Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 July 18

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July 18

Secret Policeman's Ball

I have often wondered about this triviality, but is Monty Python's Secret Policeman's Ball a ball for secret police or a secret ball for police? I doubt this will ever be answered, but does anyone have any clues? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It's the former: the "secret police" being the KGB, Securitate, etc., whose activities they were opposing. Henry^Flower 08:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that that's the whole of the answer. That was the motivation for the show, certainly, but to say that that is the meaning rejects the ambiguity, which is where the comedy comes from. --ColinFine (talk) 11:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, don't forget The Secret Policeman's Other Ball.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, it had nothing to do with Monty Python specifically - John Cleese was one of the creators, but it wasn't a Monty Python production. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed: it might be nearer the mark to say it's "Amnesty International's Secret Policeman's Ball". --TammyMoet (talk) 15:02, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I always figured they were referring to some officer's unadvertised third testicle. μηδείς (talk) 17:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, many secret police do seem to have a lot of balls, what with dragging people off without warrants and such. StuRat (talk) 21:27, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I always thought that it was a play on the idea that the police hold Ball (dance) to which they sell tickets. And sometimes you can buy the tickets to avoid being arrested for a minor crime. Search for the paragraph that starts ""If I take a slow-mo look at what my thought-processes must have been in that nano-second between Cleese's words and my interjection, they were probably twofold:". So I would have thought it would have been a ball for secret police. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree with CambridgeBay above. "Buying a ticket to the policeman's ball" was a euphemism for paying a bribe to the police. According to this source it was well known in the US too. Of course, there are lots of jokes around the obvious double entendre such as; "Would you like a ticket for the policeman's ball? - it's not a dance, it's a raffle!" Boom, boom! Alansplodge (talk) 17:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Surname HIEGER / HIGER (jewish background)

The surname HIEGER / HIGER can be found in jewish genealogy mainly in (K&K) Austria (Galicia etc.). Any indications, what the meaning of the name is? "hige" in Jiddish means "a person from here". Are there any other suggestions? Hebrew, perhaps? Grey Geezer 08:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grey Geezer (talk • contribs)

Chinese social dancing

In Chinese, what is an idiomatic way to request a dance at a social/ballroom dance? I can literally translate "Would you like to dance?" as "想跳吗？" or something like that, but I don't how idiomatic that is.

More generally, if anyone could suggest a source for any social-dance-related vocabulary, example dialogs, or any other related material, I would be very grateful.

Thank you Rotcaeroib (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

　"想跳吗？" sounds ilke (and is quite literally) "wanna jump?"! More usually seen is "我可以请你跳这支舞吗？" or "我能请你跳这支舞吗？", or "我能和你跳这支舞吗？" which is something like "May I have the next dance with you?" --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you very much! This is very helpful (and "支" is a particularly useful bit to know). I suppose the brevity of my initial guess was influenced by my experience in contra dancing where there's such a short time for everyone to rush around and find the next partner that most of the time it's just raised eyebrows and an extended hand. Anyway, thank you again! Rotcaeroib (talk) 21:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Largest alphabet

The Ubykh alphabet

What's the largest alphabet? --146.7.96.200 (talk) 19:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Unicode. Looie496 (talk) 19:20, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Depends on your definition. Could be Ethiopic script if you count each separate consonant+vowel combination as a "letter"... AnonMoos (talk) 19:23, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Again depending on definition, Devanagari has over 1300 possible symbols counting conjuncts, ligatures, independent vowels, etc.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 20:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Please define your terms. Devanagari and the Ethiopic script are abugidas. To the right is an Ubykh language alphabet. It has 84 native consonants and two vowels. μηδείς (talk) 21:48, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

From Abugida: "(In less formal treatments, all three systems are commonly called alphabets.)" -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

And that's why I said "define your terms." μηδείς (talk) 22:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The terms "Abugida" and "Abjad" (in the meaning used on the Abjad article, as opposed to its real meaning) were almost unknown until a little more than 15 years ago, but that doesn't prevent some people (mostly not actual linguists, from what I can tell) from running around Wikipedia and demanding that the word "alphabet" be used only in a very narrow sense somewhat contradictory to its usual and customary meaning. I really do not find this behavior to be constructive at all. Furthermore, if the word "Abugida" applies equally to both Devanagari and Ethopic script, this term would appear to be fairly worthless for the meaningful classification of writing systems, since Devanagari and Ethiopic script have divergent characteristics in several respects... AnonMoos (talk) 01:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

No editor has demanded that the IP use that editor's own favorite sense of the word, has one? A request that the IP define his terms if he wants a definitive answer is hardly out of line. Three different users have mentioned the need for a defined question in their answer now. And prior to calling them abugidas, they were called syllabaries, for quite some time longer than 15 years. μηδείς (talk) 05:41, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I wonder why article Abjad is used for a neologism which was almost completely unknown until a little more than 15 years ago, while the long-established meaning of the word "Abjad" in English has been fobbed off into Abjad numeral. And periodically, there are people running around Wikipedia demanding that articles like "Arabic alphabet" be renamed to "Arabic abjad". I don't find either of these phenomena to be too useful... AnonMoos (talk) 15:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Probably the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is designed to have unique symbols for all possible speech sounds in human languages. 184.147.121.192 (talk) 15:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I definitely think that a clear definition of alphabet is required to answer this question with some sort of accuracy. If alphabet means writing system, I'd guess Chinese. Someone suggest Unicode and someone else the IPA, but I would personally object to both: Unicode isn't a single alphabet, but a combination of all the writing systems in the world (at least that's the aim), and IPA, as far as I know, isn't the main writing system for any living language, although some of its symbols are used by some languages. Do ligatures count? I would say either way would be acceptable, but it needs to be defined. Are alphabets only those writing systems that seek to reproduce speach by placing signs in phonemic order (i.e. do Abjads count)? (So that Devanagari and Thai script don't count, since they put some vowel sounds in front of the consonant, although the sound is pronounced after it? Also, it would depend on how we choose to define letters, some Latin alphabets, such as the Hungarian alphabet, also define digraphs and trigraphs, when these represent a single sound, as a separate letter, distinct from its constituent letters, whereas others do not (e.g. Hungarian dz is considered a single letter, alphabetically after D, whereas English sh is considered two separate letters that represent a single sound). There can be many correct answers, depending on how alphabet is defined. V85 (talk) 16:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Have to agree with the point on Chinese, had thought of that when the thread was begun. μηδείς (talk) 16:37, 19 July 2012 (UTC)