Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 November 7

= November 7 =

Apple of my eye
I've heard this saying before. But today I heard from a father regarding his daughter ("she's the apple of my eye") and it just landed on my ears strangely. Is it my own bias, but I've always heard it applied to male offspring? What's the proper usage? --209.203.125.162 (talk) 00:22, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The father's usage seems fine to me; I've never noted any gender restrictions in its use. (For the origin of the expression, by the way, see this.) Perhaps your sense of its use has somehow been influenced by "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree", which I believe does tend to be used of male offspring. Deor (talk) 00:31, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Apples have no gender, even those who fall from (Kardashian family) trees. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:28, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * They certainly have gender in languages where gender applies to nouns (Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, many others). What they lack is sex. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  03:14, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * La manzana, no el manzana (sounds weird and funny) hahahaha. It is feminine in Spanish :P  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  15:50, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Apparently, la manzana cae del manzano? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Sí, pero cuando estás hablando de la fruta se dice la manzana; y cuando hablas del árbol se dice el manzano. Same happens with la naranja y el naranjo. This reminds me of a song I heard when I was a kid.
 * La vaca y el vaco... perdón... digo, el toro... hehehee. Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  18:47, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Apples and apples both have gender. But apples are generally cultivated commercially by grafting.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 13:45, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Metaphorical apples are gender-optional mutants. And don't get me started on the Killer Tomatoes. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:29, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * EO has a brief explanation of the origin of the term. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Gwyneth Paltrow certainly thought that an Apple could be feminine! ... -- AnonMoos (talk) 05:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The etymology Bugs linked to is common cross culturally, the pupil of the eye being regarded as a fruit. It is mentioned in the Old Testament. μηδείς (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It is described in Apple of my eye. The English article attests only a symbolic meaning, and I am a bit surprised by the fact that the EO explains it "was the pupil, supposed to be a globular solid body", for everybody knew very well how eyes are built (from butchering). The corresponding Dutch word oogappel and the German word Augapfel, de:Augapfel designate both the eyeball bulbus oculi and a cherished child. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 10:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * In French the pupil is the prunelle, the sloe of the eyes. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:51, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * See blackthorn for those unfamiliar with sloes. They are little blue-black wild plums and although edible they are really sour but good for sloe gin. Alansplodge (talk) 08:53, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

A question for the smarter members of the collective
What is the Mandarin for the text "All we are saying is 'give peace a chance'." This is not a homework problem. Thank you and goodnight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.240.77.215 (talk) 03:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * According to Google translate (OK, not the most reliable): 我们说，给和平一个机会 (the actual phrase I translated was "We say, give peace a chance", but I think it is close enough).  Astronaut (talk) 13:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I also separated this question from your other question ... now below. Astronaut (talk) 13:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You really need to wait for a native speaker, since anyone else may not get this quite right. I am not a native speaker, but Google's translation means "We say, give peace a chance."  I would suggest the following, which means "We simply say, give peace a chance": 我们简直说，给和平一个机会. (simplified characters) 我們簡直說，給和平一個機會. (traditional characters) Marco polo (talk) 16:43, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I was preparing for hilarity upon reading that both of you used Google Translate, but the translations are actually very reasonable. Astronaut's translation is good. Marco Polo's translation is a bit awkward because 简直 means "simply" in the sense of "completely/totally [with exaggeration]": 你简直疯了 (you're completely crazy), 他简直被我吓呆了 （I totally scared him stiff), etc. "simply" in the sense of easily/briefly is 简单： 我们简单说，给和平一个机会！ A direct translation of the OP's sentence, which I think works pretty well, is: 我们想说的只是：给和平一个机会！ （all we want to say is: give peace a chance!) Disclaimer: although I'm a native speaker, I've forgotten most of my Chinese. --Bowlhover (talk) 18:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Bowlhover. You've proven my point that native speakers know best! Marco polo (talk) 19:28, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I try to use Google Translate in a sensible way, not always accepting the default answer it gives and sometimes feeding the translated phrase back into English. This one was quite easy.  Less easy was the recent need at work to (roughly) translate the Korean: 기 취소 거래  I concluded it meant "expired transaction", which made a lot more sense in context than the "Close-based trading" that Google offered up at first.  Astronaut (talk) 12:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Another question for the smarter members of the collective
Oh yeah, nobody told me but, isn't it true that there is no Navajo phrase for "this is a justified drone strike". I'm just saying they probably use a euphemism like "white man's cloud of bees stings the good and poor alike" or some crazy such thing ala the Nicholas Cage movie (2002 Windtalkers). Do the Navajo peoples still speak Navajo? And more importantly, have any Japanese or Germann anthropologists yet learned at least the oral part of the language of the Navajo people? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.240.77.215 (talk) 03:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Not sure what the point of most of that ranting was, but Navajo has the most number of speakers of any Indian language native to the United States. There are a number of published books on the Navajo language, and anyone who wants can try to learn out of them, but apparently very few people who try to learn the language as adults end up sounding at all close to being a native speaker without the benefit of very extensive face-to-face time with Navajos... AnonMoos (talk) 05:20, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

