Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 1

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March 1

Needing a Specific Word

There is a phenomena described as recognizing something quite frequently after discovering what it is; e.g. learning an actor's name and seemingly seeing their name everywhere you look on the Internet. I vaguely remember it as being two hyphenated words (did it start with a "b"?), but I don't remember exactly what it was called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.132.46.33 (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

There is the recency effect. What you described is sometimes also called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. See also this older thread (which links to yet an older one). ---Sluzzelin talk 03:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Chinese language

My friend is a Chinese native speaker and he says that in Mandarin there are not swears in the way that we as English speakers perceive them (I think what he actually said was that there are no words/characters dedicated to swearing like our fuck, shit, etc.). Even though he admitted there are expressions used in negative ways, I find that there are no real swears hard to believe in any language can someone clarify? Thanks. -- 03:30, 1 March 2011 72.128.95.0

We have something at Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures... AnonMoos (talk) 04:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think he's right, there are plenty of swear words in Chinese. Granted, a lot of them are homophonous with non-swear words (in many cases this is because people adopted the non-swear word to use as a euphemism for the real one, or because input methods for their computers or cell phones don't have the swear word; for instance 操 cǎo and 靠 kào are both used in place of 肏 cào sometimes, and if used right--in the right context--can be just as offensive). But the swear words certainly exist. See Mandarin profanity for many examples. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that most English swear words aren't (or weren't originally) dedicated to swearing. "Shit" even today is commonly used as a non-expletive synonym of "feces". "Damn/damned/damnation" is an entirely proper theological concept. "Cunt" at one time was a straightforward word for a body part. The history of "fuck" is a little thin, but there is no evidence that its early usage wasn't limited simply because of limitations on discussing copulation for pleasure, rather than on any specific prohibition of the word. Heck, even the words "profane", "vulgar" and "swear" originally just meant "outside of church", "of the common people" and "to make an oath (pact)", respectively, rather than being expletive-specific. - Although I'm not familiar with Mandarin, I'm sure that there are plenty of words for excrement/sexual acts/sacrilege that, while also currently holding or originally holding a non-swearing connotation, would be interpreted by most current native speakers in most contexts it's currently used in as being an expletive. -- 174.31.194.183 (talk) 06:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Mandarin, as with pretty much any language, does have swearwords. In fact, I'd say cǎo is used pretty much the same way as English "fuck". However, a possible reason some Mandarin speakers don't associate Standard Mandarin with having a large set of swearwords is that these Mandarin speakers are actually native speakers of another Chinese dialect/language, in which they'd prefer to swear. ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ ^{spik ʌp!} 09:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

According to Ashley Montagu The Anatomy of Swearing, 'Swearing, interestingly enough, is not a universal phenomenon: American Indians do not swear, nor do the Japanese, nor do Malayans and most Polynesians.' No mention of Mandarin there. That claim about the Japanese is one I've often heard before, but, as has already been said, it must depend to some extent on what you mean by swearing. --Antiquary (talk) 19:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Personally I would consider the Japanese word 'masukakiyarou', which means 'wanker', to be a swear word, as would every single Japanese speaker I know, especially because it is unambiguous in both its offensiveness and meaning - and there are plenty more where that came from. Seriously, 'blahdee blahdee blah people do not swear' is not true at all. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I've seen words that make Japanese colleagues blush. (Unfortunately, not being a Japanese speaker myself, I don't remember what they were.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Is the following pair of the sentences felicitous?

A man does not beat a donkey. He loves it.

As a non-native speaker, the above looks OK to me. Whereas, the following pair is unacceptable:

A man does not own a donkey. #It is gray.

117.211.88.150 (talk) 12:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Sukhada

An interesting pragmatic phenomenon. And also interestingly, it is possible to say "A man does not beat a donkey. It loves him" the reason that the second par is infelicitous is because of the meaning of the verb "own" - if he doesn't own a donkey then there is own donkey and so it can not be the subject of the next sentence, nor can it have a color. We can see that this is the reason because when we change the sentence to "The man does not own the donkey. It is gray" it becomes felicitous. It is the indefiniteness of "a donkey" coupled with the "does not own" that tells us that the donkey doesn't exist and therefore cannot be the subject of a clause.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

