Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 January 3

= January 3 =

People who sew are sewers?
Could you refer to someone who sews as a sewer? I've seen some people refer to themselves as "sewists". --78.148.110.243 (talk) 01:36, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * There is such a word, but it's little used, for obvious reasons. "Seamster/seamstress" are more likely, although "tailor" is probably used more often, at least for men. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:44, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

train terminology
Is there a word that exists as what would be defined as...

1. The rhythmic movement of a train.

2. Pertaining to the rhythmic sound of a train running over tracks/

3. The sensation of being in rhythm with a train.

…or anything like that?

Thanks! Josh Bennett — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.120.78.170 (talk) 02:44, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Clickety-clack is a term often used. Here's an example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:40, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * In music, especially 30s jazz, I vaguely recall there being a colloquial term, but I am unable to find a reference. "Railroad Rhythm" is the most common term currently used, and train rhythm is sometimes used as a jazz genre (sub-genre?). For interesting WordPress essay postings on the subject, (with YouTube examples), try: "Posts Tagged ‘train rhythm’" -from  Jazz it Up with Jo. — "Railroad syncopation" sounds good, if you don't mind coining a term. Other than that, I ain't got nothin'. ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 07:46, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * W H Auden uses a rail track rhythm for his 1935 poetic commentary to the documentary film Night Mail (clip here), and again in the 1936 prologue to the The Ascent of F6, which seems to have escaped being recorded on the internet. I haven't been able to find any word that describes the metre - the The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden calls it "the thrusting rhythms of the clacking wheels" (p. 91). Sadly, modern continuously welded rails don't make the same sound. Alansplodge (talk) 12:23, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * (The poem in the above youtube video starts at 19:20.) There is also a piece of music called Coronation Scot.--Shantavira|feed me 16:18, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry - maybe this is a better link to the poem. Alansplodge (talk) 16:36, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Does this article in Icelandic say anything useful about Shm-reduplication?
Just found this article while searching "Spitzer, Leo. "Confusion Shmooshun". Journal of English and Germanic Philology 51 (1952): 226–33.", which is cited in Shm-reduplication article.--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 10:34, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "This article in Icelandic" is: Anton Karl Ingason 2008b. Hrynkerfi íslensku í bestunarkenningu [Icelandic Prosody in Optimality Theory]. B.A.-thesis. Supervisor Kristján Árnason. --91.50.4.167 (talk) 17:21, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

filosófya-shmilosófya(פילוסופיה־שמילוסופיה).
(Moved from Humanities desk)I have seen the quote fromThis article "When an Israeli speaker would like to express his impatience with or disdain for philosophy, s/he can say filosófya-shmilosófya". in a bunch of article such as Hybrid word and Shm-reduplication. Is filosófya-shmilosófya(פילוסופיה־שמילוסופיה) actually a phrase commonly said by Hebrew speakers or is it just an example of Shm-reduplication?--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 13:43, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This would be a good question for the Language Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 13:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * In my past three decades living and working in Israel, the more recent half of that time as a full-time Hebrew-to-English translator, I can only respond anecdotally: in my personal experience,* I've never heard that expression nor seen it in print, so would suppose it's an ad-lib instance of Shm-reduplication, as you've accurately transcribed it in both alphabets. *Disclaimer: I haven't watched TV here since August 2004, so there may be oral instances I've missed.-- Deborahjay (talk) 07:34, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Are you sure it's plugged in? ;-) Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:37, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * By the way, is Shm-reduplication commonly used by Hebrew and Yiddish speakers, for example Um-Shmum?--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 05:02, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Vagina gentium
As you probably know, in Classical Latin vagina meant only sheath, with no anatomical connotations. The modern meaning appeared much later. In English it was in 1680s. When did it happen in Latin? Omnitempore (talk) 18:47, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * A quick search on Google Books led to several older sources, all of them from the 17th century, in which the expression is used and is more or less clarified by explicitly mentioning the male counterpart:


 * Andreas Laurentius, Historia anatomica humani corporis (1602), p. 551-2: "cervix uteri unicam habet cavitatem, estque canalis oblongus, vaginae instar, peni virili excipiendo dicatus..."


 * Jean Riolan, Anthropographia (1618), p. 333: "Orificium externum cunnus sive vaginae penis vestibulum".


 * Caspar Bauhin, Theatrum anatomicum (1621), p. 129: "in quam penis immittitur...", "Latinis ... quibusdam vagina penis".


 * Adriaan van den Spiegel, Opera quae extant omnia, 1 (1645), p. 257: "Dicitur cervix ..., & vagina penis quibusdam, quanquam communiter collum nominetur..."


