Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 May 5

= May 5 =

Snacks and snack bars in German
My German is fairly rusty, and it's been years since I've had any formal education in the language. I distinctly remember, from education and travels, that an Imbiss is a snack bar, but the English reference at is to snack food. Running that article through Google Translate suggests that Imbiss means snack, but can also refer to a snack bar by metonymy. Before exploring the issue further, I added de:Imbiss to the snack bar article. I'm second guessing that now, given the way the de to en reference points. Can a German speaker straighten this out for me? Thanks, BDD (talk) 03:15, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The German article begins "An Imbiss is a thing-eaten-between-meals. It has the same meaning as the English expression snack." The third heading down, "Verkaufsstand" notes that the word is also used to refer to snack bars, but implies (without spelling it out) that it's short for either "Imbissbude" or "Imbissstand". The main article for the latter term indicates that both those terms are used, as well as "Buffet" or "Wurstelstand" in Austria, and "Take-away" in Switzerland, to mean small take-away snack bars. Personally I've also come across "Schellimbiss", i.e. "quick-snack", to mean a fast-food place. It's pretty clear therefore that corresponds to Snack, and  to Snack bar. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It isn't helpful that the German article describes both meanings and is therefore ambiguous regarding what the (encyclopedia, not dictionary) article is actually about. But since most of the text is about the food, and the other meaning is an abbreviation or metonymy, "Imbiss" probably shouldn't be linked to the English snack bar article. Selecting the right Interlanguage link can be difficult when there is a lack of uniqueness. The en.wikipedia article on Snack could link to de:Imbiss, but, as it stands, the German article actually links back to Snack food on en.wikipedia. Similarly, Snack bar could link to de:Imbissstand, but here the German article links back to en.wikipedia's article on Take-out. ---Sluzzelin talk  11:56, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Good point. What about de:Zwischenmahlzeit for 'snack'? AlexTiefling (talk) 17:56, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Followup: At present, de:Zwischenmahlzeit links to Tea (meal), which is obviously wrong, since while Tea is an example of Zwischenmahlzeit, so is (for example) second breakfast, which the German article specifically mentions. I think that de.wikipedia's links to en.wikipedia in this area are less than useful. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I have changed the link to de:Imbiss ... this is not ideal, but according to differences in the concepts, probably best. --KnightMove (talk) 07:51, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

presentness as opposed to presence
May someone know, please, in which philosophical text or context they have been used for the first time? Many thanks in advance. --Omidinist (talk) 12:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I shall move it to Humanities Desk. --Omidinist (talk) 12:28, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll mark this Q resolved, meaning that the instance on this Desk was resolved, by moving it to another Desk. StuRat (talk) 18:01, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

New def of cynical ?
It's related to def 4 at the link in the title: "showing contempt for accepted moral standards by one's actions". However, that seems a bit vague, as, say, an inter-racial marriage when those were not allowed wouldn't have been called that.

I've seen it used to mean "engaging in behavior which elicits cynicism from others", as in "the politician cynically put his office in a building he owns which charges $1000 for parking, which then goes directly into his pocket". So, is this an accepted usage ? If so, how recent is it ? StuRat (talk) 17:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Look at the original cynic... -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I read it. What lesson am I supposed to get from it ?  That cynics defecate in public and wish they were dogs ? StuRat (talk) 04:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "vitamin" history question
Please comment at Reference desk/Science if you can help with this. --John (talk) 19:37, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Need a Portuguese translation
Could someone clean up this bit of Google's rendition of Portuguese? My original is"Question Right now, Gre-Nal and Grenal are both redirects to Gre–Nal. Do you want to move Gre–Nal to one of the other titles? If so, please place  on the title where you want the page to be (type it on Grenal if you want us to move Gre–Nal there) and replace 'your reason for moving the page' with the reason why you believe the page should be moved.  Nyttend (talk) 21:48, 5 May 2012 (UTC)"which Google makes into the following:"Pregunta Agora, Gre-Nal e Grenal são os dois redirecionamentos para Gre-Nal. Você deseja mover Gre-Nal para um dos outros títulos? Se assim for, por favor lugar no título onde deseja que a página a ser (digite-o no Grenal, se você quer que a gente se mover Gre-Nal lá) e substituir 'sua razão para mover a página' com a razão por que acha que a página deve ser movido.  Nyttend (talk) 22:01, 5 May 2012 (UTC)"This comes from a nomination at Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 May 5; the nominator is user pt and user en-0. Nyttend (talk) 22:05, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Never mind — the nominator understood what I was trying to mean. I wonder if he should change his userpage to user en-1 :-)  Nyttend (talk) 22:24, 5 May 2012 (UTC)