What about "A man does not own a donkey. It would be too expensive"? —Angr (talk) 12:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That second "it" doesn't refer to the donkey but to the "owning of a donkey".·Maunus·ƛ· 19:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it's ambiguous. It could mean "It would be too expensive to own a donkey" but it could also mean "The donkey would be too expensive". —Angr (talk) 19:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The first example is grammatical but it's hard to think of a situation where anyone would want to say it. Certainly it wouldn't be said of any particular man or donkey. It sounds as if it's trying to be a proverb, or be metaphorical, or something like that. The second example is also grammatical but doesn't make much sense because "It" does not refer to anything (the interpretation that it refers to the donkey he doesn't own seems very strained). I don't know what you're trying to signify with the # character... 86.179.0.71 (talk) 12:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The key question is what do you mean by "a man" and "a donkey". The indefinite article can be used both to introduce a particular example, or a general example. When reading the first as a whole, I immediately assume that what was meant was "A (specific, heretofore unmentioned) man does not beat his donkey. He loves it." that is, we are talking about a single man and a single donkey. On the other hand, if I just saw "A man does not beat a donkey. A donkey beats a man" instead, I would interpret the first sentence as talking about men and donkeys in general. The problem with the second set is that you're equivocating the two meanings of "a donkey" - in the first sentence it's referring to donkeys in general, whereas in the second the "it" is referring to a particular one. That's why the pair seems nonsensical. -- 174.31.194.183 (talk) 17:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by the first sentence ("A man does not own a donkey"). Do you mean, "there is a man X, such that X does not own any donkeys"? Or do you mean, "there is a donkey Y, such that the man (X) does not own Y"? Under the former reading, the second sentence is infelicitous because it has no referent ("it" does not refer to any donkey). Under the latter, it is fine for me. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia article is Donkey sentence... AnonMoos (talk) 17:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Donkey pronoun has more material (The two articles should probably be merged with a redirect). Also see the article on discourse representation theory at SEP [1] SemanticMantis (talk) 21:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Latvian treatment of foreign names

I have noticed that in the Latvian language, foreign names seem to be "Latvianized" to some extent (e.g. Amar'e Stoudemire becomes "Amare Stademaijers"). What's going on here? 98.116.108.191 (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, as you said, it's Latvianized. It's spelled so that Latvian speakers will be able to pronounce it properly (which is actually less true of the original English spelling). The -s at the end is the Latvian nominative ending, like if his name was "Stoudemirus" in Latin, and it will change in other case endings. And if you think that spelling is weird, check out George Bush in Latvian! Adam Bishop (talk) 21:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

(e/c) I have read that it is just "Latvian tradition" to spell foreign names as closely as possible with Latvian orthography, even if it is not required for pronunciation (most of the time it is). Foreigners were recently required by law to spell their names on all official documents "according to the spelling norms of the Latvian language". Xenon54 (talk) 21:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It's different in English, where we'll accept the spelling as it is... and then totally butcher the pronunciation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In Latvian, George Walker Bush is rendered as Džordžs Volkers Bušs, Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier becomes Antuāns Lorāns Lavuazjē and Claudia Schiffer becomes Klaudija Šīfere. Here is a category of pages at lv.wikipedia, which instruct how names in some languages should be spelt in Latvian and are used as auxiliary pages by the editors there.

Other languages that use a Latin-based alphabet and, traditionally, more or less, still adapt spellings of foreign names to their own pronunciation rules include: Lithuanian (where George W. Bush is Džordžas Volkeris Bušas); Albanian (Xhorxh Uokër Bush); Serbian when written with the Latin script (Džordž Voker Buš); a few languages that have been using the Latin script since relatively recently: Azerbaijani (Corc Uoker Buş), Turkmen (Jorj Uoker Buş), Uzbek (Jorj Uoker Bush); as well as some inventions like lojban (djordj. ualker. buc), a constructed language which has its own Wikipedia. --Theurgist (talk) 18:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Latvian spelling is highly phonetical - a letter usualy will correspond to a certain sound, the names are rendered in a way that Latvian reader will pronounce them as closely to original as posible with sounds of Latvian language. Note that diffrent languages use diffrent letters for same sounds. In case of Stoudemire (using IPA from the article) many letters match in both English and Latvian, but ɒ is ou in English and a in Latvian, while aɪ is, respectively i and ai. If it was left unchanged one might think that it is pronounced as /stoʊdəmɪrə. Endings are added so that the words can be declined (comonly -s for males and -a for females). There may however be some further adjustments to make the name sound better (such as j in Stoudemire`s case), also sounds that don`t exist in Latvian are commonly replaced with other sounds (e.g. umlauted u becomes i) and sometimes traditional equivalents of names are used (e.g. Carl can become Kārlis, rather than Karls) ~~Xil (talk) 00:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Insurance

