Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 January 16

= January 16 =

Basta / bəsdir
I was thinking of Italian "basta" and Azerbaijani "bəsdir", both meaning "enough", "that's enough" and both having similar spelling and pronunciation. The languages are quite distant from each other, so I wonder whether it's a pure coincidence? 212.180.235.46 (talk) 13:42, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Italian basta is the third-person singular of bastare "to suffice", so literally "[it] suffices". Wiktionary suggests it may be derived from Late Latin bastum "stick, staff, rod, pole", itself from Ancient Greek βαστάζω (bastázō) "I lift, carry, bear, support (weight)".
 * In the Azerbaijani, the -dir part means "it is", while bəs "enough" is borrowed from Persian بس (bas) with the same meaning, which comes from Middle Persian.
 * For there to be a relation, either both terms must be traceable further back to a common Proto-Indo-European source or some even earlier borrowing must have taken place. I don't think it would be easy to prove either. --Theurgist (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. However, the Turkic language family to which Azerbaijani belongs is separate from Indo-European languages, so the possible involvement of the Proto-Indo-European language looks spurious. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 23:03, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As noted above (as per Wiktionary), the term was borrowed into Azerbaijani from Persian, which is an Indo-European language. --Theurgist (talk) 00:05, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Italian interjection comes ultimately from Ancient Greek βαστάζω (bastázō, "to bear"), thought to stem from a non-Indo-European Pre-Greek substrate. From the start, the ⟨st⟩ combination was part of the stem. The Persian term بس (bas) has no ⟨t⟩, and neither does its Old Persian etymon. The Azeri suffix -dir simply means "he/she/it is"; it can be used with any adjective. The similarity is purely coincidental.  --Lambiam 01:40, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Folies Bergère
Presently the article Folies Bergère does not explain the word "Folies". According to various random Internet sources, as well as at least one dictionary, this is the (plural of the) French word for "madness" (cognate with English "fool", "folly" etc.), extended in this context to mean something like "mad extravagance". However, there is apparently another French word "folie", which has a different etymology altogether, an alteration of "feuille" (leaf), which somehow came to mean "pleasure house". See https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/folie#fr. At http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/fourpaintings/manet/folies_bergere/history.html, which looks authentic, they say that the "Folies" of "Folies Bergère" is actually from the second of these, not the first. Does anyone have any more information about this? 2A00:23C8:7B08:6A00:FC87:C528:216:BB30 (talk) 17:24, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Subsequent to this, I just thought to look at French Wikipedia. Their article (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folies_Berg%C3%A8re) says that "Folies" is from the "pleasure house" sense, but at that latter article, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_(maison_de_plaisance), the etymology is said to be disputed between the "mad extravagance" origin and the (ultimately) "leaf" origin. I guess that this explains the differences that I mentioned. Can I take the French Wikipedia explanation to be reliable and add this to the English article? 2A00:23C8:7B08:6A00:FC87:C528:216:BB30 (talk) 17:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Note that "folies" and "follies" come from the same source. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:17, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As I have already stated, there are many sources that say that "folies" is cognate with "folly" and similar "fool"-related words. There are also sources that say the word is from an entirely different origin. The question is whether one is correct and the other can be dismissed, or perhaps whether it is not truly known which is correct, and both should be mentioned. 2A00:23C8:7B08:6A00:FC87:C528:216:BB30 (talk) 20:07, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What would be the connection between Folies Bergère and leaves? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:50, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * One thinks of fig leaves in connection with skimpy clothing or nudity. And then there are the ostrich feathers the ladies often wore (feathers cf. leaves), --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:17, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Please see the references that I quoted. Please will people bother to actually read what I wrote before posting irrelevant replies. 2A00:23C8:7B08:6A00:FC87:C528:216:BB30 (talk) 21:50, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't read French. You might need to translate them for us. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * He wrote in English. He said: "According to various random Internet sources, as well as at least one dictionary, this is the (plural of the) French word for "madness" (cognate with English "fool", "folly" etc.)" Your post at 19:17 was just an unnecessary restatement of that. --Viennese Waltz 07:08, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Where did someone else cite etymonline? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:13, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * He didn't need to specifically cite etymonline. He said "according to various random Internet sources", of which etymonline is one. --Viennese Waltz 08:27, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * When did "random Internet sources" become a reliable source? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Folies Bergère are not a maison de plaisance. The contrast between the two concepts is stark, and if derived from that sense of folie, it is furthermore hard to explain why Les Folies is a plural. I do not trust that etymology. The French Wikipedia mentions it as a fact but does not provide a reference. A sense of French folie is also a type of comedic vaudeville, which, according to le Trésor de la langue française informatisé, served metonymically to form the names of certain theatres: "Le directeur des Folies-dramatiques venait de faire des offres superbes (Zola, Nana,1880, p. 1323). Le spectacle des Folies fit diversion. Le docteur goûta beaucoup les vieilles chansons interprétées par Yvonne Printemps (Aragon, Beaux quart.,1936, p. 224)." This is an authoritative source (published by the Académie française, the authority on the French language), and even if they were not an authority, it appears much more likely to me. --Lambiam 01:18, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Dutch surname
Is "Monster" (as in Rob Monster) a plausible Dutch surname, or at least one less funny than it is in English? I believe that Rob Monster is Dutch, based on some forum posts and his slight Dutch accent (there are some vids of him speaking on Youtube). Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:313A (talk) 19:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This site claims that "The surname Monster is most widespread in The Netherlands, where it is held by 1,370 people". --Antiquary (talk) 22:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * There is a town in South Holland by the name of Monster, which may derive from Latin monasterium (compare the etymology of Münster). The Dutch surname may in turn derive from that of the town. The surname "van Munster" or "van Monster", obviously originally a geographic-origin disambiguator, is also found. For many Dutch surnames of the type "van ", a version without "van" is also found; e.g. "van Beek" and "Beek", "van Benthem" and "Benthem", "van Berkel" and "Berkel", ... . --Lambiam 00:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC)


 * For reference, yes monster means the same in Dutch as it does in English. Fgf10 (talk) 09:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. I've relayed this info to Talk:Rob Monster. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:313A (talk) 04:49, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Piping hot
What is the origin of the phrase "piping hot"? Does it really have anything to do with bagpipes? Thanks. 86.169.244.182 (talk) 21:34, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Here's what EO has to say: ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This makes sense to me - "The derivation of this little phrase is the sizzling, whistling sound made by steam escaping from very hot food, which is similar to the sound of high-pitched musical pipes." And this says "The term piping hot means extremely hot. It is thought to have originated from the sound of the old pipe organs in large churches. It was first penned by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales. He wrote Wafers piping hot out of the gleed". HiLo48 (talk) 22:08, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah-ha, yes "Wafers piping hot out of the gleed". Obvious really. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't you just hate it when your gleed gets cold? 2603:6081:1C00:1187:8198:9810:E98D:8593 (talk) 06:21, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Similar to a "singing kettle" (BTW, see gleed: "a glowing coal" and "wafer" probably refers to a type of flatbread cooked on an open fire). Alansplodge (talk) 14:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)