Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 January 9

= January 9 =

Portuguese: "vendedor de cautelas"
I wonder, if somebody would be able to tell me what a "vendedor de cautelas," as occuring in the WP:PT article O Barão de Lavos, is. Translation with dictionaries does not seem to be helpful, so I assume it is a relatively rare idiomatic expression. Thank you very much for any assistance. 115.69.63.229 (talk) 02:18, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have since found out, that it is one of those lottery ticket sellers one saw and maybe still sees on the streets of Lisbon and other cities. Do it yourself ;). Cheers, 115.69.63.229 (talk) 03:08, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it translates literally as "seller of cautions". I wonder if that's kind of a euphemism for what we might say in slangy English: "You spends your money and you takes your chances." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:45, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

help with Latinized English
In 1544, the naturalist William Turner wrote that the Black Tern was a parva avis nostrati lingua sterna appellata. Did he mean that this bird was called "sterna" in our language, or is the "a" a case ending, and if so, what would his English word be? &mdash;JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:04, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, it is a case ending - everything is! But it's just the nominative case, so "sterna" is the basic form. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:13, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This is somewhat unclear. I'm not even sure that he is saying that in English it's "sterna" - nostrati does not appear to agree with lingua, so I don't know quite what it's doing. The OED mentions this quote in its etymology for tern thus:

"'Some consider tern to be related to stearn, stern, which occurs in Old English as a bird-name, and, in the form starn, is a name in E. Anglia of the Common and the Black Tern; it is mentioned by W. Turner Avium præcipuarum historia, 1544, as ‘nostrati lingua sterna appellata’, whence Linnæus took Sterna as a generic name.'"


