Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 March 24

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March 24

Red Snapper Name In Spanish

When I went to Puerto Rico, the menus listed "chillo" in Spanish and "red snapper" in English. Is this the same red snapper that's served in the US? English WP redirects "chillo" to the "red snapper" article, but there's no mention of this word in the article. It lists the names "huachinango" and "pargo" as Latin American Spanish translations. Is "chillo" Caribbean dialect or is this a different species? (By the way, the chillo I had in PR was some of the best seafood I've ever tasted.) -- 00:56, 24 March 2012‎ User:Jerk182

All the cookbooks and travel guides I found online say that it is indeed the same fish as pargo (Lutjanus campechanus). According to our list of Puerto Rican slang words and phrases chillo can also mean lover. (unreferenced in out list, but I did find it in one book on Puerto Rican Spanish where it is given as "extramarital lover", and chilla signifying mistress). ---Sluzzelin talk 12:13, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

What is the correct Latin?

I've got two modern academic secondary sources quoting the same Latin chronicle, the Chronicle of Melrose. I'm not sure if they are using the same published edition of it though. One gives "pedissequi patrie", and the other gives "pedisequi patrie" and "pedisequos patrie". Neither use quotation-marks, so I don't know if any are direct quotations or not. Here's an old Victorian copy of the primary source, see the second paragraph, sixth line down - [1]. I'm just wondering what is the 'correct' Latin. Which form would you use in an article?--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 08:55, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I know very little of Latin, but the first two seem to have french influence due to the double s, and ui ending, so I would go with the third if you want a translation closer to English.--Canoe1967 (talk) 09:08, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Pedisequus, with one s, would be the usual spelling of the word in classical Latin, but the spelling with doubled s is a likely variant in medieval documents. With regard to the case, since, as you say, the secondary sources you've consulted don't treat the expression as a direct quotation, the authors probably just used the nominative pedis(s)equi to fit it into the grammar of their own sentences. I'd probably use a direct quotation (perhaps with appended translation) if I were writing an article, but there's certainly nothing wrong with saying that the pedissequi patrie repulsed Haakon's forces, even though the chronicle has accusative pedissequos. Deor (talk) 10:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Fully classically-correct spelling would presumably be pedisequi patriae (nominative) / pedisequos patriae (accusative). By the way, I noticed that in a certain movie opening this week, panem in the quote panem et circenses wasn't normalized to nominative case (dictionary form) panis... AnonMoos (talk) 15:47, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

"Requested anonymity for confidential reasons"

One time, I was reading a news report, and it said something like "someone who declined to be named for confidential reasons". I'm not exactly sure exactly what this phrase means. From the phrase, I can assume it means that he/she doesn't want to be identified for reasons he/she is also not willing to disclose, but I would find it strange for a person to want anonymity for reasons he/she wants to keep unknown as well. So does the phrase really mean that he/she wants to be anonymous, but he/she doesn't want to make known why, or do they mean "who wishes to remain anonymous for confidentiality reasons", meaning he/she doesn't want to be identified to keep parts of the information he or she is disclosing secret? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:17, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I would say the former is the best grammatical translation.--Canoe1967 (talk) 09:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm as stumped as you are. The literal interpretation is a possible one. It's also possible the writer meant "for confidentiality reasons," as you suggest. It's hard to know what this means - perhaps that they were supposed to be keeping the information confidential. 64.140.121.1 (talk) 21:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I would interpret it as somebody who has given the broadcaster or paper information which has probably been obtained by an employee or somebody under a non-disclosure agrement or in-confidence and doesnt want to be identified and get into trouble. Sort of code for this person has told us stuff but would get into trouble if they got found out so we are not giving any clues. MilborneOne (talk) 21:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

A few years ago (around 2003/2004 to be precise), there was a lot of criticism of newspapers for using too many anonymous sources to buttress their reports; the attributions were so vague that the sources could have been anyone or even made up. The New York Times, among others, decided to counter that by starting to use circumlocutions to describe who their sources are and why they wish to stay anonymous ("according to a senior officer within the organization who requested that his name be witheld because he is not authorized to speak to the media" is a typical such phrase). But sometimes sources just want to remain anonymous even though they don't have specific company rules or whatever to justify this. Normally, that would mean that a reporter could not use them as a source, but when what they're contributing is judged essential to the story, the newspapers will use some phrase like the one quoted by the o.p. It doesn't mean anything except "my source did not want his name used". --Xuxl (talk) 11:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Belgian place in russian

http://www.css-rzd.ru/zdm/06-2000/00907.htm refers to a railway line Маасско-Атюсской линии

What/where is Атюсской (Атюсс ?) - I assume it is in Belgium but may be in a neighboring country. Could it be Athus.? Oranjblud (talk) 16:51, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia has an article on the de:Athus-Maas-Linie, so that seems to be a reasonable guess. The traject is composed of several numbered lines in the Belgian network (154, 166, 165, 167). There doesn't seem to be a useful English article. --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:31, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Btw, the name of the line in Russian seems to be Маасско-Атюсскaя линия (Maasko-Atyusskaya liniya). But every time it's mentioned in that text, it happens to be in an oblique case, being governed by a preposition, hence Маасско-Атюсской линии (Maasko-Atyusskoy linii). No idea why the Russians place the Maas before the Athus, the reverse of what the Germans do. If they did it the other way, it would be Атюсскo-Маасскaя линия (Atyussko-Maaskaya liniya). -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

ok thanks. I can work with that.Oranjblud (talk) 20:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Japanese pronunciations

Hi

1. To what extent is を pronounced identically to お? I'm interested in a rough ball-park idea. For example, the answer might be "almost everyone everywhere pronounces them the same", or "very many people in (some regions of Japan) pronounce them differently", or something like that.

2. Do all Japanese people always pronounce じ and ぢ identically, and ず and づ identically? (I understand the different situations in which these are used; I'm not asking about that, just about the pronunciation.)

I am looking for first-hand actual local knowledge, not a reference to a Wikipedia article where this is covered. Thanks, 86.177.107.165 (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

There are no difference among those letters today. There are nasal and non-nasal sounds in が. For instance, ga in 怪我/kega is nasal, but almost all people pronounce it without realizing it and accept the word if it's pronounced with non-nasal. Native speakers do not care about sounds. Context and pitch accent are important. Oda Mari (talk) 10:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Mari. So, explanations such as the following (http://learnthekana.com/katakana-wo/) are definitely wrong, are they?

"Generally, it is pronounced ‘o’ although some dialects retain the pronunciation ‘wo’, which is also often used in songs. It is also occasionally pronounced this way when stressing the particle, e.g. to clarify when someone misunderstands what has been said."

I have read a number of different explanations of this, and they never seem to be quite consistent. 86.177.107.165 (talk) 12:55, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

As I am a general native speaker, not an expert on dialect nor phonology, I cannot flatly deny the link. They might be right. But generally speaking, I think Japanese learners do not have to learn Japanese pronunciation much, but to learn pitch accent more. The difference among dialect is mostly vocabulary, accent, and gobi/語尾. But Tohoku dialect has different sounds called Zūzū-ben. It is too difficult to explain the sounds by words, but I can instantly tell them when I hear them. See Japanese dialects. Oda Mari (talk) 17:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC)