Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 January 9

= January 9 =

Pi/pie
Pi is similar to pie in that they sound alike. Are there any other examples of words that sound alike, one of which is a food item, the other of which is a serious, non-gustatory entity, especially something relating to an accomplishment of mankind—either in the arts or sciences—or any other positive and affirmative realm? I'm trying to draw connections between accomplishments of humanity over our multi-thousand year history—and food items that may have (even if only in a fictional or farfetched way) sustained some of us day-to-day during that time. Thanks. Bus stop (talk) 12:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Good bread comes from good bred wheat. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * (with an English near-RP accent) "paw paw" and "poor pour" (spilling juice over the table)! However my Texan wife pronounces all three differently. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Baby Ruth (candy)/Babe Ruth (sporting hero). E is a recreational drug and e is a mathematical constant. Roe is delicious tasty fish eggs, and rho has various scientific uses (e.g. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, density, type of meson). --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:15, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Moo, assuming that means a tasty cow, and mu (letter)? Adam Bishop (talk) 13:29, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sole/Soul, Plaice/Place, Flounder/flounder, Spam/Spam. Though the last two are not fish. Of course for non-flat fish you have the Cod and if you had a portion of of cod or "cod piece" and then you have Codpiece. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 17:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Is this just a request for food puns? One obvious early cultural milestone was the worship of Cheeses, although an earlier religion with great influence was Brahmanism, with its concept of korma. In the enlightenment, much thought was given to the possibilities presented by the electrical currant, leading in due course to silicon chips, and also making it possible to become a wok musician, and perhaps develop a large flanbase. Card Zero  (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * When I was young an apple was just a fruit. Then The Beatles created the Apple recording label and some electronics entrepreneurs created Apple. HiLo48 (talk) 22:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the funny responses. You are what you eat. If it wasn't for food, could humankind have invented nuclear submarines, or performed brain surgery? Never underestimate the power of a morsel of gastronomic sustenance. Bus stop (talk) 04:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Foods are so highly prized that a number of them have been named after people. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  07:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * We all know why you are never hungry in the desert - because of the sand which is there. But why are there sandwiches in the desert? Because Ham dwelt there and his descendants bred and mustered. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:29, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would have thought that Ham and his descendants would have found such culinary accommodations to be cheesy. Probably Emmental. Bus stop (talk) 21:16, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Corny, too. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you going to send this information on your BlackBerry? — Michael J 21:52, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * And what about electronic devices that use chips? — Michael J 21:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well you know Steve Jobs put in place a quality control system because one rotten apple spoils the barrel. Bus stop (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As this discussion continues, more examples come to mind. Bus stop, did you not say that without food we could not have invented submarines? (Some may say they are heroes). And I noticed that your name ends with a "p". (They go good with carrots / carets / carats / karats.) ... [Sorry, the cookies in my computer keep bringing me back here!] — Michael J 04:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Name of fallacy/rhetorical technique
The fallacy I have in mind consists of "explaining" a phenomenon by simply restating it in other, more technical terms. Such as "the meanings of words change because of semantic alteration" or "God can do anything because God is omnipotent." Does this have a name? 69.109.56.10 (talk) 17:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Isn't this (the original meaning of) begging the question? Angr (talk) 17:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The word you seek is Tautology (rhetoric), which is "is an unnecessary or unessential (and sometimes unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing (often originally from different languages)." -- Jayron  32  20:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought of "tautology" too, but in the end I decided that this is not really tautology. It's possible I am wrong. 86.171.174.159 (talk) 21:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Circular definition? Or something in Fallacies of definition? Mitch Ames (talk) 23:59, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Fake middle English
In Doomsday book, there is a number of sentences in what's supposed to be a (likely made-up) 14th century Middle English dialect. They are left untranslated in the book, I tried to google them, but didn't find any translations either. I wonder if anyone can make sense of them?

This is one of the longest:

"Wick londebay yae comen lawdayke awtreen godelae deynorm andoar sic straunguwlondes. Spekefaw eek waenoot awfthy taloorbrede."

I think it starts with "which land did you come, lady", "straunguwlondes" could be strange lands, "speke" speak, "awfthy" of thy. But I don't get the rest of it.

A dialogue:

"- Ellavih swot wardesdoor feenden iss?" "- Maetinkerr woun dahest wexe hoordoumbe" "- Nor nayte bawcows derouthe" "- Certessan shreevadwomn wolde nadae seyvousy"

Another dialogue:

"-Thin keowre hoorwoun desmoortale?" "-Got talion wottes" "-Bere wichebay gansanon, aydreddit ister fayve riblaun" "-Nay, Elwiss, itbahn diwolffin."

The whole thing looks like a peculiar mix of French and German, with some English thrown in, it's recorded phonetically, and word spacings may be unreliable. To illustrate what we're dealing with, some easier-to-translate sentences: "Shay pighte renninge ahndist eyres" - "She fell running (down?) the stairs". "She hathnau woundes. Hoor teres been fornaught mais gain thy pitye."

Any ideas? --Itinerant1 (talk) 20:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Some of it is in fact readable, if you take it as a modern-English respelling-by-ear of an approximation of Middle English of that period and area (early 14th-century Midlands, right?) The vowel spellings suggest a Modern English spelling approximation of a pronunciation prior to the Great Vowel Shift. I can't work out all the details right now, but some details would be:

[…] Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:19, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Methink her woundes hes(t?) wexe hur dumbe.
 * ''Certes an shreved woman wolde na deceive us(?)
 * Think you hur woundes mortale?
 * God alone wottes.
 * […] is the fever y-blown?

The following is all speculative. It is a bizarre form of English (Middle) with French, hence "mais" for "but" elsewhere. Ellavihs = Eliwys, the character.

First two of a dialogue:

"Eliwys, what words do you find these to be?" "Methinks her wound has rendered her dumb." - 'wexe' as form of 'wax', "grow" or "become".

First of another dialogue: "Think you, are her wounds mortal?"

I would count on 'londes' being 'lands' as that is fine ME. In that first sentence perhaps there is a 'Normandy' in 'deynorm andoar'. 'Eek' probably for 'I (ME 'ich').-- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC) I agree with Future Perfect too. I would modify and add: "...is her fever re-blown?" "No, Eliwys, it's been [subsiding]." I am not sure what "diwolffin" should be exactly.-- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Iblardi (talk) 00:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "lawdayke awtreen godelae dey..." = "lady Katreen, good lady"?
 * "Bere wichebay gansanon" = "The berewic has begun to sound"?
 * "Nay, Elwiss, itbahn diwolffin." = "No, Eliwys, it is the wolves"?


 * For context, the story here is that a time traveler is sent back to the Middle Ages, equipped with a mechanical translator that is supposed to be able to handle the language as it was spoken, but because nobody really knows much about how Middle English was actually pronounced, she finds that the translator does not work. I believe that Connie Willis constructed those sentences by taken Middle English sentences (which we understand very well in written form) and mangling the phonemes, mostly in the direction of making them more similar to the phonemes used in German. Looie496 (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot. It's starting to make sense to me now. In the first dialogue, "bawcows" could be "beaucoup" ("much"), "certessan" could be "certainly" :


 * "Eliwys, what words do you find these to be?"
 * "Methinks her wound has rendered her dumb."
 * "Certainly a shreeved-woman would not deceive us." (But I'm not sure what "shreeved" means in this context.)
 * "Certainly a shrived woman would not deceive us." (The "i" in the word "shrived" was pronounced "ee", not "eye" in Middle English.) In England C14 context, a person who was dying and had made a last confession would have had their sins forgiven, and would not risk this state by telling a lie.  In some common law jurisdictions this is still part of evidence law: see Dying declaration.
 * (Similarly, Hamlet doesn't kill Claudius while Claudius is confessing that he murdered Hamlet's father.
 * "Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
 * And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;..." Act III, scene iii, ll 73.74)
 * --Shirt58 (talk) 08:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Excellent point. This dialogue actually happens about five pages after the woman in question receives her last rites. --Itinerant1 (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * But the past participle of shrive is shriven, which rhymes with driven. Angr (talk) 15:40, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, appears it's an an error on the author's part, an anachronism. The Middle English past participle is "shriven"; in more modern English the past participle is "shriven", but occasionally "shrived": And there she shall at Friar Laurence’ cell/Be shrived and married. R&J Act II, scene iv, ll 186-187.--Shirt58 (talk) 09:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Given that one of the persons already says that "hoor teres been fornaught mais gain thy pitye", I wonder if the last word of the third sentence could be "r(o)uth", "pity". "bawcows derouthe": "because [of] the ruth", "for the sake of ruth"? Iblardi (talk) 17:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was tending towards "routhe" too. And "shreevad" would be "shrewd" in the sense of "wicked", "bad".
 * Yes, I was tending towards "routhe" too. And "shreevad" would be "shrewd" in the sense of "wicked", "bad".


