Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 May 6

= May 6 =

Help fix a mistranslation
A machine translation from Spanish (presumably) has produced the sentence "In order to build a temple of the larger measures worthy of the city of "the aristocrats of silver", and to tell more quota, everything built is pulled." (See Zacatecas Cathedral). I've changed "measures" to "size" and "pulled" to "demolished", but I don't know what "tell more quota" is intended to mean. Any help would be appreciated. Tevildo (talk) 09:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Spanish Wikipedia has "y que contara con mayor cupo" - which translates as "and that will have more space." Wymspen (talk) 10:21, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. As it's redundant against "larger size", I've removed the phrase altogether. Tevildo (talk) 15:16, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Dream come true / Nightmare come true - Grammar

 * This is a dream come true!
 * "Hadi Attiyah, another neighbor who witnessed the attack, said it was like seeing his worst nightmare come true."
 * Dreams do come true.
 * It was like seeing his nightmare that had come true.

Can anyone explain the come-true grammatical construction? SSS (talk) 11:21, 6 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Isn't it just a contraction from "which has come"? Dreams and nightmares are not objectively real and so can be seen as "untrue". But I think, in general UK English parlance, dreams come true more often than nightmares do. Nightmares often just remain true mares  Martinevans123 (talk) 11:28, 6 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Cf. He was a criminal made good = a criminal who had made (himself) good. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:52, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Something that is made [adjective] need not be self-made, imho. —Tamfang (talk) 18:37, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The original poster may be having trouble with the use of "come" in these idioms. It basically means "become", and although some dictionaries list "become" as a definition of "come", I think it is only widely used in a few specific contexts (such as dreams coming true). See sense 6 here and sense 15 here. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 06:04, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You're probably right, come to think of it. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:32, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

C16 Dutch and French
Can anyone transcribe and translate this? On the bottom left and right of this 1577 print are some long captions, and I can't get the gist. It is rare for sperm whales to strand themselves, or to wash up on shore dead, as they are a deep sea species. Do the captions explain anything about how this happened - an unusual storm, perhaps? I don't think people hunted sperm whales that early on in history. The figures on the beach seem to be running away - one whale at least is still alive. And what are those long vertical sticks by the cliffs? Feel free to move this to Humanities if you think it'll get a more rounded answer. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:26, 6 May 2018 (UTC)


 * In the top right it says "Ter heyden in hollant". Ter Heijde is a village on the Dutch shore, 11 km southwest of the centre of The Hague. It think the texts on the lower left and lower right say largely the same, one in dutch, the other in french. I can't really make out the last words of the second line and the second word of the fourth line of the dutch text, but other than that it says:

Van dees derthien seemonsters, de drije versanden Waerdeur ons Godt waerschouden t perijckel en noot Dat ons was naeckende, ende noch is voorhanden Deur gheveijsde vijanden als monsteren groot. Johan. Wierics. fecit.

Of these thirteen sea monsters, three beached By which God warned us for the danger and distress That was approaching us, and is still coming By (???) enemies big as monsters. Made by Johannes Wiericson.
 * I'm not sure about the word "gheveijsde". I can't find it under a plausible modern spelling in my dictionary.
 * The "cliffs" would be sand dunes, as there are no cliffs along the dutch shore. The sand may get sticky and wind erosion may produce some spectacular although short-lived shapes. The sticks were probably put there to control the movement of the sand. They slow the flow of water and air, trapping the sand, which helps to build the dunes and protect the shore. It's still being done today.
 * Beachings of sperm whales are not unheard of along the dutch shore. Once every so many years a group of sperm whales ends up on a dutch beach. What seems to happen is that occasionally these whales, while travelling south from the Norwegian shore, they take the wrong turn. Instead of passing north of Scotland into the Atlantic, they swim into the North Sea, which is apparently an effective trap for these animals. As they travel south, the North Sea gets shallower, narrower and noisier (shipping), until they get confused and often injured and beach themselves. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)


 * This book transcribes them as: Van dees derthien seemonsters, de drije versanden / Waer deur ons Godt waerschoudentperijckelen noot / Datons was naeckende, endenoch is voorhanden / Deur gheveijsde vijanden: als monsteren groot


 * and in French: De treise monstres tels de mer, les trois surprent, / Le sable est court arrest, de Dieu certain presage, / De nostre mal passe et encore apparent, / Si tout faint ennemij comme monstre on nencage. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:13, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems accurate, apart from the spacing. Amending my transcription. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:47, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm no expert on old-fashioned French, but in rough translation most of it'd be something like "Of thirteen such sea monsters, three come up on the sand (and) are stopped short, a certain warning from God. Of our evil that passes and still appears..." I don't know the key words in the last line. It seems to me that the translation given above for the Dutch should be about right for the French, too. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 06:14, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * My best shot at the last line would be "if we try to put in a cage every feared enemy as if it were a monster". --Xuxl (talk) 13:04, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "geheijsde" may be "gevreesde" ie "gheveijsde vijanden" being "gevreesde vijanden" ie indeed "feared enemies". Seems most logical from context. Just a guess really though. Fgf10 (talk) 07:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * It's geveinsd, Middle Dutch vensen, most probably in the sense "deceitful". The book mentioned above translates it as "hidden". Шурбур (talk) 09:17, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Could be, if some reliable source says so. I saw the similarity too, but thought it a bit far-fetched. For the meaning "deceitful" I would expect a present participle, not a past participle. But I'm no expert on early modern dutch. In any case, it doesn't say why the sperm whales beached. PiusImpavidus (talk) 12:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

German: using 'Bundesland' for referring to the whole country
Would it be uncommon, or even wrong, to use the word 'Bundesland' in German not to refer to individual states, but to the federal unit or federation (the whole country)? --Doroletho (talk) 22:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be completely wrong, Bundesland always refers to an individual state. Die Bundesrepublik is used when referring to the country as a whole, or Der Bund when referring to the administration of the federal government. --Terfili (talk) 04:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Bundesstaat, however, can refer to both. Cheers ✦  hugarheimur 05:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)