Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 February 25

= February 25 =

Translation of a word to 'royal Thai' and 'religious Thai' please?
The word is 'moisture'. Can I have the street and rhetorical words for it too please?

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:21, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * ชื้น is the general Thai word meaning "damp" or "moist". Adding the prefix ความ yields the standard Central Thai word for "moisture": ความชื้น. A general alternative is ชุ่ม, meaning "damp, moist or wet", and it is often combined in the typical Thai way to produce ความชุ่มชื้น (, roughly khwam chom cheun), "moisture". Another alternative is เปียก, but that can also mean more wet than moist. I'm not aware of a commonly used royal/religious synonym, although a Pali, Sanskrit or Royal Khmer word pronounced as Thai probably exists. When speaking of royalty/clergy, I would replace the common prefix ความ  with the equivalent Pali-derived prefix สภาพ and use สภาพเปียกชื้น (.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 04:01, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Brilliant - thank you for the thorough answer. Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation of the name Pólya
The Wikipedia page for George Pólya has the Hungarian pronunciation of the mathematician's surname. Does anyone know how the professor pronounced his name when he lived in the U.S.? --98.114.146.189 (talk) 05:09, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I can't find a source for how he said it, but every mathematician in the USA I know has pronounced it similar to /POLE-yuh/ or /PAHL-yeh/ SemanticMantis (talk) 19:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

"Fully-springed mattress" or "fully-sprung mattress"?
Hello, again!

[| Some time ago], I started a discussion on how English speakers derive adjectives directly from nouns by using the -ed suffix, and how said usage differs from the (somewhat similar) phenomenon of past participles doubling as passive adjectives. Now, a new quirk in the language has caught my eye.

The Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition gives several definitions for the verb to spring, including "to provide a mattress with springs." Furthermore, it gives sprang or sprung as the only allowable past participles for the verb in question. Also, it separately lists the adjective unsprung, defining it as relating to "a mattress not having springs in it." Now, this strikes me as rather odd.

Since—in the case of mattresses—the adjective relates to springs and not to springing, then wouldn't one say "fully-springed" or "unspringed mattress?"

cf.

I mean, why should we have "fully-sprung mattresses," but not "paid hull decks," "relaid electrical impulses," "spat roast," "retrodden tires," or "recently cost natural-gas reserves"?

Pine (talk) 09:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It seems like an odd statement either way. Do you have any examples of either usage in mattress advertisements? Though I have to say that a "sprung" mattress would conjure a mental picture of a mattress that's in such bad shape it has springs poking through the material. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I found this ad for[| springed] and this one for [| sprung]. Unfortunately, neither manufacturer is headquartered in an English-speaking country, so I'm inclined to take both cum grano salis.


 * As a side note, however, usage commentator Bryan Garner (whom I've referenced before) [| agrees with me]. Do any of you, as well?


