Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 January 18

= January 18 =

Counterfeit words
Looking through a language activity book Lingua portuguesa 5.° anno, published by Porto Editora in 2011 (ISBN 978-972-0-20102-7) I encountered the word privacidade. This word does not appear in their 1980 Dicionário português, unsurprisingly, because it would imply derivation from the Latin word privacitas, which does not exist. It appears to be a neologism - there was a discussion about this at Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 December 18. It is listed in Collins Gem Portuguese Dictionary (Glasgow, 1990, ISBN 000 4586662) with the meaning "privacy". I can trace it back to a translation of the 1980 document OECD guidelines on the protection of privacy and transborder flows of personal data. Are there many of these words? 95.148.1.243 (talk) 13:27, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Could it not simply be a neologism? These happen all the time, in all languages, and in Western languages, many of them are based on a misunderstanding of Latin or Greek roots. By calling it a "counterfeit word", you imply that the word does not exist or is not used or was created to mislead, which is possible but unlikely. Xuxl (talk) 13:40, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Portuguese Wikipedia has an article on Privacidade, which is described as calqued from English privacy. French abounds with words formed with the suffix -ité, such as adaptabilité, while Classical Latin *adaptabilitas is not attested. --Lambiam 16:19, 18 January 2021 (UTC)


 * 95.148.1.243 -- "Informatics" started out as a kind of counterfeit word (if you want to call it that) in English, since at the beginning it was used in English mainly by mother-tongue speakers of continental European languages, and is probably not a word that mother-tongue English speakers would have coined on their own. However, whether a word is a "real" word in a particular language depends on usage, not etymology... AnonMoos (talk) 20:30, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * English sawbuck is a calque of Dutch zaagbok, flea market is a calque of French marché aux puces, and cookbook is probably calqued from German Kochbuch. Are these counterfeit words? --Lambiam 10:04, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Where was the word 'chimpanzee' first used in English?
Everywhere I look online, I read that the word 'chimpanzee' was first used in English in 1738, but I can find nothing that tells me where this was. All help appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.26.11.118 (talk) 23:21, 18 January 2021 (UTC)


 * In general nobody knows when the first use of a word in English was. Dictionary researchers only know when the oldest use in written English that they can find was.  In this case, according to the OED Online, it was used in the London Magazine for September 1738 and the passage reads: "A most surprizing creature is brought over in the Speaker, just arrived from Carolina, that was taken in a wood at Guinea. She is the Female of the Creature which the Angolans call Chimpanze, or the Mockman." (I assume "Speaker" is the name of a ship.) --142.112.149.107 (talk) 23:42, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, Speaker was a ship; a 1746 account of the same event in A Tour through the Animal World, or, an Historical and accurate account of near Four hundred Animals, Birds, Fishes, Serpents, Insects &c. (p. 126) says:
 * "Capt. Henry Flower, in the Ship Speaker from Angola, on the coast of Guinea, brought over in August, 1738, a Female Pygmy, or Chimpanzee, which was two Foot and four Inches tall. Its face was like that of a Man, and pretty fair, except upon the Chin, where appeared a few straggling Hairs, like as is sometimes seen upon the Chin of Ancient Women".
 * Alansplodge (talk) 12:34, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Also called "the Ship Speaker" in this announcement; in the passage in the London Magazine the name is given in italics, while there is also mention of "a Boy on board" of which the captive chimpanzee is said to have been very fond. --Lambiam 14:38, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "...and gave great satisfaction to the ladies". ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * BTW, Flower's ape was not the first chimpanzee in England, just the first to be named so. Samuel Pepys in 1661 was shown "a strange creature... a great baboon but so much like a man in most things... it already understands much English; and I am of the mind that it might be taught to speak or make signs".  Another chimp arrived in 1698 but died soon afterwards and was dissected by Dr Edward Tyson, who published his findings in Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris. Alansplodge (talk) 16:46, 19 January 2021 (UTC)