology', which has an 'of' so needs a 'the'. I hope that makes a bit of sense! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I just had a further thought. Google shows 30 hits for "studying at Technische Universität Berlin", but only 7 for "studying at the Technische Universität Berlin". So there is not much in it, and I would say that you could legitimately pick either usage - as long as you use it with confidence I doubt anyone will notice! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For "at Technische Universität Berlin" vs. "at the Technische Universität Berlin" the ratio is about 1 to 2,5. The exact numbers vary but they are in the tens to hundreds of thousands. Iblardi (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For comparison, "studying at the Technical University of Berlin" gets 20000 hits (5 without "the") and "studying at the TU Berlin" gets 4000 hits (800 without "the"). 188.117.11.111 (talk) 13:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There are no clear rules, but my instinct is also to use "the", especially because German also uses an article here: "an der Technische Universität Berlin". Lesgles (talk) 22:05, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Japanese screenshot text to English
Hello, could someone please tell me what they're saying in this screenshot from Kasou Taishou 2012? Thanks in advance! --Kreachure (talk) 23:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The contestant #7 suddenly got ill before the performance and withdrew from the competition. Try next time! Oda Mari (talk) 02:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Oda Mari. I assume that by "try next time", you mean "Please wait for the rest of the competition"? ;) --Kreachure (talk) 02:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No. They are saying the contestant may try again next time (literally, it says "We are waiting for you to try again"). Also, the Japanese says, "...condition got worse and suddenly withdrew...." From that, I would take it that the contestant was actually already sick but was planning to turn up anyway.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  02:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, I understand now. Thanks for the clarifications, KageTora! --Kreachure (talk) 02:56, 21 January 2012 (UTC)