Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 December 5

= December 5 =

Is "smartass" supposed to be pejorative?
Is it? Does the term imply an anti-intellectual sentiment or disagreement to teasing sarcasm?71.79.234.132 (talk) 13:33, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Everybody's idiolect varies, but in my (UK-located) own: (a) yes, it's pejorative; (b) it might imply an anti-intellectual sentiment on the part of the user who is out of their intellectual depth, but is meant to suggest that the target is displaying knowledge or responding in a way intended to demean and/or annoy others, so it might indeed be used as a response to teasing sarcasm. Others' mileages will doubtless vary. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 14:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * In my area of the U.S. it's often used pejoratively as TPFKA 87.81.230.195 suggests above, but it can also be used in a teasing manner not intended to offend. As is usual, everything depends on the context. Deor (talk) 15:44, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Even the spelling of "smartarse" varies. HiLo48 (talk) 15:47, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The "ass" part makes it pejorative. Having been called both "smart" (as a compliment) and "a smartass" (not a compliment) often for the same behavior, the difference as far as I can see (at least in my area*) is usually a matter of whether the person wants the information or criticism you've just given them.  Not necessarily anti-intellectual, but it could still easily be a favored insult for anti-intellectuals.  It can be used to self-identify, and the friendly teasing version is probably echoing the self-identification (even if the smartass has yet to actually call themselves that yet).
 * (*A town the Southeastern US that's almost a college town, and is only just cosmopolitan enough to have one Ethiopian restaurant, a couple of semi-authentic Japanese and German places, and a few Thai, Greek, Indian, Italian, and Lebanese places; but all the Chinese restaurants still only serve American Chinese cuisine and the only place where you will find a menu where English comes second are maybe one or two hole-in-the-wall Mexican joints that I'm not sure are still open.) Ian.thomson (talk) 16:40, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, Esmartasse, Louisiana. A nice town, even if it lacks any authentic Thai restaurants. μηδείς (talk) 23:58, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

German plurals question
The Wiktionary article for Weihnachten (German: Christmas) notes that, in Standard German, "Weihnachten" has "no plural". English has a plural form of Christmas: Christmases (as in, "many Christmases ago", or "of all the Christmases I've seen, this was the loveliest"). My question is, what would the German equivalent of those sentences be? Does "Weihnachten" (which appears to already in a plural form, but I only have a very basic grasp of German grammar) function as both singular and plural (Wiktionary suggests that for Austrian and Swiss German)? Or is there no functional equivalent of those sentences? Google Translate suggests "Weihnachtsfeste" (lit. "Christmas celebrations") as a plural form of Christmas, but to me, an English speaker, this seems rather clunky. Thanks for your help. 124.148.124.247 (talk) 14:05, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * In my own (northern German) native speaker intuition, Weihnachten appears to be basically uninflectable; imagining it as plural strikes me as sort of odd – but then, if you google phrases like "unsere Weihnachten waren", you find that some people do create that plural you expected. By the way, the "plural" entry for Swiss and Austrian German may actually refer not so much to the practice you describe, of referring to several distinct Christmas seasons, but to one where a single instance of Christmas is treated as plural (like here ). Historically, the form in -en does seem to go back to an old (dative) plural phrase (according to Kluge, ze den wihen nachten, "in the holy nights"). Incidentally, the wiktionary entry also includes a genitive, "des Weihnachtens" – that one grated even more in my ears than the plural, but then, Google will tell you that 19th-century classic authors were happily using it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:00, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Weihnachten sometimes acts like a plural form ("frohe Weihnachten!") and sometimes like a singular neuter form ("vor diesem Weihnachten"), though treating it as a singular feels awkward, as Future Perfect says. As our article Weihnachten briefly mentions, Christmas in German-speaking countries lasts for two days: December 25 (erster Weihnachtstag) and December 26 (zweiter Weihnachtstag). So it is not surprising that the noun feels plural. To translate "many Christmases ago", I would try something like "vor vielen Jahren zu Weihnachten", but for "Of all the Christmases I've seen, this was the loveliest", I think your best option would be something like "Von allen Weihnachtsfesten war dies das schönste, das ich je gesehen habe". (I am not a native speaker, and my German has a northern bias.)  Marco polo (talk) 16:55, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Russian last name
I know a Russian girl whose surname comes from her father, but with an "a" added as ending. Recently the "a" has been dropped whenever she writes her name. What could be the reason for this change? Another thing I noticed: I thought her mother still had her maiden name as it's also written on their mailbox, but now I've seen a printed note on a pinboard which addresses her as "Mrs. husband's surname" without the "-a" either. --2.245.117.186 (talk) 22:34, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Consider, we don't have any source on this private person. We can't comment.  We could speculate that it's just easierto use the German habit of having the same surname for regardless of gender--but that would be speculation.  The best option is, ask her. μηδείς (talk) 22:37, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You can have something like this happen but backwards, when people don't know about Russian names: when Maria Sharapova won at Wimbledon one of the BBC commentators referred to her father once as Mr. Sharapova. Contact Basemetal   here  23:13, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It would be even funnier if she were Icelander. —Tamfang (talk) 09:03, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * As Medeis said, without knowing the context (starting from: in which country that happened), we can only speculate. See also this WR Forum thread. No such user (talk) 13:18, 6 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree that more context should have been given, but I think the following will help the OP:
 * 1. Most native Russian surnames have two forms: masculine and feminine, the feminine being marked by a final a. So Smirnov, Smirnova; Pushkin, Pushkina, etc.
 * 2. If a woman chooses to take her husband's name, she will take in its feminine form, if possible. For example, In Anna Karenina, the main character was born Anna Oblonskaya (sister to Stepan Oblonsky), then she married Alexei Karenin and became Anna Karenina. If she had got a divorce and married Vronsky, she would become Anna Vronskaya.
 * 3. In English-language contexts, some Russian women choose to assimilate to the English-language custom of using one form (the masculine one), or western writers might make that decision when writing about Russian women. So Putin's ex-wife might be called Lyudmila Putin or Lyudmila Putina (but in Russian she is only the latter). Similarly, some translations of Tolstoy's novel refer to her as Anna Karenin. Lesgles (talk) 02:47, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * She also might drop -a to avoid legal issues and endless misunderstandings (an average German simply does not know/care about Russian naming tradition).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:37, 7 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You are also being ahistorical by referring to "the German habit". Last names were gendered in German (Herr Meier was the brother of Fraulein Meierin) until the 18th or even 19th century. See German name. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  02:00, 9 December 2014 (UTC) (von Milwaukee)