Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 3

= January 3 =

About Draft:Asociación Latinoamericana de Parques Zoológicos y Acuarios
Señors y Señoras y people who queer up the gender binary, could you possibly have a little look at this draft article? It would seem to assert some significance. Though I hoover up vocabulary in Germanic and Romance languages, I can't speak a word of Spanish. Your thoughts? --Shirt58 (talk) 12:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The organization may or may not be notable enough for an article, but I've deleted the draft as a copy/paste copyvio of the organization's Web site. (Even if it had been completely translated, the translation would still be a copyvio.) Deor (talk) 14:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, bloody hell. Seriously considering changing my username to User:Mister Stoopid Head. Yet again. Pete "substantial body of evidence that suggests user should change his user-name to Mister Stoopid Head" AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:19, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Languages that have formal or polite terms borrowed from foreign languages
In English, Latin-derivative terms are perceived to be formal or polite, while Germanic-derivative terms are perceived to be impolite, less formal, crude, less technical, or just part of casual speech. In Japanese, Chinese-derivative terms are perceived to be more formal than indigenous Japanese terms. Are there other languages that share this characteristic? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Note that it's not always a single language to borrow formal terms from. In English, for example, in addition to Latin, formal terms may also be borrowed from French, such as "crudités" ("veggies with dip" in regular English). StuRat (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My mentioning of a single language does not imply that the influence is only from one language. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * For the opposite tendency, most Israeli Hebrew swearwords were borrowed from Yiddish or Arabic! [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:32, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hm, maybe Sindarin imported cusswords from Orkish or Adunaic. —Tamfang (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I would guess that prestige terms tend to come from Chinese in most of East Asia, from Classical Arabic throughout the Muslim world, from Sanskrit in the Hindu world, and from Greek in Eastern Christendom. — Next question: which literary languages do not have a ‘Latin’ from which they can import words fairly freely? —Tamfang (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Perfect example, "Snot". That's vulgar in English, so refined people say "Mucus". But that word was vulgar to refined Romans, so they said "Pinea". Alas, the Greeks weren't similarly respectful of the older Phoenician, Babylonian or Coptic cultures, so they were stuck with their own snot. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Read our article on prestige languages []. Right now, English is the main prestige language, and lots of languages are adding English terms or calques of English terms to their vocabulary. Also, the scope of a prestige language can vary. In the middle ages, Low German and Dutch were prestige languages in many northern European languages, including English, which borrowed a lot of nautical terms from them. Sometimes, instead of borrowing the term from the prestige language directly, the recipient language makes calques based on the original word. A good example is the Greek word "episkopos", based on "epi" (over) and scopos (look), which originally meant a foreman, before it became used to refer to a bishop. Latin borrowed the term directly, and also made a calque, "supervisor", which was borrowed into English. French Also inherited the term from Latin, which is the source of the English word "surveyor". Germanic languages also borrowed the Greek work, which came into English as "bishop". English also uses the direct Latin borrowing as the root of the word "episcopal". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Providing the formal term is helpful. It's better than describing the concept. :P 71.79.234.132 (talk) 03:53, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Slavic was a prestige language in the eastern Balkans at the time, leaving a significant influence on what would later be known as Romanian, usually (but not only) in high-register vocabulary. WHAAOE: Slavic influence on Romanian. No such user (talk) 09:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

decedent hamburger
Is there a burger called 'decedent hamburger', or it is just some mistake in the text? What is it really, and how it may be called in Russian? Thank youSeaweed71 (talk) 20:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * "Decedent" is legal terminology for someone who has died. Are you sure it wasn't "decadent"? -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a spelling mistake for decadent; "Luxuriously self-indulgent", not a phrase that springs to mind in McDonald's, but perhaps such a thing exists. Perhaps in the Soviet era, the hamburger was thought to be an example of the decadence of Western Civilisation - who knows? Alansplodge (talk) 21:14, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed it does. "Decadent hamburger" gives us lots of Ghits, prominent among which is a burger served by "The Old Homestead Steak House" in New York - 20 oz (!!!) of Kobe beef, costing $41 in 2003.  See this website, for example - most other references to it are in far-right publications (Free Republic, the Daily Mail, etc), for some unaccountable reason.  This may be the burger the OP is referring to. Tevildo (talk) 21:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Might have been trying for "decent hamburger". It'd be a strange word for an advertiser, but a common search for consumers. Google searching found this review up top. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * "Decedent hamburger" might be a good way to describe Steve Buscemi's character, at the end of Fargo. :-) StuRat (talk) 23:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Jokes apart, obviously it must be "decent". In Russian приличный.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the OP could point us to the whole sentence, so that we could see the context? Alansplodge (talk) 14:48, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that Mr Google has found it for me... "The food was good and cheap but they never could make a decedent hamburger. They used homemade hamburger buns that just couldn't compete...". It's from A Hot Time in the Cold War, Moscow 1967-68 by Sam Warren, former attaché staff specialist assigned to the US Embassy in Moscow, USSR. So "decent" it is then; well done Lüboslóv for giving us the right answer above. Alansplodge (talk) 14:55, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Border between simple and progressive
Hi

While I was trying to test my understanding of English, I thought about this question.

