Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 August 13

= August 13 =

Zebra crossings in en-gb
Up above, in the discussion about metrical psalters, the tangent on Anglican chant helped me find a very funny video from the 1960s of a choir singing traffic regulations in the style of Anglican chant. My question deals with a couple spots in the video, including 2:35, where the regulations mention zebra crossings. As an American, I pronounce the first vowel as I do the name of the letter: "zee" or /ˈziː/. I note that they pronounce it with the same vowel as is heard in the first syllable of "Zebedee" or the British pronunciation of the letter "Z", zɛ. Is this normal in British English? Nyttend (talk) 00:34, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes. I'm sure there are many other examples, but where I always hear it is in Peppa Pig, who has a friend named Zoe Zebra. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, in British English, the long "e" after "z" (zɛd, not zɛ) is used only where there is a "double e" as in Zeeland, Zuiderzee or a second vowel as in Zena, Zealand. The double consonant in Zebra ensures that the "e" is short in British English (except from a few speakers who have been influenced by American pronunciations).    D b f i r s   07:02, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the lack of clarity; I don't "speak" IPA and thus didn't know if zɛd were all right, or if I had to put in a bunch of diacritical marks everywhere to convey the pronunciation of "zed" properly; I figured that zɛ would convey the vowel sound in question. Nyttend (talk) 07:05, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that conveyed the idea clearly enough. I don't know why we put a "d" on the end of "Z" when we pronounce the letter.    D b f i r s   07:22, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That's the difference between the sound of the letter and the name of the letter. There's no h sound in the name of the letter h*, no q sound in the name of the letter q, and no w sound in the name of the letter w.  (* Unless you call it "haitch", in which case you should see a glossoliatrist.)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  07:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I like pronouncing it as haitch though... ☯ Bonkers The Clown  \(^_^)/  Nonsensical Babble  ☯ 08:20, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Sometimes more drastic measures are called for. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:25, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I secretly yearn to have such power. The first people I'd shoot would be those who spell "too" as "to". There is nothing in the known universe that irritates me quite so much.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  08:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Great video... ☯ Bonkers The Clown  \(^_^)/  Nonsensical Babble  ☯ 08:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh yes there is a q sound in the name of the letter q; the sound of q is, not . In a word like "queen" the  is from the u, not the q.  jnestorius(talk) 20:37, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Harrumph! --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:21, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


 * First off, both /ziːbrə/ and /zɛbrə/ are in common use in the UK (the OED lists the pronunciations in that order). I usually say the former, especially for zebra crossing.
 * As for the name, Z explains that 'zed' comes from the Greek 'zeta'. It is true that it is anomalous in deriving its name in this way: I suspect that this is to do with its perceived alienness in the Latin alphabet (it was adopted at a late stage in Latin, specifically to transcribe Greek words - this is why it was added to the end). Both French and German use names derived from 'zeta' for it. --ColinFine (talk) 09:59, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Getting back to the point, yes, in many varieties of British English zebra has the vowel, not the  vowel as it does in American English. The letter Z is called "zed" in British English because it comes from French zed, which comes from Latin zeta, which comes from Greek ζῆτα (zēta). American English zee is a later word created by analogy with the large number of other consonant letters whose name is the sound they make followed by the ee sound (B, C, D, G, P, T, V). In theory it could also have been called ez after the analogy of F, L, M, N, S, X. In Northern Ireland, the name of H is (or at least used to be) a shibboleth for telling Catholics from Protestants: Catholics call it "haitch" and Protestants call it "aitch". Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:08, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Like when James Cagney (and probably George Cohan himself) sang the song "Harrigan" with a mock Irish accent: "Haitch, A, double OR, AYE, G, A, N spells 'Harrigan'." ←Baseball Bugs As regards Z, according to EO it's been pronounced that way in the British colonies / USA starting as early as the 17th century. What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:39, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Unaccredited actors [sic]
In List of Carry On films cast members there are various instances of the word "unaccredited", in relation to appearances in the films by certain actors. I was going to change them all to "uncredited", but thought I'd better check here first. Is "unaccredited" an acceptable variant of "uncredited"?

It seems to me that "(un)accredited" is about licensing, professional qualifications/credentials, that sort of thing. It has nothing to do with acknowledging the actors in a movie.

But I could be wrong. (I suppose there has to be a first time for everything.) --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  12:16, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You are exactly right, and I thank you for catching that. -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  12:23, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've fixed it now.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:20, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Chinese characters
What are written on the two following boards?


