Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 May 9

= May 9 =

Star Wars etymology
Is it true that the following Star Wars character/species names are derived from Russian: Chewbacca from "sobaka" ("dog"), Jabba from "zhaba" ("toad"), and Sarlacc from "sornyak" ("noxious weed")? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:FDA1:AEB9:3ACB:8095 (talk) 01:56, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Here's an answer to your first question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:20, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know the answer, but it's not impossible, considering that other non-English languages were also used as inspiration for names or fragments of dialogue in Star Wars. For example, the question C3PO asks throught the intercom at Jabba's palace is in Polish: Tutaj mieszka Jabba the Hut? (Here lives Jabba the Hut?). — Kpalion(talk) 14:48, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Express location of something in a shelf
How do you say in English that a book (for example) is at place x in a shelf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.4.138.208 (talk) 10:55, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You say it exactly that way. For example "The book is the third book from the left on the shelf"  -- Jayron 32 12:52, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

But would you say, on the second shelf from the top (meaning the board) of the third shelf (meaning the furniture)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.4.138.187 (talk) 13:56, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I would call the "shelf [or more likely shelves] as an item of furniture" a bookcase. In a library you also have the concept of a stack. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:13, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * A single flat surface on which to put something is a shelf. The furniture, depending on the specific thing, may be a bookcase, cabinet, wardrobe, vanity, etc.  Sometimes, the furniture itself is called a "set of shelves", but as a singular word "shelf" is always meant to refer to the flat surface on which an item is stored, and not the greater object that contains the shelf.  -- Jayron 32 15:48, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * It's probably irrelevant to the OP's purpose, but this question put me in mind of Cotton library. Deor (talk) 14:44, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Just one niggle: the OP says "in a shelf" but "on a shelf" is standard English. Alansplodge (talk) 20:30, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't quite agree, User:Jayron32,Alansplodge; I would use "bookshelf" as a synonym for "bookcase". So, if my kid said he had put X away "In a shelf", I would parse "shelf" as being short for "bookshelf" and not identify it as an error. (Instead I would identify it as remarkable that he had put something away at all). I agree that the singular flat surface is a shelf, though. Matt Deres (talk) 15:12, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I agree with that either. A shelf is not a bookcase. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say "in a shelf".  Alansplodge (talk) 16:52, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm the only person in the world with perfect English, so you'll have to change. How about if it was plural? "Where'd you stack all those books?" "They're in the shelves." I would in fact find on ambiguous there, as it might mean that the books are still all vertically stacked on top of the unit rather than put away into/onto the individual shelves. Matt Deres (talk) 18:20, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Alansplodge (talk) 21:25, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Do illiterate English speakers struggle with initialisms?
For example, a /ˈnɒkaʊt/ (knockout) is also known as /ˌkeɪˈoʊ/ (KO). Unless you know how to spell these terms, the relation is not obvious. Other letters, too, such as C, G, U, W and Y, have names that are sometimes different from the sounds they represent. Do illiterate speakers have a hard time with that? --Theurgist (talk) 16:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * A 100% illiterate person probably won't stablish the link between knockout and KO, specially because the 'k' is silent in the former. However I don't see why they would not treat both forms as synonyms. After all, it's like it there are two words of two syllables each for the concept. Besides that, nowadays it's rare to find someone who's 100% illiterate. That is, someone who can't even identify letters or read single words. So, they'll know that a BMW is a be-em-dabliu.
 * A functional illiterate person, per definition, will struggle with written texts. --Doroletho (talk) 16:29, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Literacy is a messy concept, and one really needs to define what one means by illiterate. Being literate is not an either-or concept, and few people outside of the with severe and profound intellectual disabilities are so illiterate that they don't even comprehend the concept of letters.  There are many levels of literacy, and in the United States, insignificantly close to 100% of non-disabled people at least understand that written letters represent sounds in words, and most of those can "sound out" written language, that sort of thing represents a different level of literacy than being able to put a string of words together to understand written concepts at a functional level.  That all being said, some scholarly studies seem to have been done on at least part of answering the question this study looks at the communication of medical information to the functionally illiterate and that book, on page 126, seems to have information relevent to this discussion.  -- Jayron 32 16:38, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * A monolingual native speaker who cannot read or write in his/her native language is illiterate. The illiterate person may just be deprived of a formal education and does not really need to read anyway, because his/her family works in agriculture full-time. Alternatively, an illiterate has some kind of intellectual disability. What about bilingual people who speak two languages fluently but is only literate in one of the two unrelated languages either because (1) the other language has no written language or (2) the other language is only used at home and not in the greater society? SSS (talk) 17:45, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * All of these may be true things, but are unlikely to generate meaningful references which we can present you to read for more information. A good-faith search through the literature on your initial question produced a single sentence in a single book that was't even that closely related to your question that indicated that maybe, perhaps, the OP might be on to something.  Your follow-on questions don't show any signs of having anyone that has produced anything to read which would enlighten you.  Not every question that can be asked represents something which someone has done actual research on or published information we can direct you to.  If you want help, it's important to ask answerable questions within the context of what we do here and the reference desk.  -- Jayron 32 18:09, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I only see one question. Sentences 1, 2, and 3 are not questions. They are declarative sentences, intended to repeat Jayron32's above response as confirmation. Sentence 4 is a question. I already know that heritage speakers exist. They tend to be bilinguals, more fluent in the dominant language than the minority language. I've even read about heritage language schools and how they are not so successful at providing literacy in the minority language. So, it's likely that many heritage speakers are actually illiterate. With that said, it's curious why they aren't figured into the Illiteracy rate. Or perhaps, the Illiteracy rate, by definition, is based on native monolinguals who are illiterate. SSS (talk) 20:13, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

