Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 January 11

= January 11 =

What is "and it might still.. " called?
There's a common theme in the ending of many stories that says the main subject might still be going on, similar to beginning with "Once upon a time". Something like "some people say the ghost is still haunting, at exactly 8 o'clock, to this very day". Does that ending have a name? Joepnl (talk) 01:13, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Please provide a source.  As a native English speaker who's read well over 500 novels that I can remember your example seems spurious. μηδείς (talk) 01:38, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I've heard that formula many times, most often at the end of ghost stories. Lots of Greek myths could be ended that way, too. For example, the myth of Arachne could well end "...and that why, to this very day, spiders still spin webs." StuRat (talk) 07:35, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * And the opposite: "...and that's why you've never seen a unicorn to this very day." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:32, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Cliffhanger perhaps? 196.213.35.146 (talk) 07:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I think the examples cited could fall into two different buckets. In legends or myths, the plot device ostensibly provide an explanation for an object, phenomenon or practice. There are probably books out there analysing whether this is because someone felt the object, phenomenon or practice needed explanation, and then invented the story to provide it, or whether it is because there was a good story first and the storyteller felt the need to hook it onto the real life object, phenomenon or practice. Some modern urban legends use the plot device in the same way, e.g. to explain a real life derelict house.
 * Other ghost stories etc might occasionally also adopt the plot device to explain a spurious phenomenon or practice. This might be an adoption of the traditional myth / urban legend format, or it might simply be designed to create a bit of lingering fear for the listener, so a slightly different way to hook the story on to reality. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:37, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales contains a discussion of formulaic phrases at both the beginning and end of fairy tales, used to bring the listeners into the realm of imagination and, conversely, back to the cold light of day. The term used is simply "closing formula" and there are several examples similar to yours. 184.147.121.46 (talk) 22:55, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you all for your answers. Open endings and cliffhangers bear some similarity, I was hoping there would be a name for this particular kind of ending as well (like "suspense ending" or something). Joepnl (talk) 00:28, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Homeric greek
In the iliad "oi" =αυτωι? 192.114.91.247 (talk) 08:43, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It would help if you gave the passage you're concerned with, as "oi" with various accents and breathings can mean several things. Given your connection with αυτωι, however, you're probably referring to οἷ, the dative form of the personal pronoun οὗ (him or her), which is sometimes used reflexively by itself but is often used with a form of αὐτός to form a reflexive. Here's the Liddell & Scott entry, and here's the entry in Autenrieth's Homeric dictionary. Deor (talk) 11:38, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Arabic "taharrush gamea"
I came across the transliteration "taharrush gamea" in the article New_Year's_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany. Is this a real concept (which maybe has already a wiki article), is the transliteration right, are there other alternative transliterations?--Scicurious (talk) 15:29, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently the German WP currently has an article (though quite new, and promptly proposed for deletion), at de:taharrush gamea. That article claims the Arabic is "‏تحرش جماعي", which would have the standard transliteration taḥarruš ǧamāʿī in Modern Standard Arabic. The rendering "gamea" would seem to reflect Egyptian colloquial Arabic (where, IIRC, Arabic "ج" is regularly pronounced [ɡ] rather than [dʒ]). You will find further info in our wiktionary entries on جماع 'sex' (or جامع, 'copulate'); apparently there isn't one on تحرش. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:40, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This apparently must be from a root حرش but I don't know what that stands for. This reminds me of the sexual assaults on Western female journalists in Tahrir Square during the events a few years ago: Lara Logan, unnamed Dutch female journalist, Natasha Smith, etc. (The events in Germany seem to have been much wider scale and better coordinated though). I wonder if the same term was used in those cases (I mean in the Tahrir Square cases). If you do find Egyptian Arabic sources for those you may be able to find out and tell the RD. As Future Perfect remarked this seems to be a specifically Egyptian colloquialism. Was this Arabic term introduced into the news (as a "technical" term as it were) by journalists or is it one perpetrators used? Contact Basemetal   here  16:28, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Google Translate translates تحرّش  (note the madda on raa) as a noun "harassment, provocation, arousal" and as a (derived) verb "provoke": here. This site (a bit more reliable than Google Translate) gives this. At the same site you'll find the meaning of verb base  حرّش  here and finally the simple root  حرش  (with no madda) here. Whew.
 * Contact Basemetal   here  17:47, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

In which languages there R consonant which pronounced like in English?
92.249.70.153 (talk) 17:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * R has the answer.--Scicurious (talk) 18:10, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This link indicates many more languages. HOTmag (talk) 19:38, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Standardly, the only language I know of which [bersides English] has the syllable-final, post-alveolar, retroflex approximant [ɺ] is Beijing Mandarin. Interesting that such a rare phoneme is found in the two most widely spoken of the world's languages. μηδείς (talk) 23:15, 11 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Arrrr. Pirate-speak, matey. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:49, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my rhotrocentricirsm showing there--I added English in brackerts. μηδείς (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This question is essentially unanswerable in the current form (though the table linked to be Scicurious is great), as you haven't specified which English you want to compare to. 82.8.32.177 (talk) 19:54, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not so sure it's unanswerable. See retroflex approximant.  That's the phone of standard American English, and the one which the arrhotic dialects of British English have lost.  From my viewpoint that makes ɺ the standard final-r phoneme of English, although almost all of our linguistic articles are bogarted by Brits and written using their standards and POV.  Otherwise, rhotic American English and Mandarin Chinese share this rather rare phone. μηδείς (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2016 (UTC)