 * "Think you her wound is mortal?"
 * "God only knows."
 * "Berewick began sounding."
 * "Edward ..."
 * "Nay, Elwiss, it is a band of wolves."

Future Perfect: almost but not quite; this is supposed to be happening in the first half of the 14th century in Oxfordshire. --Itinerant1 (talk) 05:23, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would read "itbahn diwolffin" as "it ben the wolven" > "it is the wolves" rather than "it is a band of wolves"(cf. Chaucer App., "it ben the schirrefes men" > "it is the sheriff's men") [provided that ME wolf does indeed have a plural form in -en]. Iblardi (talk) 09:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Also "Spekefaw eek waenoot awfthy taloorbrede." = "Speke, for ic wat nought of thy tale or brede" > "Speak, for I know nothing of thy language or breed"? Iblardi (talk) 10:06, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I wondered whether that part (Bere wichebay gansanon) might end in anon, meaning "in a little while", or even gans anon, meaning "goes in a little while" (or "goes again"). I don't know whether these archaic words fit the time and place or not. Card Zero  (talk) 15:33, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Similarity between spanish and english?
Could someone care to explain the (apparent) similarity between these two languages? It is obvious that there are a lot of morphological similarities between many words in both languages (also semantically, but to a slightly lesser degree), but I cannot seem to find a historical event that might explain it. Thanks in advance.190.25.95.239 (talk) 22:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You'll have to give us a clue to which similarities you are thinking of. English and Spanish are distantly related, but not many of the cognates are immediately obvious, so you're probably not meaning that. But English has borrowed a lot of vocabulary from French and Latin, which are more closely related to Spanish, so perhaps that is what you mean. --ColinFine (talk) 23:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe that my exact question is: How come that two differently rooted languages (one being a romance language and the other being a germanic one) have so many morphological similarities (semantical too, but to a slighlty lesser degree)?
 * Some examples include (first is english and second is spanish):
 * Pain - Pena
 * Stranger - Extraño
 * Fallacy - Falacia
 * Science - Ciencia
 * Etc.
 * I do not think that borrowed vocabulary is exactly what I'm looking for, though it's possible I may be mistaken.190.25.95.239 (talk) 23:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not exactly family that matters in your case, but the languages from which English borrowed - in this case, French, which is a Romance language and in the same class as Spanish. However, I may be wrong. Inter  change  able | talk to me  23:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * In essence, you are indeed looking for borrowed vocabulary, but English is a special case because it borrowed so many words from other languages so early in its development. The first wave of importing Romance words happened directly after the Norman conquest - the Norman invaders brought their early French language with them, and while English kept its Germanic grammar (mostly) and a core vocabulary of Germanic words, it took in tons of French words back then. The second wave came roughly in the 16th century, when it became fashionable for science and philosophy to use Latin words and English started borrowing words from Latin in bulk. many of these words became everyday words, including, incidentally, the word "science" itself. The result is a language that is still Germanic at its core but shares more than half of its everyday vocabulary with the Romance languages, including Spanish. -- Ferkelparade &pi; 00:09, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Some similarities between English and Spanish are pure coincidence, such as much and mucho, which are not related at all. But most similar vocabulary is due to both English and Spanish having words of ultimately Latin origin (inherited in Spanish, borrowed either via French or directly from Latin in English). Angr (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I suspect that (at least) one of the OP's examples is a word that was borrowed from Latin by Spanish as well as by English. Fallacy comes from the Latin fallācia and the normal sound changes from Latin to Spanish would have rendered the initial "f" into a "h" (which was then lost in speech but retained in spelling). It follows it was a later borrowing of a Classical term, something which the Spanish did to enhance their language during the Renaissance just as the English did. Valiantis (talk) 01:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Look at the work of Jakob Grimm regarding the Indo-European languages and the changes as they evolved - it explains a lot. Collect (talk) 00:11, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * All four of your examples were borrowed into English either from French or directly from Latin. --ColinFine (talk) 12:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)