 * Johannes Hieronymus Pulverinus, Medicina practica (1649), p. 686, with references to Galen and Vesalius: "In collo (Gal. 14. de usu part. c. 3 inquit) quis miram naturae solertiam non admirabitur? Fecit namque natura ipsum oblongum, nervosum, rugosum, & durum. Oblongum, & durum ad instar vaginae, (Ves. inquit loc. cit.) nam penis erit futurum receptaculum..."
 * Iblardi (talk) 01:13, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Vagina could have anatomical connotations in classical Latin (pre-classical even - Plautus uses it that way in Pseudolus). A halfway dirty mind could easily make the connection, and the Romans were nothing if not filthy-minded. I don't know when it became the exclusive meaning, but it was always a slang term. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:01, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Possibly, but I was unable to find clear examples of such usage in my -admittedly superficial- survey. Lewis and Short do mention Plautus' Pseudolus, but according to J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, pp. 20 and 115, uagina, as "an ad hoc metaphor", here signifies the anus and is used as a synonym of culus, not of the female sex organ. However, it is possible that a slang term uagina is treated elsewhere in the volume, as GB provides only limited access to it -- even though it is mentioned only three times in the index. Iblardi (talk) 10:07, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I looked at my copy, and the other two instances are just vague mentions that the word could be used metaphorically, with the only specific instance cited being the Pseudolus one. Deor (talk) 10:56, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You are right, the text in Pseudolus clearly refers to anus (conveniebatne in vaginam tuam machaera militis). I am quite sure somebody has researched this topic already. I wonder whether Jordanes really meant vagina when he was writing about "vagina gentium"... Omnitempore (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I would speculate that Jordanes wanted to emphasize the supposedly warlike nature of the peoples of the North by suggesting that they appeared "like a sword from a sheath" (compare, in the regular sense, "evaginato gladio" in XXVI. 134). If he wanted to make an anatomical comparison, words like matrix or uterus would be a more obvious choice, I think. Iblardi (talk) 13:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Word puzzle I'm pondering
Last night, while watching a movie (SLC Punk if anyone cares), I saw something scrawled on a tire. It got me wondering. How long of a sentence could be written on a rotating object so that you could start reading at any point and have it make sense? I'm ignoring punctuation and repetitive things like Buffalo buffalo buffalo. Implied subjects are fine though. The longest I could come up with (I'm not that creative) is "I am" and "Am I". Can anyone think of anything longer? (I'd have googled this thinking that it must have come up in some pub quiz somewhere but I have no idea how to phrase that particular search) Dismas |(talk) 20:23, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * See: Epanalepsis — e.g.: The king is dead; long live [the king] -Similar, but not exactly what you're looking for~Eric:71.20.250.51 (talk) 21:28, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Dismas: How does "I am" work if you start at the letter "m"? Or is your "any point" restricted to the beginning of any word?
 * Eric 71.20: How does your example work if you start at "is" or "dead" or "live"? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:29, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * (Thus my comment: "similar") -- You could put it on a wheel, and it repeats, but not from any starting word. I believe what Dismas is looking for would be a form of Chiastic structure. ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 21:42, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "...you go there.." → You go there. - Go there, you. - There you go. ~:71.20.250.51 (talk) 21:50, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, JackofOz, I'm going from the beginning of a word, not letter. I'm confused by Eric's reply as well. I like "You go there" so far. I skimmed Chiastic structure (not much time right now but don't want you thinking I'm ignoring the response) but it doesn't look to be exactly what I'm looking for. Dismas |(talk) 22:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Does "go there you" make sense? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ... with the comma; as in "Out, damned spot!" ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 23:10, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * "Go there, you!" does. "Go there quickly, you!" works for the OP's question.  But the four sentences it produces are not all equally natural unless you set them up in a weird context. μηδείς (talk) 23:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Four word solution is pretty good, considering the constraints of this exercise. Five, anybody? —Preceding comment is hereby signed by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 05:05, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * There's a congruent discussion here, which contains contributions taken from the Collected Works of George W Bush, of all people, including a claimed 9-word (!) circular sentence. I have me doubts about it, personally, but fwiw ....  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  06:26, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Inspired by Gravity's Rainbow:
 * "You never did the Kenosha Kid!" (a dance)
 * "Never did the Kenosha kid you!"
 * "Did the Kenosha kid you? Never!"
 * "The Kenosha Kid? You never did!"
 * "Kenosha kid, you never did 'the'."
 * "Kid, you never did the Kenosha."
 * Oh well. Looie496 (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Whatever sentence you choose, make sure you write it as a rotational ambigram as well so that you can read it all the way 'round. This is an auto-generator for rotational ambigrams, but you can usually improve on their suggestions with practice. Matt Deres (talk) 23:40, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Is "hmm" a universal question marker?
If you watch this video of guilty cats, the second segment, in Russian, has the owner asking the cat what he did, and saying "hmm?" insistently with a rising intonation to him expecting an answer. Is this use of "hmm?" universal? Is it perhaps Proto-Indo-European, or areal? I know I have heard Spanish speakers use the same vocalization, as well as um-hum for yes, and nunh-uh for no. Or are these borrowings from English? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 21:27, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Russians typically use "mm" with a flat intonation where Englishers would say "um" or "er". That suggests that, at least in this usage, "hmm" is culturally dependent, and I suspect it's true of other uses of the utterance.  But that's not a reference, so feel free to ignore it.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The video shows the speaker using a rising intonation though, obviously "interrogating" his cat with the mmm, not pausing for thought, lol. A rising intonation on the word in question (rather than a sentence-final intonation as in English) is how I was taught Russians make questions when I briefly studied it formally. μηδείς (talk) 23:08, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, a rising intonation on the word in question, but dropping down for any subsequent words. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  10:32, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Not quite "hmm", but there was a recent study (short podcast about it, with transcript) that examined the prevalence of equivalents of "huh?" around the world, and concluded that "huh?" counts as a universal word. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 22:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Speech disfluency? --91.50.2.98 (talk) 11:44, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I've seen that study too, and didn't think much of it. Universal my arse. Funny enough, User:Mark Dingemanse is an ex-Wikipedian. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:27, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I've actually thought of a counterexample now (or even a significant group of counterexamples) and mentioned it on the linked talk page. *whistles innocently* --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The intonation is the only relevant bit of information. The "hmm" sound is just the laziest sound you can make (you don't even need to open your mouth) while making sure the listener is getting your intonation. Rising intonations for questions are not universal, btw, see Hungarian (from ):


 * "In yes or no questions your intonation will suddenly rise on the one before the last syllable, then drops on the last syllable. In sentences that have fewer than three syllables this rise and fall takes place in one syllable (the last syllable)";


 * --Lgriot (talk) 10:24, 6 January 2014 (UTC)