Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 January 11

= January 11 =

Spanish/Galician help
I've put the following Spanish or Galician text through Google translate but it gives me some dubious results:


 * En Madrid é protagonista dun dos moitos episodios novelescos que experimenta ao longo da súa vida, ao presenciar dende as fiestras da súa pensión o atentado contra a comitiva nupcial do rei Alfonso XIII.

Can some kind soul render it into reasonable English, please? Thanks. --  Jack of Oz   [Talk]  03:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Can you provide a link to the original text? μηδείς (talk) 03:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Funny you should ask. Please see Help desk. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  04:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The entire piece is written somewhat over-dramatically for my taste in the historical present. Literally: "In Madrid he is the protagonist of one of the many romantic episodes he experiences throughout his life, upon witnessing from the windows of his pension the attack on the nuptial entourage of King Alfonso XIII."  We wouldn't use protagonist like that in English--subject might be a better word, even then it just sounds like bad writing--maybe "In Madrid he undergoes one of the many romantic (or novelesque or storybook) events he experiences....  "Pension" is used in the European meaning of boarding room. (Full disclosure, I haven't studied Gallego more than in general surveys, but the meaning is quite clear from Spanish, French, Portuguese and Google.) μηδείς (talk) 05:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that, Medeis. I get the general gist now, and it's not something I need for the article (Manuel Quiroga (violinist)).  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  06:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Website for obscure words
A while ago I stumbled upon a website that gives out several (2-3?) rarely used, obscure English words on a regular basis and asks readers to write sentences using the words. Does anyone know this website? I've deleted my browser history and am seemingly unable to find it via Google. Thanks in advance. --BorgQueen (talk) 04:17, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * See The Phrontistery: Obscure Words and Vocabulary Resources.—Wavelength (talk) 17:38, 14 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that's full of interesting links! I will see if any of them leads to what I've been looking for. --BorgQueen (talk) 18:28, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

History of Belgium
Am I posting this in the right place?

We are discussing a map on this page (section 17 on the talk page). Maybe people knowledgeable about language history can participate? --Thathánka Íyotake (talk) 06:21, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I have linked to the article so people can find the talk page section. Better: a direct link. μηδείς (talk) 07:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * That is in fact decidedly un-direct, Medeis. It takes you out of Wikipedia and into the big bad internet, and then drags you back in.  Very circuitous.  A more direct route is this.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  10:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I am marking this resolved based on consensus at that talk page to remove the image from the article in question as mislabeled and unhelpful. μηδείς (talk) 08:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Bill
why is bill a nickname for William?. I can not see the connection between the names. --89.249.2.53 (talk) 10:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Neither is Guillaume very similar, but over time and in different regions pronunciations can differ wildly, and a w can change into a b or vice versa. According to this site, "The change in the initial consonant may have been influenced by an earlier Irish pronunciation of the name". - Lindert (talk) 10:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Many others: Margaret --> Peg, Anne --> Nance, and John --> Jack (although Jack's come into its own now as a name in its own right; I've met youngish people who simply don't believe there was a time, not very long ago, when you could be virtually certain that anyone known as Jack was legally a John). --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  11:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Those were the days, eh, John of Oz? 72.128.82.131 (talk) 02:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting discussion (including a name familiar here!) on this site, with links. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Fascinating read. Certain names seem to automatically go to certain nicknames. Royalty's Henry to Harry, for example (both long ago and modern). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:17, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * William -> Will -> Bill
 * Robert -> Robin -> Dobbin
 * Mary -> Molly -> Polly
 * Margaret -> Meg -> Peg
 * Frances -> Frannie -> Fannie
 * To name a few. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:23, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting in many of the patterns above is the changing of the initial consonant from a continuant to a stop consonant. Also the Robert -> Bob and Richard -> Dick transformations involve the change from a continuant to a stop.  Any reliable sources come to a similar analysis?  Sort of like Grimm's law in reverse?  -- Jayron  32  17:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * But see also Robert -> Hob (as in the surname Hobbs ), Roger -> Hodge (as in the surname Hodgson ), Richard to Hick (as in the surname Higson ). None of these are commonly used as hypocoristics nowadays, but they were clearly commonplace in the late medieval period when English surnames became established. Robert has at least 5 variants - Rob, Nob, Hob, and Dob - all of which have produced common English surnames - plus Bob which doesn't seem to have, so seems likely to be a more recent innovation. The changes seem to employ lenition of the initial consonant as well as fortition. Valiantis (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The William to Bill transition might be better understood by considering that the German Wilhelm is pronounced with a V sound where the W is. W to V to B makes some sense. HiLo48 (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Behind the Name - the etymology and history of first names says; "BILL: This spelling was first used in the 19th century. The change in the initial consonant may have been influenced by an earlier Irish pronunciation of the name." Alansplodge (talk) 21:01, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Voiceless dental affricate
How do you pronounce ? Double sharp (talk) 12:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Say "cat thing" You just did it. -- Jayron  32  13:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Dialect-dependent of course, I have a pretty clear [kʰæʔ θɪ̃ŋ] for that in my near-GA. A fast, deaspirated one can appear in "fifths" [fɪftθs] "sixths" [sɪkstθs] and so on for some people.  (Yesyes, not an actual affricate, but identical in pronunciation to one).  Lsfreak (talk) 20:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It's common in width, prounced witth. μηδείς (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hasn't the former practically progressive voicing towards [-dð]? --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 10:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It may in some dialects (I'd surprised if it doesn't--everything happens somewhere--in Upstate New York they say "/ðæŋk/ you") but not in my dialect, or anywhere I can recall, and the th doesn't assimilate in "strength" or "length", but rather the other way around. μηδείς (talk) 17:08, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Mid 19th century (or earlier) dialect question..
I noticed that a decent number of the Latter Day Saint Hymns have in places where words should rhyme the words Lord and Word. Is there (or has there been) a dialect of english where those two words rhyme?