 * Pine (talk) 10:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with you. It should be "fully-springed", not "fully-sprung". The meaning being conveyed is that the mattress is equipped with springs (or, put differently, has springs as a feature), not that it has undergone some "springing" process or treatment. --98.114.146.189 (talk) 13:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Whatever it should be, I can assure everyone that in the UK "fully-sprung" is usual if not universal – as an Ukian born and bred, I've never (in 6 decades) encountered "fully-springed" and would assume it to be mistake by a non-native speaker. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:42, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Same in the US. It's sprung; logic be damned.  I think "springed" just "sounds weird". It's not that Anglophones can't say it; it rhymes with "dinged", for example.  But it's an unusual enough consonant cluster that there's a resistance to it. --Trovatore (talk) 19:03, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Do English speakers call Saturn the "rung planet"?66.94.28.83 (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No. But I think you knew that. --Trovatore (talk) 20:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed, agreed. Sprung is the normal term in English. 82.21.7.184 (talk) 17:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * And sprung is also usual for vehicles, as a Google search for "sprung automobile" or "sprung carriage" (for example) shows. Deor (talk) 18:54, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, released on parole, or "sprung from the joint." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:56, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * But that's from the verb, not the noun. — kwami (talk) 22:25, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Never heard the phrase, and I find it opaque. A "fully sprung mattress" could only be a mattress in which the springs have fully sprung, or s.t. similar. "Fully springed" does sound odd, but I'd at least understand it, though like Bugs I'd wonder what a partially springed mattress would be. (I suppose half-way through its manufacture, before all the springs were added.) — kwami (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The mattress has not sprung, partially or fully. It has springs, like a four-footed animal has feet. μηδείς (talk) 17:32, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What would be an example of a mattress that's not "fully" spring/sprung? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Foam rubber, or whatever euphemism the manufacturers choose for it. See mattress - "so-called hybrid beds, which include both an innerspring and high-end foams". Tevildo (talk) 23:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with other posters that "fully-sprung" is the normal English term. "fully-springed" is weird and looks like an error. 31.49.120.201 (talk) 04:02, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Never heard that expression until this question appeared. Must be a British thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:02, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't say that I've heard either term, but "fully sprung" sounds to me like something that is broken (i.e. the springs have exhausted their elasticity and are now completely "sprung"). "Fully springed" sounds weird, but I would immediately understand it to mean something that had springs throughout or otherwise had a full complement of springs. Matt Deres (talk) 14:46, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the grammar, I think the "fully springed" term refers to the density or "coil number". The more coils per surface area the better the support and wear. μηδείς (talk) 00:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I understand fully-sprung mattress to be like sprung dance-floor (which doesn't even have discrete springs) - something like 'made springy'. --ColinFine (talk) 12:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Ancient greek
What is the Ancient Greek for feathered?--95.251.178.15 (talk) 09:58, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest πτερωτός, which is e.g. used by Herodotus: "Their wings are not feathered [Greek πτερωτὰ, the neuter plural form of πτερωτός] but very like the wings of a bat." Histories, book II, chapter 76 - Lindert (talk) 10:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * but πτερωτός is feathered or winged or both ones?--95.251.178.15 (talk) 14:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * (ec)Or "winged", as in the root of the names used for Pterosaurs.
 * The term "winged" might have implied "feathered". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:12, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, "πτερωτός" can also be translated as "winged", depending on the context, like πτερόν (or modern Greek φτερό) can mean both "feather" and "wing". It's actually common that a word in one language lacks an exact equivalent in another. I cannot find anything closer to English "feathered". It's clear however, that "πτερωτός" does mean "feathered" in some contexts, and people translate it as such, e.g. in the Herodotus quote, or this one from Plutarch: "And yet we see that they who hunt wild beasts clothe themselves with their hairy skins; and fowlers make use of feathered [πτερωτοῖς] jerkins;" . - Lindert (talk) 20:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

"Don't Know They're Born"
I've used a phrase up above as a jokey reply to Jack's jokey reply to a comment I had made. The phrase is in the title here. This got me thinking. Where does this come from? It's generally used by older people talking about younger people, and how the older people perceive that the younger people have life easier than the older people did. Does it mean something like, "They haven't lived a REAL life yet" or something? KägeTorä - (影虎) (Chin Wag) 21:36, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * A quick search indicates it was first used by Eden Phillpotts in his 1912 novel The Forest on the Hill (where one of his characters uses it to refer to the rich, rather than the "young people today" of the modern idiom). I would interpret it along the lines of "If we compare our lives to theirs, they do as little work/suffer as little discomfort/have as few responsibilities as an unborn baby." Tevildo (talk) 23:16, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I've heard it from a fifty-ish guy, referring to his twenty-ish son. Something like "He doesn't think he can die, but he doesn't even know he was born." Couldn't appreciate the value of life itself in the light of the here and now, I took it. Just nodded, didn't ask.
 * Both still alive, not sure if the son knows he was born yet. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:38, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * As for the referenceable and British, this backs up the "had it easy without realizing it" meaning. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:43, 26 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The version I've most often heard is "He doesn't know he's alive". --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  06:54, 26 February 2015 (UTC)