 * 1) pic a or pic b
 * 2) pic c

Thank you very much. --124.120.240.141 (talk) 12:19, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * They are:
 * 明鏡高懸, perspicacious and impartial in judgment (idiom)
 * 公正廉明, be fair and incorruptible
 * Note: They should be read from right to left, see Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts.
 * --Kusunose 14:46, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The first phrase literally means "the bright mirror hangs high". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

word
how do you translate the danish word stræber to english? --188.176.236.246 (talk) 15:12, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Google Translate says it means "strive". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:33, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Latino Lover
Google search for Latino Lover delivers as one of the first results a definition in Urban Dictionary: "Usually a white girl who is highly attracted to latinos, Also is obessed with the spanish language and listens to latin music..." Regarding all the other usage (including songs): May I assume that this is nonsense and Latino Lover always means a Latin Lover (whose definition would AFAICS be a nice addendum to the disambiguation)? --KnightMove (talk) 15:36, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * What's your basis for that? Keep in mind this is urban slang, and it's not necessarily going to follow Spanish rules. Like when the 1967 St. Louis Cardinals were dubbed "El Birdos" by a non-Hispanic coach.
 * In English we use the term "lover" rather loosely. If I say I'm a "music lover" it means I love music, it doesn't mean I've got music as a mistress. In Spanish, amante is "lover" in the sense you're defending, while aficionado is "lover" or "big fan" in the sense of the urban dictionary. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Latin lover in your sense would be amante latino. To express the urban dictionary idea, it would be something like aficionado de todas las cosas latinas, which is kind of a mouthful for urban slang. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:55, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I was not referring to the Spanish terms at all, but to the way the exact term Latino Lover is used internationally, especially in English - and almost always it seems to refer to a 'latin' male with a lot of sexappeal. The European hit song Latino Lover by Loona is but one example of many (the text is Spanish, but the singer and the target audience ar not). --KnightMove (talk) 18:52, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In America, at least, the term for your usage would be just "Latin Lover". I'm still waiting for you to prove your claim that the other usage is "nonsense". Just because you haven't heard it doesn't mean it isn't real. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:22, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Quite obviously, I have not made a claim I should prove, but an assumption I wanted to check here. Further I have already pointed towards my own Google research. Feel free to check that "He is [He's] a Latino lover" has at least some 80 Google hits, the same sentence with "She" not a single one. If the meaning in Urban dictionary is real, it is almost certainly the exception rather than the rule.
 * Let's keep it that way. --KnightMove (talk) 07:43, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, let's put it this way. You asked, "May I assume that this is nonsense and Latino Lover always means a Latin Lover?" The answer is, "No, you may not make that assumption." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:34, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, I admit 'my bad' to use the exaggeration always in my question. Can we find an agreement that Latino Lover is an unusual term in English, but if used usually refers to a Latin Lover, so that this Urban Dictionary entry is at least wrong in the regard to apply the term usually to a white, latin-loving girl? --KnightMove (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I have to say that I've never, ever heard the expression "Latino Lover" in America, at all. The term for a lover who's from south of the border would be "Latin lover". But if it's in the urban dictionary as someone who's an aficionado of all things Latino (or Latina), it must be at least regionally used that way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:11, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. Urban Dictionary is a wiki that's open to all.  Afaik, all contributions are accepted immediately without any kind of checking.  All we know for sure that at least one (1) person uses it that way.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:51, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Classical pronounciation of Latin

 * Hello,


 * I would like to create a map showing the pronounciation of Latin in schools in Europe. Of Germany I know, that it uses another pronounciation than the Classical one, how is it in the other countries?
 * I know that:
 * in Portugal the Classical pronounciation is used
 * in Spain the Classical pronounciation is used
 * in France a modified pronounciation is used
 * in Austria a modified pronounciation is used
 * in Germany a modified pronounciation is used
 * in the United Kingdom the Classical pronounciation is used
 * I suspect that in Sweden also a modified pronounciation is used, but I don't know it really.
 * Could somebody help me out here, I'd be glad if you have some sources?


 * Greetings HeliosX (talk) 17:23, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * There really is no such thing as a ("the") classical pronunciation of Latin (or of any language, for that matter). The pronunciation of Latin, like that of any language, was socially variable at any given point in time, and changed a lot even within what we now call the classical period. Moreover, in modern teaching of dead languages, no school system uses anything even remotely approaching a true, linguistically accurate phonetic reconstruction of any historical state of the language. Students and teachers will inevitably, more or less unknowingly, adapt the pronuncation to their native phonological habits. Perhaps they will make a point of getting this or that pronunciation feature historically "right" (like, using [k] for written c), but will they also get the vowel qualities right? The length distinctions? The stress system? The precise phonetic nature of the consonants? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:46, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * See Latin regional pronunciation. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:55, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * When I say my old school-motto, my pronunciation is often corrected with a grandiose British accent. I don't trust that correction. The motto was "Scires est Potentia". I say it  . Plasmic Physics (talk) 19:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I bet it was "Scire est potentia" (scires is an imperfect subjunctive, and not very nominalizable). AnonMoos (talk) 03:36, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Since Latin is essentially nonexistent in Swedish schools, there is no official or standard pronuncaition. It's quite obvious when speakers need to pronounce certain academic titles, and have no idea how to say things. (On another note, HeliosX, you seem to be making the same mistake that I did for many, many years: There is no 'ou' in pronunciation.) /81.170.148.21 (talk) 13:35, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Funny, I've never heard anyone say "enounciation" or "announciation". I wonder why they make the error with the "pro-" word.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:07, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * My guess is that "enounce" is a word ESL speakers learn late or never, and that the common corresponding form for "announce" is "announcement". I.e., there aren't a lot of commonly known words with the 'ou' -> 'u' shift. /81.170.148.21 (talk) 17:21, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That makes a lot of sense. Your answer should be annunciated hither and yon. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:02, 19 August 2013 (UTC)