Theoretically there should be a lot of verbs and action, that their being continuous or non-continuous should be subjective.

I thought about that example:

Obama is serving US.

Obama serves US.

On the first sentence, I can say that Obama, since he was elected, is continuing to be the president as long as no one-else becomes the president. While in the 2nd sentence I can say that his serving begins when he enters the office and ends when he leaves.

Can anyone fix me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.228.134.152 (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * If you are using "US" to mean the United States, then you need a definite article (Obama is serving the US).  The meanings of your sentences are very similar because serve is usually a stative verb in this context, though it can also sometimes be used as a dynamic verb (e.g. serving a meal).  I wonder if this is the distinction you are looking for.    D b f i r s   22:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually I thought the "the" was included in the shortcut. Though, I haven't understood why you decided that "to serve" is a stative. When I wrote the Obama is serving, I meant that Obama is the whole time acting as the president of the United States. I thought about like that: if I say it in the past it can be like this: Obama was serving his country between 2008 to 2016 when an airplane got lost in the ocean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.228.134.152 (talk) 01:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It is a little hard to understand your question, but I think the answer is "yes". Don't get hung up on whether the action is "continuous" or not (whatever that may mean): the difference is how we are thinking about the action for our present purposes, or perhaps what aspect of it we are focusing on. If we say that "Obama is serving the US", we are referring to an event that is happening now: it doesn't say anything about how long or continuously that action takes place. If we say that "Obama serves the US" we are making a general or habitual statement, that may or may not be relevant at the present moment. If he goes on holiday (US: 'vacation') then you could say that during that time he is not serving the US, but but that would have no bearing on whether he "serves" the US. --ColinFine (talk) 11:28, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

How do the French spell "Tricolour"?
Our Tricolor page says "Le Tricolore" which sounds a bit Italian to me. Our Tricolour (flag) article isn't a model of clarity. Alansplodge (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The French Wikipedia uses "tricolore", and that is the way I have always seen it spelled in French. Also, "le" is not an Italian article (in that language it is "il tricolore").—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Just by the way, le is in fact an Italian article. It's the definite article, feminine, plural.  Obviously wouldn't apply to tricolore, which is masculine singular, though. --Trovatore (talk) 23:03, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * On another note, we usually don't call it "le tricolore". It's "le drapeau tricolore".--Cfmarenostrum (talk) 11:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * True. French people talking about "Le Tricolore" would without doubt mean something else, like for example the name of a ship, the name of a restaurant... In France the flag is always named "Le drapeau tricolore". Akseli9 (talk) 19:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's an adjectival noun. French also uses the adjectives unicolore and bicolore (not unicouleur, bicouleur, or tricouleur). ---Sluzzelin talk  22:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Aha! Thanks all. Alansplodge (talk)

Singular versus plural noun and verb
On the Entertainment Reference Desk, I just posted the following comment: In fact, at the beginning of the game, the player has to open several cases (not just one; I believe it's five) before the first offer is made. My question concerns the phrase "I believe it's five". Why is it exactly that we have a singular noun/verb and not a plural noun/verb in that phrase (which, in effect, is a stand-alone sentence)? The pronoun "it" is singular. The appositive (I think?) is "five" (plural). And the singular pronoun "it" refers back to the plural noun "several cases". Yet, clearly, it is perfect acceptable to say "It is five." What's going on here, grammatically? Something doesn't seem right; something doesn't "add up" for me. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * You could have expanded your reply to say "I believe the number required is five", and "number" is singular.   D b f i r s   23:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Five isn't plural here. Five is a singular term, one that in this example describes the size of a set. The set is singular (there is only one set of five items), comprising plural units (the items themselves). (EDITed to note I just realized that I meant the size of the set being singular, not the set itself. "Five" describes the set).  In this example, the set is five cases that need to be opened. So, the plural you would use would look like this:  "I believe that there are five cases that need to be opened." Here, you are discussing cases.  The singular you are using is: "I believe it's five" where you are discussing the size of the set, not the cases themselves. Mingmingla (talk) 23:15, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that "Five" is singular in the famous sentence "Five is right out".
 * On the other hand, it is common for "is" to connect a singular and a plural; in such a case it simply agrees with the subject. "Five people without tickets were a problem" but "the problem was five people without tickets". --65.94.50.4 (talk) 05:31, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Makes sense. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2015 (UTC)