Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 July 21

= July 21 =

Maklergalgen
Does Maklergalgen (using italics for emphasis, a la Spanish no vote) have a "specific" meaning in German, a meaning that would be retained when discussing the subject in another language? It's apparently a real estate sign, but I'm not sure if it's just an ordinary term for real estate signs, or if it's a special, well-defined class of items. This arises from Commons:Category:Maklergalgen, a newly created category of nothing but real estate signs; Commons policy says that categories should be named in English, but an exception is of course made for proper names, biological taxa and names for which the non-English name is most commonly used in the English language (or there is no evidence of usage of an English-language version). It looks like someone was ignorant and created this category, but I don't want to delete it as a duplicate if Maklergalgen is normally used for this concept in English-language sources. Nyttend (talk) 12:55, 21 July 2016 (UTC)


 * You could make a new sub - category "Hanging signs" in category "Real estate signs". 86.177.9.65 (talk) 14:14, 21 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Oh, that German wit! According to Google Translate, Maklergalgen literally means "agents gallows". But it appears that its real meaning is real estate signs, which often look like gallows. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:37, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I (native speaker) had not known this word until I read it above. My usual German dictionaries do not list it. So it is a neologism coined after, say, 2005, and I had to look up the picture gallery to see what is meant. Please rename the category to "hanging signs" or whatever, which will be easier to understand. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 19:08, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh my goodness! That same user also created recently Commons:Category:Snackwelle and I have to admit for the second time that I as a native German speaker newer saw that German word and had no idea what it meant until I saw the picture gallery (a snack wave). Left at your discretion. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 19:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Same here – both words seem utterly bogus to me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:42, 21 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Anyone here who speaks German natively, before concluding it's bogus, google "Maklergalgen" and see if the German-language references to it seem real or not. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:54, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I probably spoke too rashly. Judging by the google hits, both "Maklergalgen" and "Snackwelle" seem to be examples of those kinds of everyday objects that everybody is familiar with somehow but few people ever actively think about enough to need a word for, except for people in the specialist trade that produces them. Both seem to actually be called that in the industries involved. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:57, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * When we studied German at school, the teacher explained that anyone could make a new word by joining two nouns together.  Makler and galgen are both established words, so describing the combination as "utterly bogus" is surprising to say the least. 194.66.226.95 (talk) 09:04, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Well no, there are well-formed words that are nevertheless on the bogus side in terms of lexicality, such as Totenhebel or Flunderschrei (though one can imagine contrived situations where both might be applied), but Fut.Perf is correct: Snackwelle and Maklergalgen do exist in the language of their industries, and I was reminded of the notorious Warentrenner (English: checkout divider), an everyday item which many people still wouldn't know what to call (Max Goldt suggested "Warenabtrennhölzchen", see Zwiebelfisch). ---Sluzzelin talk  09:21, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So it doesn't matter that you're combining something that isn't actually a word?  Toten doesn't appear to be a word, and Totenhebel appears to mean "dead man's handle".   Flunderschrei appears to be a noise made by a fish.   Who decides? 194.66.226.95 (talk) 10:19, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see that toten (with an umlaut over the "o") means "killing", so my surmise that this is the lever which the driver of a train keeps depressed to show he is not incapacitated seems to be off the mark. 194.66.226.95 (talk) 12:10, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No, the Umlaut is not just there for fun (it’s basically a superscript e), so if you don’t have the correct letter on your keyboard, you should spell that word toeten. For Toten- see this Wiktionary entry. My guess is that Sluzzelin made those two examples up on the spot to demonstrate a point: namely that it is possible, in German, to make up "new" words by combining existing ones, but not all of them make much sense, and even if they do, they’re not necessarily in common use. This is why, while Snackwelle is theoretically a valid German word, most people (like me) might not understand right away what it’s supposed to mean.
 * Btw, @Sluzzelin: I just love Kassentoblerone ;o) Rgds ✦  hugarheimur 18:09, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep, first bogus compounds I could come up with returning zero google hits ... and though I live in the land of Toblerone and buy groceries several times a week, and though it sounds natural enough, I hadn't been familiar at all with Kassentoblerone. ---Sluzzelin talk  18:24, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I only ever knew one guy who actually used the term. He’s from Freiburg (the German one). No idea where he picked it up, though. Greetings from the Land of the (Original) Wibele – ✦  hugarheimur 19:39, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Aber, was passiert mit den Waldschluchtsbeeren? μηδείς (talk) 22:03, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Sie verlieren ihren Fugenlaut und schluchzen dennoch weiter. ---Sluzzelin talk  03:26, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Ach! Ich wusste dass wir das Wort diskutiert hatten.  Entschuldige mir fuers Ergebnis vergessen haben. Es bleibt jedoch die Frage des Schiksal der Waldschluchtbeeren. Wir haben auch das Wort <> "Bisexueller" als Beispiel dieses Phaenomen. μηδείς (talk) 03:43, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Sie werden von den Waldschluchtbären gefressen :o) Cheers ✦  hugarheimur 07:16, 23 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Off on a bit of a tangent, but not too much of a wild potato chase - a recent addition to my vocabulary. Last weekend bought a new bicycle tyre made by a German company that claimed to be "unplattbar". The tyre, not the company, that is. In the small print it explains that it's not possible to guarantee that it will never get a flat, but it will protect "gegen die typisch Pannenteufel'. The English version says that it offers protection "against typical tyre wreckers such as glass, flints or metal shards". I know what I will be calling these devils in future. --Shirt58 (talk) 05:42, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