"fall short of" or "fall short behind"
fall short of seems to be legitimate use. It is also way more popular than "fall short behind". But, I have found some examples of "fall short behind". Is there a difference between "fall short of" and "fall short behind"? SSS (talk) 17:54, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "they project beyond their basal plate in front as much as they fall short behind"
 * "The figure also shows that both schemes fall short behind running with enough local memory."
 * "In business, they will not fall short behind the keenest Yankee"
 * The phrase "fall short behind" is not a regular English idiom, as can be confirmed by Google ngrams which doesn't find a single use of that phrase in any printed work in the past 200 years. Google itself only finds 3540 webpages which use the phrase, which given the volume of text it indexes, is insanely small; there are random strings of characters you can generate by smashing your forehead into your keyboard that are likely to get more ghits.  At best, it is a malapropism that is a portmanteau of "fall short of" and "fall behind", but as proved by ngrams, it is not a phrase which has significant meaningful use "in the field".  The few examples you have found do exist, but I doubt you'll find significantly more of them.  -- Jayron 32 18:04, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In the OP's first example, "behind" (i.e., "in back") is in contrast to "in front"; it's not a preposition or part of a phrasal verb "fall short behind". Deor (talk) 19:05, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The quotes come from:
 * Philosphical transactions of the Royal Society of London (p. 192), London, 1761.
 * Transactions on Computational Science XXII (p. 31) edited by Marina Gavrilova, C.J. Kenneth Tan, University of Calgary, 2014.
 * The African Repository (p. 133) by The American Colonization Society, Washington DC, 1853.
 * Alansplodge (talk) 20:20, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Then it's a malamanteau? [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:04, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * In your first example, fall short behind is not a phrase; the final behind is the counterpart of the in front earlier in the sentence. In other words: "In front of their basal plate, they project beyond it; behind it, they fall short by the same amount." —Tamfang (talk) 06:11, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Ship/sheep in Scottish English
I was recently at a stand-up comedy club in Helsinki, and the last performer was from Scotland. He said someone had tried to buy a boat with his credit card, and then later someone tried to buy a ship. He asked the audience how much a ship costs. I said "twenty million" and he said "you're not taking this question seriously". Someone else said "three hundred euros".

Then I started wondering if he had said "sheep" instead of "ship". In Finnish, there is quite a big linguistic difference between long and short vowels, and I'm accustomed to hearing a big difference. But is this difference so pronounced in spoken English? And also, that the performer was speaking with a Scottish accent might have made it even harder for me to hear the difference.

