Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 July 26

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July 26

Mischieve

I've been told that the verb "mischieve" was used centuries ago and meant "to perform mischief", but that it fell from use a long time ago.

This started me thinking, what alternatives to "mischieve" are available?

"Misbehave" comes to mind but I think it conveys something stronger and less playful than mischieve.

Are there other good options? Is the verb "mischieve" ready to make a comeback? CBHA (talk) 01:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It could also be the opposite of "achieve". Roger (talk) 06:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

There are various phrasal verbs like "act up", "play up", "fool around", "carry on", and constructions with adjectives or prepositions like "be naughty", "be out of line".[1] I can't find a single-word synonym. The OED says the verb "mischieve" is archaic, but there's an alternative spelling as the verb "mischief"; most of the OED's citations for "mischief" as a verb are 17th century, but it was occasionally used in the 20th ("He'd throw in his mit an' be no party to this so-called frontal-attack‥for now, he says,‥is this noble fellowship wholly mischiefed." - In Parenthesis). --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Also note that "mischieve" survives in the form "mischievous". StuRat (talk) 19:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I miss words like this, that are perfectly evocative and SHOULD exist, based on patterns. Like Revengence, I love that word. HominidMachinae (talk) 08:05, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Is that a hybrid of revenge and vengeance? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 03:12, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Dang furriners; why caint they speke Merican?

How do you handle a quote in another language? Currently there are several translated into English in Agustín Ross Cultural Center (e.g. in the second to last paragraph of the subsection 1995–present: Restoration; the cultural center). I thought about replacing them with the original Spanish, followed by the translations in brackets, but that raises another issue. Are we supposed to accept a translation provided by another editor? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's fine. I've done that (usually in references, but also in main text) in articles such as Nothing to My Name and Harvard Girl. I guess whether or not it's necessary to provide the original language might vary from one context to another or one quote to another; in some cases it may not be necessary.

You're probably more likely to get good answers at an WP:MOS talk page or at WP:EA rather than here; this desk is not specifically about Wikipedia editing. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I was also interested in learning how it's managed in the "real" world, so I felt it was better dealt with here. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

In the real world, i.e. one of paper, there is no hard and fast rule as it depends how formal the writer needs to be. At one end of the scale, a book of quotations should always give the original together with a translation. At the other end of the scale, you wouldn't expect a newspaper to quote the exact words uttered by a foreign politician. In Wikipedia, you might want to consider quoting the original language in a footnote.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

For the case of wikipedia this is described at WP:MOS#Foreign-language quotations and Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English sources. The simple answer is translations from wikipedians are generally accepted although translations from reliable secondary sources are preferred. And as to whether to put the original text in the article or footnote, both are acceptable (and the MOS also appear to allow simply a reference to the original untranslated version but WP:V does not) although there doesn't seem to be any comment on whether it's okay to put the translated text in brackets if both are in the article. Nil Einne (talk) 10:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

In the real world, it also depends on what the original language is and who your target audience is. If you can reasonably expect the majority of your audience to be able to read Spanish, then leave the Spanish original in the main body of the text, and provide a translation in a footnote for the benefit of the minority who can't. But at Wikipedia, I wouldn't expect readers to be able to read any language other than English, so I'd put the translation in the main body and the original in a footnote. As long as the original is present somewhere on the page (for the sake of verifiability), I wouldn't worry about it being a DIY translation. If the translation has mistakes, someone will correct it (it's a wiki), and if necessary the translation can be hammered out on the talk page. Angr (talk) 15:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Footnotes it is. Thanks all. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:01, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Is this sentence correct?

I am wandering this sentence is correct or not.

Since I have come in Canada, I have just dated with my girlfriend. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.216.148.66 (talk) 09:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Moved from WP:RD/C Nil Einne (talk) 09:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You should change "come in Canada" to "come to Canada" and "dated with my girlfriend" to "dated my girlfriend". It would also be more usual to say "since I came to Canada" or "since coming to Canada". --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

But it suffers from a logical problem, first and foremost: it does not make any sense. The time references (being in Canada and having just been with a girlfriend) do not match. If it were negative, Since I came to Canada, I have not dated any girlfriend, it would be OK. Posited like this, it is little more than gibberish. No such user (talk) 10:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Some guesswork here, but maybe the sentence is intended to mean "Since I arrived in Canada, I have only dated my girlfriend" i.e. the speaker has not been on dates with any other women during that time. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

