Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 July 1

= July 1 =

הריסון vs. האריסון: What is the difference in Hebrew?
What is the difference between הריסון or האריסון for Harrison in Hebrew? Both seem to be used interchangeably to some extent on the Hebrew wikipedia, but certain people have names spelled one way or the other. Is there any logic to why an alef is or is not included?--2601:1C2:1300:1F33:4DDC:1EA6:EE67:9A8 (talk) 05:43, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi, a Hebrew speaker is answering here. If - by that word - you mean the proper noun Harrison, then האריסון is more correct, both phonetically and semantically: From a phonetic point of view, the א is needed because the accent is on the first syllable in a loanword. From a semantic viewpoint, the א in האריסון (read: Harrison) prevents us from reading that word as the originally Hebrew word /haris'su:n/ (whose accent is on the last syllable), meaning "the restraint" and spelled הריסון. Anyway, some Hebrew speakers (not all of them) still spell the proper noun Harrison as הריסון without the א, because they are not aware of (or don't care about) the linguistic considerations mentioned above (because the rules for spelling loanwords are not as strict as the rules for spelling originally Hebrew words, just as the English rules for spelling the loanword Muslim/Moslem are not that strict). Hope this helps. 185.125.13.199 (talk) 22:19, 1 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Could be the first spelling is used by those who pronounce the first vowel as [e] and the second spelling by those who pronounce it as [a], but I'm just guessing, as I don't actually know how Hebrew speakers pronounce "Harrison". All I know is that English vowel does not exist in Hebrew so there may be several ways to approximate it. Basemetal  22:10, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Hebrew speakers pronounce "Harrison" as /'hariso:n/, i.e, with [a]. 185.125.13.199 (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your explanation. That's a really interesting answer you shared.2601:1C2:1300:1F33:6886:D354:E83F:9B31 (talk) 22:53, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. 185.125.13.199 (talk) 23:19, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * From what little I know of Hebrew, you seem to be saying that the name Harrison is pronounced in the usual way and spelled with the alef to indicate that it is to be pronounced that way. The other construction Ha rison (the restraint) is spelled without the alef and with the Ha joined at the front in the usual Hebrew way. Is that correct? Akld guy (talk) 05:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Almost. When spelled without the aleph, it's usually read /haris'su:n/, the accent being on the last syllable, that is pronounced like the English word "soon" (as opposed to what you wrote). Anyway, your response amazed me: I've never imagined there are New Zealanders who understand (little) Hebrew... 185.125.13.83 (talk) 07:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clearing up the pronunciation with the "soon". Whatever I've learned has been from old grammar books that I've found in dusty old bookshops here. Those books don't pay enough attention to pronunciation. Akld guy (talk) 22:24, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Qualifiers for the acronym POTUS
Is there any agreement on the "correct" adjective associated with the acronym POTUS? Can I speak of twitters which are POTUSine / POTUSesque / POTUSian / POTUSoid? Yes, I can! (to misquote somebody), however these terms strike me - Central European / ESL speaker - as jocular. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:27, 1 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Do acronyms have adjectival forms at all? Sonarese?  Radaric?  FBIesque?  CIAian?  VIPine?  QANTASovian?  Nah, I do't think so.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:50, 1 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Abba-esque ---Sluzzelin talk  22:09, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * BBCesque, USA-esque (not in Wiktionary but used here), Usanian, USAian, etc. etc. French has even created lolesque from English LOL! Basemetal  10:07, 2 July 2018 (UTC)


 * For the current one, I'd go with POTUSinine. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:00, 1 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I'd go with POTUScene, I'm not sure why, but Richard Forno (if it's the same guy) prefers POTUSian, but that may have been influenced by "Trumpian". Basemetal  22:21, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

whoomper
In an essay titled "The Whoomper Factor", Nathan Cobb terms blizzards in New England "whoompers".He thinks whoompers teach us a lesson: that there is something more powerful out there than the sacred metroplis; just when we think we've got the upper hand on the elements, we find out we are flies and someone else is holding the swatter. Whoompers also slow us down, which is not a bad thing. The word "whoomper" is coined by the author. What does it mean here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.155.177 (talk) 14:14, 1 July 2018 (UTC)


