Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 March 28

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March 28

Does anyone know the meaning of ....

Does anyone know the meaning of the French phrase "à la venue des cocquecigrues."

The English translation I have is About the coming of the cocklicranes

The phrase comes from Gargantua by Rabelais

I think it might be something like "when hell freezes over" in the sense of never. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.222.9 (talk) 04:14, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

That phrase is all over google, and your literal translation is correct. A "cocklicrane" is a fictitious creature, presumably part-chicken and part-crane. "When hell freezes over" would be one way to put it. A close English equivalent might be, "When pigs fly." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Correct answers. I'm French. I checked, Rabelais created this word in 1534. It means a non existent bird. In this phrase it means never.Jojodesbatignole-Rheims-France---82.216.68.31 (talk) 13:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Russian newspaper published in the UK

Is there a Russian-language paper published in London called (something like) Russkiy Misl'? I've googled it but not found anything, so the transliteration I remembered must be badly wrong. I'm beginning to learn Russian language, and someone told me this paper is a good way to practice reading. The papers I have found are Angliya (http://www.angliya.com/) and London Courier (http://www.russianuk.com/) so I will try reading them! Thanks everyone :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.195.13.107 (talk) 10:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It's Russkaya Mysl' (Русская Мысль, "Russian Thought"). You almost got it right, except that mysl' is feminine, not masculine, so the adjective must be feminine as well. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:01, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Robespierre (Or the "Incorruptable")

The WP article Robespierre has an epithet on the subject

(Or the "Incorruptable")

Since it is in quotes I want to confirm its validity. The correct spelling of course is Incorruptible. Why this anomaly is not explained in the article.--117.204.81.64 (talk) 13:15, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It was most likely a spelling mistake. I removed it from the infobox altogether, as it's just a nickname. It's still in the lead, correctly spelled. — Kpalion^(talk) 15:35, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It was certainly a nickname he was often known by, particularly in english by Thomas Carlyle from his The French Revolution: A History as "the sea-green incorruptible" of which there is a discussion here, although as to if he was actually incorruptible is debatable. meltBanana 15:45, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Swedish island toponyms

Most "-holm-" islands in and around Stockholm end in "-holmen" (Kungsholmen, e.g.). Then there are rarer examples ending in "-holme" (Reimersholme) or "-holma" (Arholma). What is the linguistic explanation for these varieties? ---Sluzzelin talk 13:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Swedish grammar#Articles and definite forms gives at least part of the answer. --ColinFine (talk) 19:14, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. It explains that the frequently occurring "-holmen" must be in its definite form. I still don't understand the variety or how "-holme" and "-holma" fit in. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the right answer, but the indefinite form in Reimersholme might be due to the way it got its name: the island is named after a particular man called Reimers, and to my ear that, and the genitive, would require the word "holme" to take the indefinite form, as in Sergels torg vs. Hötorget, or Olof Palmes gata vs *Palmegatan. It's also a pretty recent name (1798, according to Swedish Wikipedia).--Rallette (talk) 07:08, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not familiar with North Germanic languages, but I guess many such variants might stem from the fact that language and orthography are not uniform over space and time. If you can't find explanations in 21st-century standard Swedish grammar, those may be dialectal or older forms. 84.46.65.115 (talk) 10:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The indefinite/definite distinction for "holme"/"holmen" is correct (I speak Norwegian, not Swedish, but I do not think there is any difference between the languages on this account). This presumably authoritative dictionary has "holma" (and "holm") as archaic variants (if I have not misunderstood the abbreviations in the explanation). Jørgen (talk) 11:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone! ---Sluzzelin talk 16:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Word for being taken in by your own phony image

Is there a word meaning something like "pretender" or "masquerader" with the particular implication that the person is fooling himself and believes in the image he projects? Best I can think of is pseud, but that tends to apply to writers and artists (not, say, a doctor or a politician), and the implication of self-deceit isn't very strong. 213.122.27.130 (talk) 18:50, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a Walter Mitty character, although I'm not sure that's exactly what you're after. Mikenorton (talk) 19:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It only seems to describe harmless fantasists, not the dangerous ones, but that's not bad, thanks. Come to think of it "fantasist" is pretty good, but it implies the deluded person never does anything much. Doesn't fit very well with an insane dictator. I may be asking too much seeking a word that covers all the bases. 213.122.27.130 (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Delusions of grandeur? A legend in his own mind? Believing one's own lies? To tell a lie so often that you begin to believe it yourself? Unrealistic self-assessment? I know — these are not single words. Bus stop (talk) 20:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Megalomaniac? caknuck _° needs to be running more often 20:19, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Self-delusion ? StuRat (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

"Believing one's own press clippings" is sometimes used for public figures. In the last chapter of The Way of the Weasel, Scott Adams states that while we're weaselly with others, we are also weaselly with ourselves. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Amour-propre 63.17.64.4 (talk) 03:53, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Phony (noun) as used in Catcher in the Rye? (Excuse me for stating the obvious.) 195.35.160.133 (talk) 12:39, 31 March 2010 (UTC) Martin.