 * but if it is intended as English, I don't think he means the -a as part of the English word. --ColinFine (talk) 17:01, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * "Nostrati" is the ablative of "nostras", a pre-classical form of "noster". Here it goes with the ablative "lingua" meaning "in our language". There's absolutely no reason to use it in 1544, of course, except as a pompous archaism. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:57, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * nostrat-, "of our country", is quite common in post-classical Latin, especially in its plural forms ([apud] nostrates, [a] nostratibus). Iblardi (talk) 22:25, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, everyone. So the conclusion is that he meant that the English name was "stern"? (Incidentally, maybe I should have mentioned that I got the quotation from the OED, but found another source that gave two more words, which I thought might be useful.)
 * This will go into the etymology section of Tern. &mdash;JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:42, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Stern" as a transcription of sterna can be sourced to p. 79 of A.H. Evans' 1903 edition. Iblardi (talk) 08:36, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding that! I might use it, though I'm not sure it answers the question of what the word was in 1544. Maybe that answer isn't necessary for the article. &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 04:33, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This is very straightforward: "A small bird which in our language is called a stern". Our article on Tern mentions that the animal is also called a starn or stearn. μηδείς (talk) 04:45, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks, everybody! I'll see if I can get it into "tern". &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 17:59, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Had not got a car – British English
I don't have a car ~ I haven't got a car ~ I haven't a clue are more or less suitable expressions in the present tense. Can one use the expression "I had not got a car" in the past tense in British English, or does it sound unnatural? "When I was a student, I hadn't got a car and used to walk everywhere"? Is this awkward? Is the "got" only natural when used as a real verb as in "Back in the day when my father was still alive, I had not got the Bentley yet and used to drive a Fiat." --Pxos (talk) 05:46, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's OK, but "I didn't have a car" would be more usual. The "hadn't got" construction emphasizes the acquisition over the continued possession.  Rojomoke (talk) 06:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That would be true of American English where "got" has a marginally different shade of meaning, but not necessarily of British English where one can use "hadn't got" without the implication of acquisition. (For example "I hadn't got a clue" is commonly used.)  I agree, though, that "didn't have" is probably better on both sides of the pond.  Your example of "I hadn't got a car" doesn't sound awkward, but maybe slightly more colloquial than "I didn't have a car".   D b f i r s   08:01, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, actually, in American English, it works the other direction. If you wanted to emphasize that you hadn't acquired a car rather than that you weren't in possession of one, that's when you'd say "hadn't gotten". --Trovatore (talk) 08:37, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, yes, you are correct -- I'd forgotten that!   D b f i r s   14:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Should it be "hadn't had a car" rather than "hadn't got a car"? Both are worse than "didn't have" though? -- Q Chris (talk) 08:34, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Hadn't had" implies that they had never had a car. "Didn't have" simply implies that they did not have one at that point in time (but may have had one previously).  "Hadn't got a car" is less precise, could be taken either way, and would be a less usual expression than "didn't have".  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:42, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If you want to be precise, then use "did not own", but the OP asked if it was common in British English to say "hadn't got" in place of "didn't have", and the answer is "yes", though I agree that the expression is less clear to people not familiar with the idiom, and it is probably becoming less common.   D b f i r s   14:05, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It is my memory that fifty years ago don't have/ didn't have/ do you have were almost unheard in Britain, except in a habitual sense. The usual forms were haven't got/ hadn't got/ have you got, and the purists complained about the got in all of these. The do forms have become much more common since. --ColinFine (talk) 17:08, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the distinctively British alternatives would be "haven't" / "hadn't" / "have you?" -- U.S. English only allows those constructions when "have" is an auxiliary verb, but British English has also allowed them when "have" is a main verb (meaning "to possess") -- "Said Simple Simon to the pieman, Indeed I haven't any" etc. AnonMoos (talk) 00:02, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Since you mention Simple Simon, I recall, more than 50 years ago, thinking that the construction "Sir, I haven't any" sounded odd because, in my dialect, we would normally say "Sir, I haven't got any".    I've now heard the construction so often without "got" that it no longer sounds strange, and, to the modern British ear, it is probably the standard form.   D b f i r s   08:22, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That have can form its negation like an auxiliary verb even when it is not used as one, semantically and syntactically, but indicates possession, should be noted in Auxiliary verb, and that it can undergo inversion should be mentioned in English auxiliaries and contractions. So far, only the possibility of inversion is mentioned in the one, and the possibility of negation without do in the other. Both phenomena are, of course, throwbacks to Early Modern English, when the periphrasis with do was still optional with main verbs. I do not have or Doest thou have? would have been possible, but understood as emphatic (or habitual), I think, while I have not and Hast thou? would have been pragmatically unmarked or neutral. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have thought that plain "haven't" or "hadn't" sounds stilted or old-fashioned. Does anyone say naturally "when I was a student, I hadn't a car" or "We are sorry, but we haven't any coffee." even in Britain? Surely not in America. --Pxos (talk) 01:37, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Mór or less
In the first sentence of Mór (given name), I suspect I should be saying "Gaelic" rather than "Irish", but I'm a bit hazy in this area. Could somebody clear this up? Clarityfiend (talk) 14:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No. The standard name for the Irish language is Irish.  Gaelic can refer to either Irish or Scots Gaelic, a related but distinct language.  By itself, it is likely to be understood to refer to Scots Gaelic.  To avoid confusion, the term should not be used to refer to Irish. Marco polo (talk) 15:35, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it depends where you are. As noted in your citation, "Irish Gaelic" or just "Gaelic" are alternate names. "Gaelic football" is an Irish sport. Decades ago, in America, I always heard the term "Gaelic" in reference to the Irish language. Here, at least, the substitution of "Irish" for "Gaelic" seems a relatively recent phenomenon. It seems that the preferred is now "Irish". But that transference could explain the OP's confusion on the matter. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:49, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The name "Gaelic" for Irish persisted much longer in the Irish diaspora than it did in Ireland. Still, Marco is right, it's ambiguous and should be avoided. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You forgot Manx Gaelic. Alansplodge (talk) 19:33, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Isn't it called simply Manx?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:41, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay. Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:13, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * See Gaelic and the linked individual articles. "Gaelic" is originally the collective name for all dialects descended from Old Irish, whether spoken in Ireland, Scotland or the Isle of Man. However, there's a strong tendency now to associate "Gaelic" specifically with Scottish Gaelic, because "Irish" and "Manx" are not ambiguous when referring to a language (Irish English or Anglo-Irish never being referred to as "Irish" alone), while "Scottish" could also be taken to refer to Scots, so Scottish Gaelic is the only Gaelic where you never drop the "Gaelic", usually – while, "Irish" and "Manx" are, strictly speaking, indeed simply abbreviations of the precise terms "Irish Gaelic" and "Manx Gaelic".
 * Another reason why "Gaelic" may be more strongly associated with Scotland now than it used to be could be Classical Gaelic, which was used longer in Scotland than elsewhere, but never specifically Scottish. Also, due to the Irish spelling reform, standard Scottish Gaelic is the written form of Gaelic most closely resembling Classical Gaelic. Moreover, Scottish Gaelic tends to be more conservative than Irish in general, not only on the written level, but also the spoken and dialect level.
 * Does the name "Mór" also occur in Scotland? If so, "Irish" would be misleading, but I'm not sure what the best way to phrase it would be: "Gaelic" is too ambiguous and "Goidelic" too technical. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Mór, Mórag.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:00, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Since the name apparently occurs in both languages, I would say "Irish and Scottish Gaelic". Marco polo (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Ack! I'm just going to be a bit more nebulous, and leave it at that. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:34, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

To The Wonder/ A La Merveille
Is it an old idiom? How old is it? Where can I find its oldest usages? Is it derived from Latin? Any comment would be appreciated. Omidinist (talk) 16:16, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The English phrase to the wonder conveys no meaning to me without context, so I conclude that, at least in the English I know, it is not an idiom. --ColinFine (talk) 17:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the OP means something like "To the wonder(ment) of the audience"? We definitely do need a clarification, per CF. μηδείς (talk) 19:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I suspect that the context is To the Wonder, "a 2012 romantic drama art film". A brief look at Google shows that "A la merveille !" seems to be a French exclamation, especially in 19th century books;  I'm not sure how you would translate it but "To The Wonder!" doesn't sound right at all. Alansplodge (talk) 19:48, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

So far, so good. I also refer you to this famous battle cry, Coucy a la merveille, which is from the Middle Ages. Omidinist (talk) 20:43, 9 January 2014 (UTC)