Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 11

= January 11 =

Charlie Hebdo
Can anyone confirm for me that 'crayon' in French means 'anything used to draw with' and not necessarily a crayon as it is in English? http://www.charliehebdo.fr/index.html <- reason for the question. KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 ) ( Chin Wag ) 16:40, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I have no actual knowledge about this, but says:
 * Origin of CRAYON
 * French, crayon, pencil, from diminutive of craie chalk, from Latin creta
 * First Known Use: 1644 &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  16:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I can confirm that is correct. It is specifically a pencil. --Xuxl (talk) 16:45, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Google Translate agrees, translating French crayon to English pencil. It also translates English crayon to French crayon, indicating below that French crayon can mean either pencil or crayon. Need a native French speaker. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  16:47, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I went to French Immersion school and we used "crayon" for pencil. For wax crayons as we would assume in English, we said exactly that: "crayon de cire". Incidentally, in English, I refer to "coloured pencils" (which sounds wrong and weird to me) as pencil crayons, so the more general usage isn't entirely foreign.  Mingmingla (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * French wikipedia shows exactly what a crayon is in French. fr:Crayon . Then the word crayon also has sometimes a loose (generic) meaning and can be used by anyone to anyone using a ballpoint pen or any small personal drawing or writing tool. Akseli9 (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, all - I thought it was.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  00:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Se il vous plaît voir aussi: fr:Craie_de_cire &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  00:23, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Merci, mais, c'est "S'il vous plaît, voyez-vous aussi: fr:Craie_de_cire.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  00:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Se il vous plaît me mordre. ;) &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  00:41, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Broadcasted
Is "broadcasted" an acceptable present continuous verb in American English? In my native dialect the present continuous form is "broadcast". The sentence is "It is also broadcasted in Canada and Australia." "It" is an American tv show so the article engvar must be American. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * In my (American) experience, it's always broadcast (as well as forecast, and anything else ending with "cast" including "cast" itself). Apparently we think casted sounds like casseded, which would be like saying drowneded instead of drowned. That said, the dictionary appears to endorse "broadcasted" as a secondary alternative to "broadcast". &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  19:08, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * What would the primary alternative be? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:32, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ahh, you got me, secondary and alternative are redundant. My meaning was that "broadcast" is listed first, and the first listed is usually preferred. I'm guessing you already knew what I meant. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  19:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I thought I might, and it turned out I did. But sometimes it's wise to check.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:51, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * This source says casted was the early modern past tense of to cast in the sense of "spread" or "throw". It notes my impression that casted should only be used in the sense of being selected to play a role in a performance, but it says casted in the wider sense is making a comeback. (Like syphilis and measles, I suppose.) To me casted sounds as bad as saying he sleeped on the floor last night. μηδείς (talk) 20:05, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As a past tense form it seems reasonable, but as the present continuous it offends my inner grammar nazi. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:32, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You say that as if it's a bad thing. :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * How about a present continuous example using broadcasted? I'm not familiar with that term. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  20:37, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * My first post that started this topic contains such an example. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:48, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * In that case, I think the American treatment for present continuous would be the same as for past. We would say "It is broadcast in Canada" and "It was broadcast in Canada". We would rarely if ever say "broadcasted", dictionary notwithstanding. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  20:57, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The present progressive active would be "is broadcasting". One source of confusion is that we are talking of the present progressive passive which would be something like "is being shown", with the past participle.  But we have already agreed that the past participle of broadcast among those with taste and refinement is "broadcast".  Hence, Downton Abbey is being broadcast tonight at 9pm Eastern in the US. μηδείς (talk) 22:28, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Dodger67 -- To the degree that "broadcasted" occurs, it's because the verb "to broadcast" is formed from the noun "a broadcast", and not by adding "broad" directly to the verb "to cast" (there's a certain linguistic similarity between forms such as "broadcasted", "sabertooths" etc). AnonMoos (talk) 08:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * To broadcast is a method of sowing seeds, casting them about, not individually planting them. The noun is not original, nor is it the origin of the verb. . μηδείς (talk) 22:40, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The OED mentions the adjective broadcasted with a couple of Scottish cites (from the Glasgow Herald in 1923 and 1924), but marks this alternative as "now rare". For the past tense of the verb, it says that broadcast is the past tense and past participle but "occasionally broadcasted" with one cite from 1956 (M. Stearns Story of Jazz).    D b f i r s   08:39, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure if anyone has noticed, but 'it is broadcasted' (or 'broadcast') is technically not a present continuous, which would be 'it is being broadcast(ed)'. This is just the simple present tense.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  04:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, about 30 hours ago and two bullets above. μηδείς (talk) 04:45, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * BTW, "broadcasted" was used on the most recent episode of The Good Wife, S06E12. μηδείς (talk) 18:47, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Charlie Hebdo cartoon
What is the meaning of the text in the speech bubble in Charlie Hebdo's cartoon on January 7? Slate translates it as "We have until the end of January to offer our New Year wishes" while AP translates: "Wait — we have until the end of January to present our New Year's wishes." It's clear to me that "wishes" here means the New Year's greetings, but someone with more knowledge of French than I said that it's wrong - they say that "présenter ses voeux" here means to "fulfill his wish". What's the literal translation here? DHN (talk) 19:13, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The meaning is, "Wait — one has until the end of January to present New Year's greetings", of course the terrorist way to present greetings being to commit an attack. Akseli9 (talk) 20:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Indians vs. Indians
In English, the word "Indian" can mean either "native (i.e. pre-Columbian) American" (maybe considered derogatory these days) or "from India". This is a frequent source of confusion.