Poseur also comes to mind. 195.35.160.133 (talk) 12:47, 31 March 2010 (UTC) Martin.

Rold?

What is rold?174.3.113.245 (talk) 20:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

A typo of roll ? StuRat (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it is a typo or something. I removed it. If anybody disagrees I will stand corrected. Bus stop (talk) 20:28, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

You shouldn't edit the content of other people's posts like that, even if they are anonymous. And, in this case, it makes the link provided by the Original Poster useless for others trying to determine the meaning. So, I undid it. StuRat (talk) 20:33, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Yikes — I'm sorry. I wasn't aware I was editing on the Reference desk. I thought it was an article! Bus stop (talk) 20:41, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

"Rold" is not a word in any language I can find. (Although Rold Gold comes to mind, I don't think food counts.) In other words, going to Google and typing "define:rold" only gives a Dutch Wikipedia article on a place in Denmark. Perhaps our anonymous friend meant "roll"? At least on QWERTY keyboards, however, "d" is nowhere near "l"; since his IP locates to Canada (firm QWERTY territory, even Quebec) perhaps he meant "role", as in a typo of "roll"? In any case, I read the post when it was newly written, and "role" was there, so that rules out any sort of vandalism. Xenon54 / talk / 20:45, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's the diff of where it was added, along with the rest of the paragraph, which absolutely proves it's not vandalism to the post by another user: [1]. StuRat (talk) 20:54, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I managed to find an obscure English meaning, it's a plant oncogene, spelled rolD: [2]. It seems odd that such a simple, single syllable word like this wouldn't have more English meanings. StuRat (talk) 21:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Food counts (why not?), but trademarks don't. —Tamfang (talk) 04:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

So, if we look up roll, we see that the 7th definition of it's noun usage is "...an official or public document; a register; a record; also, a catalogue; a list". In this sense the author used "leap year roll" to mean a list of leap years. Have we now officially beaten this Q to death ? StuRat (talk) 21:01, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

(multiple ec) On the basis of what's clearly the intended sense, I'd say that it should have been rule. A slightly odd keyboard lapse, but I've seen (and committed) ones quite a bit worse. Deor (talk) 21:01, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually it was meant to be "rules". Not sure what my brain got up to there. I'll fix it in a few minutes. --Anon, 02:28 UTC, March 29, 2010.

Maybe you were eating pretzels at the time? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:55, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps that explains why I was posting about "æ", too -- it looks like one, doesn't it? --Anon, 17:15 UTC, March 30, 2010.

Japanese Onomatopœia

I'm looking for a list of Japanese onomatopœias regarding insects. The Japanese language is rich of terms that imitate sounds (for example: Japanese sound symbolism). I'm searching for words for: the humming/buzzing of bees, droning of beetles, singing of cicadas, buzzing of flies, the sound of mosquitoes, hornets, ... I'd like expecially to find the equivalent for the sound of cicadas.--151.51.45.45 (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

There are many dedicated dictionaries on this topic. It is impractical to duplicate all of that here. But for your specific request, the sound for cicadas is min min. 124.214.131.55 (talk) 23:04, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Various kinds of cicadas makes different sounds. Minminzemi (lit. 'minmin cicada', Oncotympana maculaticollis) sings as minmin, hence the name. Tsukutsukubōshi (Meimuna opalifera) sings as tsukutsukubōshi. Higurashi (Tanna japonensis) sings as kanakana. --Kusunose 03:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The buzzing of insects are usually described as "bun bun" or "būn". The sound of cicadas varies a lot. It sometimes varies from person to person. There are "jī jī", "shan shan", "gī gī" , etc. As for minminzemi, it is also described as "mīn minmin"(mean min min). You can hear some sounds of cicadas here by putting your mouse on the images. The pink one at the bottom of the page is minminzemi. Oda Mari (talk) 05:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Opposite of Empowerment