So my question is, how pronounced is the difference between "sheep" and "ship" in English, particularly among Scottish people? J I P &#124; Talk 21:05, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * There's not one single type of Scottish English, but you can look at Scottish vowel length rule... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:59, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * In standard English, there is a big difference in vowel length between /ʃiːp/ and /ʃɪp/, but this is less obvious in some Scottish accents.  Dbf<i style="color: #6f6;">i</i><i style="color: #4e4;">r</i><i style="color: #4a4">s</i>  07:34, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * In at least some Scottish accents the vowel in "ship" tends more towards schwa than /ee/: see Scottish_English. It seems much more likely that the comedian's "ship" was just as a contrast to "boat". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:49, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If that was the case, why would the comedian say "you're not taking this question seriously" in response to a perfectly sensible suggestion like 20 million euros? --Viennese Waltz 14:59, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It's much more likely that the comedian said sheep but pronounced it with the shorter vowel that is common in some Scottish accents. I agree that the vowel in ship is shifted towards a schwa in Scotland, but perhaps this occurred to distinguish it from the shorter /i/ in sheep?   <i style="color: blue;">D</i><i style="color: #0cf;">b</i><i style="color: #4fc;">f</i><i style="color: #6f6;">i</i><i style="color: #4e4;">r</i><i style="color: #4a4">s</i>  15:18, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This is exactly what must have happened. I remember the comedian saying "Can you imagine the shipment costs? Or should I say sheepment costs? No, I shouldn't." I think I got his meaning by that time. J I P  &#124; Talk 18:04, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Pronunciation of "sheep" as "ship" is sufficiently characteristic of the (Scottish) Glaswegian accent that Terry Pratchett jokingly utilised it in The Wee Free Men, whose 'pictsies' (technically fairies, but never call them that) speak in a slightly fictionalised Glasgow dialect, and refer to "coo-beasties" (cows) and "ship-beasties" (sheep). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.204.152.127 (talk) 15:19, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that. I was hoping to find a pronunciation at the Scots Wikipedia but it isn't given.  (It's an amusing read though.)  I live only 120 miles from Glasgow, but I find that accent one of the most difficult to understand.   <i style="color: blue;">D</i><i style="color: #0cf;">b</i><i style="color: #4fc;">f</i><i style="color: #6f6;">i</i><i style="color: #4e4;">r</i><i style="color: #4a4">s</i>  15:29, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Just an aside: the traditional accent of Sussex (my home county), now rarely heard, also has this feature: i.e. "sheep" is pronounced "ship". See Sussex dialect for a well-researched and referenced article (not written by me, I should add!) on our historic accent and dialect.  <b style="color: #00BFFF;">Hassocks</b> 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  15:34, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and not far over the border into Kent is the village of Shipbourne, where the bourne can never have been wide or deep enough for a ship. Good sheep country though. DuncanHill (talk) 22:36, 11 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Off-topic: I used to teach English to new Canadians and I had a young Guatemalan pupil who once related to me that she "Loved the Costa Rican bitches." "Th-the what?" "The bitches: so warm and wonderful! White sand." I can't make that shit up. Matt Deres (talk) 16:02, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In my English class, a classmate of mine once explained how she and her family (who had spent the summer holidays camping in the US) were attacked by a beer. You know: large, furry, loves honey. Cheers ✦  hugarheimur 17:04, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Conversely, a friend from New Zealand met with incomprehension when she asked (when planning a day out) who would be bringing the bears. Alansplodge (talk) 21:19, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've been attacked by beers many times. I find the best thing to do is just give in and let them pour themselves down my throat. DuncanHill (talk) 22:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Compare also the phrase "Spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar", which, although commonly believed to refer to caulking a ship, actually is derived from the use of tar as an antiseptic in treating livestock. See here for details. Tevildo (talk) 17:16, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Although the other etymology is just as plausible, given that a wooden ship which is badly caulked will leak at the seams and may eventually sink. 2601:646:8A00:A0B3:B449:1DF6:C708:4E69 (talk) 07:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed, see oakum. However, no less an authority than the august Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (on p. 745) supports the "sheep" hypothesis, so there must be something in it. Alansplodge (talk) 12:22, 11 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm not surprised anyone mis-heard them, especially in a noisy club. The two words are a minimal pair, and as such were used as the title of a best-selling pronunciation book for students learning English. Ship or Sheep by Ann Baker is a classic . The phrase was then nicked by Tim Bowyer for his website. (Side note: an American warned me about all the exploited Eastern European bakers who had been human-trafficked to Britain. Really? I thought. I know that restaurant staffing is going into a Brexit crisis, but still..... turned out she was referring to beggars.) Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Definitely not surprising that anyone mis-heard him, especially as this was a joke and the comedian was trying to be mis-heard. And even if OP understood the question as being about a sheep, the comedian could still have said "You're not taking this question seriously," pretending that the question was about a ship after all. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:06, 11 May 2018 (UTC)