From Old English to Middle English
I have a question about the table in this page: English languages. The problem is that the table doesn't clearly explain what dialects of Old English (Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon) evolved into. I already know that the Northumbrian dialect of Old English evolved into Early Northern Middle English and then into Northern Modern English & Scots. But I'm not sure about the others. I basically feel there is a gap between the first and second line of the table. Does anyone know where precisely Early Midland & Southeastern Middle English and Early Southern & Southwestern Middle English come from? Mercian? Kentish? West Saxon? I'd also like to know where North American English dialects would better fit in that table. --151.41.144.166 (talk) 17:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * According to Middle English "Once the writing of Old English comes to an end, Middle English has no standard language, only dialects that derive from the dialects of the same regions in the Anglo-Saxon period." so it seems as if each of the later dialects is derived from the earlier dialects in the same geographic area. DES (talk) 19:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Early Midland and Southeastern Middle English would have derived from Mercian and Kentish. (In fact, I think Midland and Kentish remained distinct dialects during the Middle Ages.)  Southern and Southwestern Middle English would have derived from West Saxon.  By the late Middle Ages (15th century) a standard dialect had begun to emerge around London that was based mainly on an East Midland dialect with some Kentish influences. (In the table, this is labeled Metropolitan Early Modern English.) This standard dialect was the main basis for North American English (and all of the other Englishes outside of the British Isles), though in the North American case, there were some influences especially from Southwestern and to a lesser extent from Scots dialects. The rectilinear organization of that table is an abstraction that doesn't accurately represent reality.  In fact, all modern versions of English have been influenced by early modern standard English.  In the case of North America, it is a direct descendant of that variety, albeit with influences from other varieties.  To show this accurately, you'd need a diagram with crisscrossing dashed lines after about 1350.  Marco polo (talk) 19:25, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thus an acceptable approximation could be Northumbrian > Early Northern Middle English; Mercian > Early Midland Middle English; Kentish > Early Southeastern Middle English; West Saxon > Early Southern & Southwestern Middle English. Right? --151.41.144.166 (talk) 22:01, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * You can't really treat dialects within a language like English as if each has its own independent development over the centuries--if they did, they'd be separate languages. Changes move in waves, originating in one area and moving across dialect boundaries to other areas, with, in Modern English for example, arrhotacism moving outward from a south-central origin, and the -eth > -s third person verb ending moving downward from the north, and so forth.  Old dialects are largely identified with written sources attributable to geographic point-locations, like courts and monasteries.  We can't strictly define boundaries of the spoken language of the time.  As features spread or disappeared, what we interpret as discreet dialects because of the discreetness of the sources would have merged and split like chaotic waves on a stormy ocean.


 * Thomason and Kaufman discuss the changes from Old to Middle English at length in their seminal Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics with the point of dismantling the Middle-English creolization hypothesis. In doing so they go into great detail on the English dialects and the spread of features from one area to another.  Highly recommended. μηδείς (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with Medeis, except that I thought that nonrhotacism most likely originated in East Anglia rather than "south-central England" (would that be Oxfordshire and Berkshire?). Marco polo (talk) 19:49, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The map I am thinking of didn't show a point origin, but showed earlier and later prevalence of the phenomenon. This Rhotic and non-rhotic accents will be a much better source than my vague impressions as an American. μηδείς (talk) 03:00, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Translation of Korean
For use in mainspace a translation of the following Korean text would be appreciated (Google and similar machine translations leave much to be desired): 성범죄 피해자이기도 했던 한 탈퇴자는 "성상납 대기조 '상록수' 회원이 1천여 명에 이르며, 옥중에서도 미성년자를 포함한 여신도들을 관리하고 있다"고 폭로했다. -- Thanks, Sam Sailor Sing 18:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)