Someone can go through a process of empowerment. What word would describe the opposite of this process? Thanks 78.149.251.99 (talk) 22:04, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Disenfranchisement ? (The Wikitionary def doesn't seem to include this figurative usage of the word, but only the literal meaning "to block from voting".) StuRat (talk) 22:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Castration ? (Again, the figurative meaning.) StuRat (talk) 22:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Repression or subjugation? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Why not simply disempowerment? Grutness...wha? 22:24, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Or also disembowelment, which tends to be rather disempowering. :-) StuRat (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Calling your dog by your kid's name

Is there a term for the mistake of speech in which you accidentally call your dog by the name of your child, or call your child by the name of your dog, or call your infant by the name of your 4 year old, or call your child by the name of your younger sibling? I have seen this error of speech repeatedly over the years in parents, and have always assumed that the particular name accidentally spoken was determined mostly by the social hierarchy — the error is never across genders and I don't think it is often backwards in age — that is to say, I wouldn't expect a parent to accidentally call their child by the name of the parent's older sibling, but I've seen a parent call a child by the name of the parent's younger sibling. (Not a philology question but I think this is a question for the Language desk anyway.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:12, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

My Mom regularly called us kids by each other's names. She once called me by the cat's name, too. Since then, whenever she calls me by the wrong name, I say "I'm Felix" (the cat's name), just to rub it in. StuRat (talk) 23:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

That's an example of automaticity. I'm not sure about the social hierarchy assumption. I suspect that we have more automatic responses for people (or pets) we don't respect so much (those who annoy us), so we are more likely to hit the cues which trigger these. A friend of mine tends to call me by her husband's name when I do something oafish; he's not exactly beneath her in the social hierarchy, except when being told off for something. It's just that her long familiarity with him has bred certain habitual reactions. 213.122.37.153 (talk) 00:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

ISTR an interview where Sam Neill said the greatest compliment he'd been paid during the making of Jurassic Park was when co-star Sir Richard Attenborough accidentally called him David. It's a type of parapraxis, I'd assume... Grutness...wha? 02:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

My spouse's grandmother just used to run through the names of all "her" men (husband, son, grandson) and whoever was handy would reply. If the wrong man answered, she's just say, "Not you; the other one." (And, yes, I know there were two "other ones".) My spouse is still called "DavidMichaelDoug" by his three children when he confuses their names. Bielle (talk) 02:59, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree with the age difference theory. One of my brothers and I are often referred to by the other's name by several family members. We look about as different as brothers can and there is a 15 year difference in our ages. The only pattern that I've noticed is that it's only the women in my family that get our names confused. Dismas|^(talk) 06:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

It's called morphemic metathesis, it's a normal human speech error, not necessarily or even provably a Freudian slip.Synchronism (talk) 11:06, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I have to challenge that; I was asking about a whole-word substitution and not a substitution or rearrangement of morphemes, which seems entirely different. (And "morphemic metathesis" gets 66 Google hits, which casts extra doubt on your answer.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:29, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, but with metathesis involving words, you rarely switch the entire word, affixes and all, so if you wanted to say "the dog's bone" you might accidentally blurt "the bone's dog", but you'd be unlikely to say "the bone dog's".Synchronism (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you've derailed the thread; from the look of the metathesis article, that's not what I was asking about in this question. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

How exactly? Please know, my intention was not to derail the thread. Let me tailor some better examples. You might say, "Spot, clean your room", or "Is Spot's room clean yet?" Or you might say "I put the ovens in the bun". You would be less likely to say , "Dog, clean your room"", "Is dog room clean yet? or "I put the oven in buns". The substitution involves a comparable morpheme typically, in your case two names, not just any word. While these errors (which are most common during rapid, spontaneous speech) may indicate what someone is thinking, it's ambiguous; it is not necessarily the expression of a subconscious urge or desire.Synchronism (talk) 23:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is a list of common speech errors [3], while "morphemic metathesis" is not mentioned verbatim it is an accurate description of some of the substitutions they do describe.Synchronism (talk) 23:36, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Another way of explaining this: people grow into speech habits, repetitive behaviors. Let's say the only infant they talked to very much is now their four-year old, when new baby Bar comes along it's easy to slip back into the old habit of addressing infants as Foo. If Spot is the only creature that usually gets called by its name or instructed in the home, when Foo is able to walk into the other room, it's easy to slip into the old habit of calling out to Spot. The unintended names are readily available in the mental lexicon for substitution, even if they weren't part of the planned utterance.Synchronism (talk) 03:39, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't correctly parse what "morphemic metathesis" means; I struck my claim about derailing the thread above; I apologise. Thanks for the references. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Didn't Condoleeza Rice refer to her boss as "my husband"? She is of course married to the job. BrainyBabe (talk) 09:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)