To the lewd-minded the original sentence has an unintended double entendre. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Or is the OP's intention to say "Since I have come to Canada, I have dated my first girlfriend". Richard Avery (talk) 12:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the OP is trying to say 'Since I came to Canada, I have started dating my girlfriend.' I think that's what the 'just' was (i.e. 'just started' = recent time reference). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I just want to mention to the OP that you are "wondering" about the sentence. Wandering would mean you are roaming from place to place. --LarryMac | Talk 15:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the questioner can tell us what he means in his native language? μηδείς (talk) 19:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, there is a tautological overlap between "dated" and "girlfriend", i.e. you shouldn't need to use both words as the one implies the other. And in my experience "dated" is more often used as an adjective (meaning "old") than a past tense verb. You shouldn't use it with "with" since you can't "date" on your own.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:29, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with using 'dating' and 'my girlfriend' in the same sentence, and I would not say this combination is any more tautological than 'eating' + 'food'. It's a clarification, which can sometimes be helpful. Just saying 'I started dating' would imply one's own girlfriend - but 1) we actually do not know the gender of the speaker; 2) we do not know the speaker's gender preference; and 3) we have a difference from a hypothetical 'I started dating John's girlfriend'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Bold

Is the use of the world 'bold' to mean 'naughty' peculiar to Ireland? Stanstaple (talk) 17:54, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

No; I've heard it used that way in the US. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

According to the OED, "bold", definition 4a, "Audacious, presumptuous, too forward; the opposite of ‘modest’." There are citations from Shakespeare, Pope, and Tennyson. I'm sure that I've heard it used in this sense in the US, but usually tongue-in-cheek, in ironical disapproval of some trivial feminine immodesty: "You bold girl! Going bare-armed on a Sunday!" Maybe some older people use it non-ironically. In Irish English, which sense of "naughty" does it convey? The naughtiness of an ill-behaved child? Of a philanderer? Of an embezzler? I'd be interested to hear it used in a sentence. LANTZY^TALK 19:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Mostly in the sense of "Don't be bold or you'll get no dessert". Stanstaple (talk) 20:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Hiberno-English bold comes close to British English cheeky and American English fresh. I first encountered the Irish meaning of bold when I was learning Irish (Gaelic) from a book, in which dána was glossed "bold", but the example sentences made it clear that it didn't mean "brave, courageous" but rather "naughty, cheeky". Angr (talk) 21:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Bill O'Reilly titled his memoir A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, which he said a Catholic school teacher in Ireland once called him. That isn't something you'd be likely to hear in America. Looie496 (talk) 23:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Cheveux vs Chevelure

What's the difference between these two French words? In the French-European version of Tangled, Rapunzel has a line in the first song, "Je brosse ma chevelure", which I've been told isn't correct. Why not? 141.150.24.223 (talk) 19:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not exactly correct (insofar as one-to-one correspondance between two languages is hard) but "cheveux" means "hair" while "chevelure" means "hairdo". Another imperfect analogy is that the cheveux/chevelure pair in french is roughly analogous to the "people/crowd" pair in English. Again, not perfect. Here is the definition of chevelure on french wiktionary: [2] and you can see the first definiton is "1.Ensemble des cheveux d’une personne.", which I would translate as "the collection of hair of a person" or "the totality of hair of a person". --Jayron32 19:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The normal way to say "I brush my hair" or "I am brushing my hair" in French is "Je me brosse les cheveux". You could say "Je brosse mes cheveux", it is not incorrect, but that is a bit odd to me. It sounds like what a foreigner would say. Chevelure is not really used in this context. It seems to me that that the guys writing the script of Tangled were either trying to make it easy to understand to beginner students in French (at best) or just used a dictionary to translate one word after another without asking a native speaker (at worst).--Lgriot (talk) 08:22, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Chevelure could be translated "head of hair". Tu as une belle chevelure, "you've got a lovely head of hair". As Rapunzel definitely does. So this line is poetic. She is brushing through all her flowing locks, not just brushing her hair like the rest of us do. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:04, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Thinking about it, it may be that judith is right, it could simply be (bad) poetry. --Lgriot (talk) 09:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

This must be something like the now-famous quote in the Transformers (Marvel Comics) issue #44 where an alien parent refuses his/her child's request to buy sweets: They'll rot your fangs! This was originally just a random one-shot background quote, but the use of "fangs" instead of "teeth" has made it popular among Transformers comics fans. JIP | Talk 18:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

"Je brosse mes cheveux" sounds like what a collector might say of his collection of hairs from Galadriel, Napoleon, etc. μηδείς (talk) 04:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)