Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 May 9

Language desk
< May 8	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 10 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 9

English/German wordplay

On the humanities desk, there was some discussion about a German citizen named Hitler, and whether he gets prank calls frequently, over the subject of his name. I was reminded that one of the creaky old crank-call jokes is this:

Caller: Is your refrigerator running?

Receiver: Yes.

Caller: You'd better go catch it!

So I just wondered if Laufen could be used that way, or is there any other way to make this play-on-words joke work within the German language? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, laufen can have the same two meanings as run. I suppose you could make the same phone prank using Läuft Ihr Kühlschrank gerade?. I bet the people who translate The Simpsons scripts into German have fun coming up with names for Bart to ask for when he crank-calls Moe. Although I often watch The Simpsons in German, I can't think of any examples right now. They're probably available somewhere on the Internet, but probably not at German Wikipedia, which considers articles on popular culture beneath its dignity. —Angr (talk) 20:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Danke! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

And as is typical with so many German words, the name is descriptive: "cool cabinet". Though that's not much different from the old-fashioned term, "ice box". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it's sort of a cliché that German uses descriptive compounds where English has a separate, dedicated word. Another example is Fingerhut for "thimble". But there are examples that work the other way, where German has a simplex word and English has a descriptive compound, such as Tapete for "wallpaper" and Kolibri for "hummingbird". Maybe Schmetterling for "butterfly" too, though that isn't so descriptive in English either since butterflies are neither flies nor particularly associated with butter. —Angr (talk) 21:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

So, Margaret Thimble, eh. I always wondered about her name, but assumed it was an obscure English name. Now I know different. Thanks for that Wiki-by product, Angr. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:20, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if she plays piano while wearing her namesakes. —Angr (talk) 21:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

My favorite "descriptive compound" is handschuh for "glove". It brings images to my mind which are the exact opposite of high fashion or ballroom elegance... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

For the edification of such German-speakers as yourself, Angr, the prank calls are available first in the original English and then in German here. And for comparison you could look at Spanish Wikiquote. Unhappily I can't read either language. --Antiquary (talk) 21:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

And Italian Wikiquote. --Antiquary (talk) 22:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Just a very old one from when I went to school:

- Wie geht denn Dein neues Fahrrad?

- Es geht nicht, es fährt!

- Und wie fährt es?

- Es geht.

Playing on a triple meaning of "gehen" in German, meaning "walking", "doing" (e.g. "mir geht's gut" - "I'm doing okay") and the expression "es geht" meaning "It's pretty mediocre".--Zoppp (talk) 08:27, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those links, Antiquary. I don't know Spanish or Italian well enough to understand the puns, but I understand the German ones, and mighty lame they are too. Almost all of them involve a name ending in sch, leading Moe to say the word scheißt (shits) when he's trying to say ...sch heißt (named ...sch). There are only a few examples (e.g. Amanda Dermichknutscht for Amanda Hugginkiss) that don't follow that formula. —Angr (talk) 16:25, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

IPA Transcription to language

I recently heard a relatively poor quality recording (on an old cassette) of someone quickly saying what I have transcribed using my shaky first-year linguistics knowledge as [kʷə.kʰs.swa], this was the only discernable snippet, no context. The owner of the tape (who does not speak French) said it was French but since there are features such as gemination and an aspirated k that, although I don't speak any French either, I doubt exist in French. What language is this, and what does it mean? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 23:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

In French, the expression quoi que ce soit (four words) means "whatever it may be" and the expression quoique ce soit (three words) means "although it is".

—Wavelength (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The "aspirated k" might be a k followed by a voiceless vowel (which sometimes occur in French)... AnonMoos (talk) 00:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Any chance you could upload the audio? Even a poor recording that you could make by holding a cassette player next to a microphone connected to a computer could help us identify the phrase. That said, Wavelength's guesses match up pretty well with your transcription.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:12, 10 May 2011 (UTC)