We Brits have life assurance. Do Americans & Australians? Or do they have life insurance? Kittybrewster ☎ 21:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Insurance in the US, and in Canada; I don't know about America but there are some old Canadian insurance companies with "Assurance" in their name. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Some American insurance companies also use the word "Assurance" as part of their corportate name. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In the US, "assurance" makes sure that something happens, or continues to happen, while "insurance" compensates you when it fails to happen. So, a bullet-proof vest might be called "life assurance", while double indemnity is "life insurance". StuRat (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

In the UK, one "insures" one's life by paying a premium to a company which pays out on one's death, but one sometimes pays "life assurance" premiums to gain a pension that is (often) lost on death. The terms do get confused though, because one is insuring against death (but companies don't like using the expression "death insurance"), and one wishes to be assured both that one will have sufficient income in retirement and that one's dependants will have sufficient means if one dies. Also, some companies might have mixed policies. The terms have been used interchangeably in the UK for centuries. Dbfirs 23:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I recall that traditionally in UK law assurance is generally only used for life assurance, while insurance is used for all other types of insurance, though as Dbfirs has pointed out the terms are used interchangeably these days. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be the modern "tradition", though marine insurance was also called "assurance" in the past. Dbfirs 07:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

You need to specify your location, because it's "life insurance" in the US. StuRat (talk) 17:29, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to UK law. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The way it was explained to me is that insurance relates to possible events while assurance relates to inevitable events. Your car might be stolen, so you insure it. You will die someday, so you get an assurance policy that pays out when it happens. Insurance is gambling - Assurance is investment. I'm South African. Roger (talk) 08:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Having spent more than 25 years working as a drudge in the London insurance market and gaining a rather modest vocational qualification, I can confirm that in the UK, the word "assurance" is specifically a type of life insurance as Dbfirs describes above. Otherwise the terms are interchangeable, but "assurance" is rather archaic. However in Lloyd's of London for formal purposes, it's always "assurance" and the party buying the cover is always "the assured" or "the reassured" in the case of reinsurance. Dbfirs is also right about marine insurance as most of it is transacted through Lloyd's at some stage. Additionally, the word "insurance" translates as "assurance" in French, "assuransi" in Italian and so on. To answer Roger's point above, most basic insurance textbooks start with a chapter headed "Why Insurance Is Not Gambling" or words to that effect. Insurance COULD be gambling a couple of hundred years ago, when it was possible to take out a life policy on a well known military figure in the hope that he would be killed in action, or on a vagrant and then arrange for his early demise. All that came to an end with the Common Law principle of Insurable interest. Read, learn and inwardly digest. Alansplodge (talk) 17:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the usage in England; had I (an American from North Carolina) seen the phrase "life assurance," I would have chalked it up to the same type of error as "life ensurance" (I'm assuming that's also an error in the UK. It's one of the more common errors that I see in the US). To me, assurance is the promise that something will happen, so life assurance would be paying a corporation to ensure that I live. I love these dialectical differences; it is quite fascinating. I have family in England, and I still run into things I haven't heard before. Falconus^{p t c} 06:39, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Alansplodge what you describe is "gambling" with assurance not insurance. Insurance is "gambling" in the sense that the insurer is taking a risk on their client's car being stolen - or not. Don't take it too literally, Lloyds is obviously not a casino. :) Roger (talk) 07:17, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Lloyds certainly was run like a casino (though with different gambling rules) in the days of "names" who were often ruined if a major catastrophe meant that their unlimited liability had to be called on. Dbfirs 18:17, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Foreign language help

Where do these names come from:

• Rood
• Bronius
• Giallo
• Ryoku
• Gorm
• Zinzolin

--75.15.161.185 (talk) 22:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Those I recognize are colors, and come from different languages. rood is Dutch for red, giallo is Italian for yellow, gorm is Irish and Scottish Gaelic for blue, zinzolin is a French word for a type of reddish purple. I don't know about ryoku or bronius, though the latter sounds like it could mean brown. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ryoku (りょく, 緑) is Japanese, meaning "green" (in compound words). 86.179.0.132 (talk) 23:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

... and according to this, Bronius does indeed mean "brown" and is of German origin. 86.179.0.132 (talk) 23:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

"Bronius" is latinised German. Back when Latin was the only "fit and proper" language for writing important stuff vernacular names were commonly latinized. Roger (talk) 07:43, 5 March 2011 (UTC)