 * English spelling generally reflects the phonetic pronunciation of the language as of about the 15th century, so the two words did once rhyme. Word once rhymed with the present-day pronunciation of lord.  Words with rhotic vowels that are now pronounced [ər] in rhotic dialects (as word is now pronounced in most rhotic English dialects) once had a variety of different vowels as reflected in their spelling, such as bird (once pronounced with a rhotic vowel like the one in modern beer), earn (whose vowel sounded much like the one in hair), and work (which like word had a vowel like the one in modern shore).  These rhotic vowels began collapsing into [ər].  Since this change seems to have happened before non-rhotic pronunciations developed in eastern England, this change had probably begun by the 17th century, when rhoticity probably began to disappear in eastern England.  However, I believe that these rhotic vowels still retain distinct pronunciations in parts of Scotland and possibly northern England and Ireland (though I am no expert on British accents and dialects), so I don't think that this shift is universal in English even today.  Marco polo (talk) 17:11, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Went and looked at a rhyming dictionary online and 'word' is the only -ord word that they have that rhymes with bird. So 'word' is the oddity.Naraht (talk) 19:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This is complete speculation, but most versions of US English are rhotic and are mainly descended from versions of English spoken in the West Country and West Midlands of England and in Northern Ireland in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is quite plausible that the rhotic vowels described above remained distinct in many versions of 19th-century American English, such as the version spoken by the early Mormons.  It is also plausible that those pronunciations were replaced by the "standard" pronunciations in the early 20th century with the advent of radio.  Marco polo (talk) 18:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC).


 * I'll have to look to see how many of those hymns were written by Utah LDS and how many of them date to elsewhere and elsewhen.Naraht (talk) 19:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Hymn rhymes are often not very good. An example that springs to mind is from Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, written by Charles Wesley no less; "Late in time, behold Him come, / Offspring of the Virgin's womb". I don't believe that "come" has ever sounded anything like "womb" - it's just a forced (or oblique) rhyme - "a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound" to quote our article. You might also want to look at Eye rhyme, "a rhyme in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently and have come into general use through "poetic license" also known as artistic license". This seems to fit the OP's example perfectly.  Alansplodge (talk) 19:36, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Another example, this time from Isaac Watts's most famous hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. In all the verses, the first line rhymes with the third and the second with the fourth, except in Verse 2:
 * ''"Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
 * ''Save in the death of Christ my God!
 * ''All the vain things that charm me most,
 * I sacrifice them to His blood."
 * The prosecution rests its case m'lud. Alansplodge (talk) 19:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It looks like spelling rhymes, quite popular in the old times, they did not care about pronunciation.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 10:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Eye rhyme. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:30, 12 January 2013 (UTC) (Sorry Alansplodge, I see now you've given the same link. In my defence I have flu.)
 * No worries - I think it's the best fit for this question and got rather buried in all the other material. Get well soon. Alansplodge (talk) 14:07, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Help Identifying a Short Story - Kipling I think
I recall a short story in a book of short stories. It is set in Imperial India and concerns the futility of studying to pass exams or learn a set of facts rather than studying to become educated; also the poor state of education in India at that time.

The point is made in the story by the main character, an inspector of schools, I think. In one 'scene', he is testing a class on their English Literature comprehension. He gets them to read aloud a passage from an English poem that uses the word 'vernal'. He then asks for a definition and is told that 'vernal' pertains to spring - a perfect definition. Then he takes out his pocket watch and points out that it has a spring and asks if it is, therefore 'vernal'. He is immediately told that it must certainly be vernal. And thus the point is made.

My poor memory tells me that it is a Kipling story and certainly the flavour of the story and its politics is Kiplingesque. But search though I have through all my Kipling, I cannot find it. Can anyone help please? Gurumaister (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Board room
Unsure if this is a language or a history question. But why is a board room called a board room? What is the board? (I've been told a reason but am trying to verify it and have failed to find refernces on Google.) -- SGBailey (talk) 23:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Presumably due to terms like Board of directors, which derives from "board" as equating to a table. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)