 * As stated in your question, The author is using the word "whoomper" in place of "a really bad blizzard." 71.12.10.227 (talk) 20:11, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe a variation on "whopper"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:30, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * This forum thread has several other suggestions on the origin of "whoomper", the most likely being from the Oxford English Dictionary: "whoompf - Also whoomph, etc. - (Expressing) a sudden, violent rushing sound...". The prize for the least likely was the suggestion that "whoomp" was "the sound of a large object--say a cow--hitting the ground" (?). Alansplodge (talk) 11:39, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Hittite claimed to be "Ancient Armenian" at article Aryan
There's an IPer who keeps inserting in article Aryan a characterization of the Hittite language as "Ancient Armenian". I reverted him once but he's reinserted it. His "references" (which do not even include titles) seem at best incomplete and more probably bogus. If you have enough time and care about factual accuracy you may wanna take a look. Basemetal 22:48, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Definitely bogus. You do not need much time or qualification to find this (see; also G. & I. could not write such a nonsense - I've checked their work (pp. 912-913), not even close that might be misinterpreted, so the IP definitely and consciously distorts the sources and makes up an OR).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:07, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * What may contribute to the confusion is the name Armenian hypothesis used for Gamkrelidze & Ivanov's theory that PIE originated in the Armenian Highlands. I don't know if G & I used that term themselves but in any case it is should be used exclusively as a geographical term, without any reference to the Armenian language which it unfortunately is not [see below] . The claim that Hittite is ancestral to Armenian seems to be a recurring cliché of Armenian nationalism (that IP locates to Glendale, California) so one should not expect good faith. Armenian nationalism is not unique in this: I've met a Korean to whom Sumerian was Ancient Korean, a Hungarian to whom Sumerian was Ancient Hungarian, and, to me the best so far, a Latvian-American who claimed Ancient Egyptian was actually Ancient Latvian. On good days those guys can be taken as mere comic relief but the truth is they also waste a lot of people's time. Something like ten people have had to waste their time reverting that guy in the past ten days or so. Basemetal  10:28, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, they definitely tried to avoid naming their theory with a particular name. And in the running text they rarely used the word "Armenian" (армянский) in other contexts than about the language or the ethnic group. For geography they prefer the Southern Caucasus (Южный Кавказ). I do not clearly understand what has made English-speaking scientists name the theory "Armenian" when the authors of the theory themselves rarely mention Armenia. Could it be that the name of the article is not stricty correct? How established is this name in the areas other than WP?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:12, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * WP is definitely the first place where I've encountered that label. Before that, as far as I can remember, in French works (such as Martinet's) and Dutch works (such as Beekes's) only the Caucasus was mentioned in reference to the Gamkrelidze-Ivanov theory. It is noteworthy that all of the non-English WPs follow the English one except for the Russian one (and Russians are in the best position to know what terminology was really used by G & I). The English article was created in 2006 w/o any source by Dbachmann. He may be able to explain the source of the terminology he used. These days you find that terminology used outside WP (for example this, just an undergraduate thesis, but the bibliography may be worth looking at) but that is from 2015 and may have been influenced by WP. Basemetal  14:31, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * PS: That same editor added the Armenian hypothesis article to Category:Armenian languages where it currently still is!!! क्या कहना!!! Basemetal  17:30, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably, you should start the process of renaming it to "Hypothesis of Gamkrelidze–Ivanov" (note the en-dash). The current name is clearly confusing and non-neutral, because strictly speaking this hypothesis has little if any connections to modern (or even ancient) Armenia or Armenians, and it is not limited to the Armenian Highland. Moreover, the authors never limit themselves with the Armenian Highlands. In chapter 12 of their book they literally say: "eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and Mesopotamia". But that's not all, a simple text search in the book shows that the authors never even mention the Armenian Highlands! There are no such words in the entire 1000-plus-pages book. Whoever has parroted that erroneous name of English WP after 2006 (including other WPs) is wrong and it must not really matter, we should definitely rename the article.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with you completely, and I can see you've already done the job, for which many thanks. Besides as I looked a bit more into this, there seems to be more than meets the eye in terms of ulterior motives, so this choice of terminology may not be as innocent and neutral as I first thought. One of the two books that is most often cited as a basis for this terminology (the other being the completely groundless use of G & I's which as you pointed out does not use that terminology at all) is Martiros Kavoukjian, Armenia, Subartu, and Sumer : the Indo-European homeland and ancient Mesopotamia, trans. N. Ouzounian, Montreal (1987). I have not seen that book and do not even know what its original language is (I would assume Russian or Armenian), but if anyone has access to it, I'm curious if this is the real source of that terminology and if it's a book with a "spin". Also it'd be interesting to see what use is made of and what implications are drawn from this terminology in Armenian sources both off- and online (which unfortunately I can't read). In any case several WPs categorize the corresponding page as relating to historical Armenia and the Armenian language. I wonder what the long term consequences will be in the wider academic world. WP is not supposed to influence but only to describe and it might have done exactly the reverse in this case. Basemetal  12:00, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems it was in vain and I just wasted my time, see the discussion. Probably you may want to participate. Some archaeologists think as if they understand a thing about linguistics. You are right, this is a perfect example of the reverse. Unfortunately, I've seen many examples when WP creates the (new) reality and does not describe it. And when something in WP is off, it is often really difficult to treat it, it is like an epidemic, with circular citations, etc. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:54, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Very sorry to see that. I've contributed my bit but my experience with WP does not make me optimistic. This is not good for linguistics and not good for WP in the long run either, but those people do not seem to realize that. Some specialist journal may be interested in this story which is certainly an exemplary case worth studying. Basemetal  19:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)