uncertain house arrest
I am not clear about the meaning of "uncertain house arrest" in the following context. Would you clarify it for me? "Another is the odyssey of the airmen whose plane landed safely in Vladivostok (against Doolittle's orders). The Russians were supposedly U.S. allies. But months of black bread, vodka, boredom and uncertain house arrest lay ahead for the Americans." ( "'Target Tokyo' brings a well-known WWII story back to life" by Tony Perry ) Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.221.42 (talk) 14:36, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * See house arrest. It means that you are restricted by the authorities from leaving your own domicile.  -- Jayron 32 14:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Uncertain as to whether they actually were under house arrest? Uncertain as to how long it would go on for? They were foreign nationals in a high security area during a time of war - so Soviet authorities would have been reluctant to give them any liberty, even though they were technically allies. Unfortunately, it is uncertain what the writer actually meant by that phrase. Wymspen (talk) 15:32, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * In the context, I would take it to mean that sometimes they were more strictly confined, and sometimes less so, in an unpredictable fashion. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.26.60 (talk) 16:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I would not interpret it that way. "Uncertain" seems an odd word to use for that meaning, rather than "intermittent" or something along those lines. I would guess that it means that the future duration of their house arrest was unknown to them, but I agree that the meaning is not at all clear from the context. CodeTalker (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I would take it as a stylized way of saying actual house arrest, but with no certainty that they would be released or even executed. Like an "uncertain prognosis".  The prognosis itself is not uncertain, but the patient and his caregivers are. μηδείς (talk) 23:42, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Per Medeis, uncertain is being used as a synonym for indefinite here: no understanding of the reasons for, or especially the duration of, or the conditions of release from, said house arrest. -- Jayron 32 01:04, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I was actually going to use the word "indefinite". And it should be noted that "months of black bread, vodka, [&] boredom" describes most of the year for most Russians throughout the last millennium. μηδείς (talk) 01:21, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I would have interpreted as "the Americans were in for certain house arrest" (in the same way that "certain" is used as in "hiding out meant certain trouble" or "the test set me up for certain anxiety"), but with the meaning reversed. 27.115.113.102 (talk) 01:53, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I think it means "under house arrest in a state of uncertainty", i.e. a situation where the airmen were not sure whether and when they were going to be released or tried or sent somewhere else. It describes their mental state rather than the attributes of the arrest as such. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:57, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, Palace Guard, that was my point. The uncertainty was that of the detainees themselves. μηδείς (talk) 21:57, 22 July 2016 (UTC)