Now in my native Finnish, the confusion doesn't exist. The word for "native American" is "intiaani", which is directly the English word "Indian", converted to Finnish ortography. The word for "from India", on the other hand, is "intialainen", which is the native Finnish way to say "from India", coming from "Intia" "India" and "-lainen" "inhabitant, native, from a place".

Are there other languages which also exhibit this phenomenon of being able to differentiate between the two meanings with no confusion? J I P &#124; Talk 19:48, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Afrikaans has "Indiër" for the South Asians and "Indiaan" for the North Americans. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:00, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As usual we have the article in Wiktionary where you can find and compare translations of the word in different languages.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:09, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And that article has a flaw, in Finnish "intiaani" can be used simply as a noun meaning "a native American person", it's not just a prefix. Finnish also has the mildly derogatory contraction of this word, "inkkari", which is not used for people really from India. J I P  &#124; Talk 20:16, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * English has all sorts of ways of making the distinction, some more and some a lot less acceptable;


 * Native American, *Injun, Amerind, American Indian, and the use of the specific ethnic group
 * East Indian, South Asian, *Subcontinental, Hindu (limited), *Hindoo, and again, the use of the specific ethnic group.


 * Note also "Georgia" Sakartvelo and The Peach State. μηδείς (talk) 20:13, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The same confusion would exist in French between Indiens and Indiens, so we are each time careful to differentiate, either by wrongly call all Indians "Hindu" (Hindou), or by calling Natives "Indiens d'Amérique". Akseli9 (talk) 20:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In Canada, where this comes up all the time, "amérindien" is the word commonly used in media and other formal settings. --Xuxl (talk) 09:03, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Same goes for France. "Amérindien" is a pretty common. Cfmarenostrum (talk) 10:15, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Federal language in Canada also uses "autochtones" (although usually as a translation of "aboriginal" specifically). Typically we use "First Nations" and "Premières nations" these days. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Amerindian vs Hindian. People will understand you, though they may laugh.  — kwami (talk) 20:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * In my neck of the woods, "Indian" alone usually means the First Nations type, and East Indian means the other. "Native" is pretty common, too. Calling them by their band name is a distant third. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:23, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Being Finnish, you are perhaps already aware of that Swedish has a similar situation where indian refers to a Native American, while an indier is a person from India. /176.10.249.240 (talk) 18:13, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * In my 1960s childhood in London, the North American variety were always called "Red Indians". I fully understand that this is derogatory, but the chances of actually meeting a Native American in London were very remote. Alansplodge (talk) 13:37, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I was going to say the same for northern England (but refrained in case I upset anyone). We also had "Indian corn" which I used to think came from the Indian sub-continent until I discovered that it was also called maize.    D b f i r s   13:49, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It is worth noting that UK English "corn" = "wheat", while US English "corn" = "maize" Bluap (talk) 14:50, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, or any cereal crop here in the UK.   D b f i r s   15:49, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hence the term "[American] Indian corn". The term "corn" generically means "grain". As you indicate, its proper name is "maize". That's an English translation of what the Indians called it, mahís. The Spanish called it maíz. Ironically, there is a lot of maize grown in India nowadays. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ — Preceding undated comment added 18:45, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * This exists also in German. "Indianer" is an outdated word for Native American and "Inder" is a person from India. Since someone pointed out that there is also that distinction in Afrikaans (even the syllables are alike), it might be also the same in other Germanic languages (except English of course). --2.245.240.33 (talk) 00:26, 15 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Swedish also follows this pattern, per an earlier post above, so we can probably safely conclude that the distinction formed by using the suffixes "-er" and -an" are a shared feature of (at least some) Germanic languages. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:22, 16 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The funny thing is that Columbus called them Indians as part of his sell-job to claim he had reached India. He didn't intend they be distinguished from "India Indians". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:36, 15 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Another funny thing, or not so funny depending one one's sense of humour, is that the only people of the Americas who in some contexts call themselves some sort of "Indians", and I'm referring to the West Indies, come from the only part of the Americas that Columbus actually visited. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)