Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 February 1

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February 1

Translation help.

What does it mean in Spanish?

"Su semblante cambió radicalmente al ver el cadáver de su amigo, pálido y con sus ojos abiertos de par en par. La maldad del hecho lo enloqueció"

Translation by translator is senseless. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmed987147 (talk • contribs) 02:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure someone who actually knows Spanish can do a better job, but this is what Babel fish gave me: "Its semblante radically changed when seeing the corpse of its friend, pale and with its open eyes wide. The badness of drove crazy it to the fact". So, it couldn't handle the word "semblante", is that spelled right ? Perhaps it means "semblance". The translation also doesn't seem to have any gender. The rest is pretty clear though: "Seeing the corpse of (his/her) friend, pale and with eyes wide open, was so horrid, it drove (him/her) crazy, in fact." So, true to form, this machine translation isn't perfect, but does give you the gist of what was said. StuRat (talk) 02:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Word Reference translates "semblante" as "expression" or "face." So we can say, "His (or her) expression changed radically on seeing the body of his friend, pale and with his (or her) eyes open wide. The wickedness of the deed drove him crazy." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 06:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

"Drove him mad" would be more apt. Mosquitos and younger siblings drive you crazy. And although "radically" is a literal translation of "radicalmente", colloquial English would be far more likely to use "completely". So, "His expression changed completely at the sight of his friend's corpse, pallid and wide-eyed. The evil of the deed drove him mad." Lantzy ^talk 01:08, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Names

What is the study (or science) of personal names, like John Smith? I know there are separate tangible names for studies (or sciences) such as place names, like streets and how the street got the name. (I forgot the name of that too.)96.53.149.117 (talk) 13:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Is onomastics what you're looking for? —Angr 14:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

More specifically, Anthroponomastics. Deor (talk) 14:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

That wouldn't work for street names, though, which he also asked about. —Angr 14:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I read the question as asking for the specific study of personal names, with the place/street branches of onomastics being mentioned as examples of what the OP isn't interested in. I may be wrong, though. Deor (talk) 14:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I read it ast "What's the word for study of personal names, as opposed to toponymy? jnestorius^(talk) 18:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

German idiom?

After the horrid weather of last month in Europe, I received a letter containing this phrase:

 Wir hatten 20cm Schnee und 15° Frost ...

I and my pocket dictionary are stumped with the "15° Frost" concept. It's possible that he has already converted degrees from C to F for me, so that he's just talking about temperature in a way I'm not familiar with, but I don't think too likely.

Anybody have a better explanation? Thanks, 70.59.116.195 (talk) 22:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Could be related to degree of frost. Algebraist 22:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

It'll mean -15° C. DuncanHill (talk) 22:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

In 12 years in Germany I have never heard that expression. —Angr 22:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The first paragraph of w:de:Frost seems to confirm what DuncanHill said.

Der Ausdruck Frost (german. Ableitung von frieren) bezeichnet das Auftreten von Temperaturen unterhalb 0 °C Grad Celsius (Gefrierpunkt von Wasser) insbesondere in der Umwelt, wovon vor allem Lebewesen, das Wasser und der Boden betroffen sind. Der Dauerfrost des Winters führt zur Winterruhe der Natur.

Can someone with more competence in German than mine please translate that paragraph?

-- Wavelength (talk) 23:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Algebraist is right, it's the same as degree of frost, except for of course that is uses °C (or more exactly, Kelvin) instead of °F. I've heard it a couple time in colloquial speech. Translation of the above: "The expression "Frost" (germanic derivation of "freeze") refers to the appearance of temperatures < 0 °C (freezing point of water) especially in the environment, which affects primarily living beings, water, and the ground. The continuous frost in winter leads to hibernation in nature." (It's not well written, though, if I may say so.) — Sebastian 23:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I must say that I suspect our article degree of frost may be, incredibly unusually for a Wikipedia article, somewhat U.S.-centric. I have certainly heard "degrees of frost" used in the UK to refer to temperatures in Celsius. DuncanHill (talk) 00:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I assumed so, but the first link I found about it, http://www.answers.com/topic/frost, disagrees. — Sebastian 01:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

That entry is from a McGraw-Hill publication, which is American, and may, just may, not represent a world-wide view. DuncanHill (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The big OED has "degrees of frost: degrees below freezing point" - no mention of any specific scale being required. DuncanHill (talk) 02:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Traditionally in the UK, this was always degrees Fahrenheit below freezing (thus zero degrees Fahrenheit was 32 degrees of frost), and I still use the expression in this way. The rest of Britain might have changed since they "went metric"! Dbfirs 19:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Jack London used the phrase "X degrees of frost" in To Build a Fire, and wasn't talking about Celsius. --- OtherDave (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Ich bin ein Berliner

Just wondering why JFK said "Ich bin ein Berliner. - I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!" (text, sound) Did the interpreter translate his words back into English? — Sebastian 22:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

If you mean why did he say "Ich bin ein Berliner", he was expressing solidarity with the people of Berlin. If you mean the part about the interpreter, it was a little joke. See Ich bin ein Berliner. --Anonymous, 00:33 UTC, February 2, 2009.

The second was what I meant. I took "translating my German" to mean "translating my German into English". But, after reading Ich bin ein Berliner, it seems indeed likely that what he wanted to say was the opposite. — Sebastian 00:53, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What he meant was that although he had already said "Ich bin ein Berliner" in German, the interpreter repeated it in German. It was a self-deprecating way of saying "My German pronunciation is so bad that my interpreter has to 'translate' it into proper German for you." —Angr 16:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, of course! Thank you for translating JFK's polite English into a language I can understand! :-) — Sebastian 17:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)