Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 September 28

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September 28

"Hear undernead dis laitl stean": Early Middle English and Robin Hood

Hi all,
After looking for but finding no refs I added a translation at Robin Hood#References to Robin as Earl of Huntington of

Hear undernead dis laitl stean

Lais Robert Earl of Huntingun

Near arcir der as hie sa geud

An pipl kauld im Robin Heud

Sic utlaws as hi an is men

Vil England nivr si agen.

as

Here underneath this little stone

Lies Robert Earl of Huntington

Never archer there as he so good

And people called him Robin Hood

Such outlaws as him and his men

Will England never see again

I'm only familiar with the Middle English of late C14 London (for obvious reasons), so a few questions.

• For starters, is this translation complete bollocks, or did I get it mostly right?
• The <c> in "arcir" and "sic" would appear to me pronounced /tʃ/. Is this from the Old English pronunciation of OE <c> as either /k/ or /tʃ/?
• It's a quote of a quote of a quote. In the original, would the <d> in "dis" and "der" possibly have been <ð> and pronounced /ð/?
• I wonder about "laitl" and "lais". The <ai> in "laitl" might conceivably be like /lɛtɫ/ in some Modern Scots, but would seem somewhat questionable in the context of Early Middle English. The <ai> in "lais" seems to be anachronistically like the MnE "lies", /laiz/.

Your thoughts?--Shirt58 (talk) 11:49, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

You should probably see Robin Hood's Grave, particularly this sentence: Thomas Gale, Dean of York, claimed to have found a poetic epitaph with the date of death given as 24 December 1247, although the language in which it is written is not the Middle English of the time, suggesting it is merely a forgery.

I don't think you can translate the poem from Middle English, since it isn't in Middle English to start with, and there are errors which mean it's difficult to tell what the author intended. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't really look like original Middle English. It seems to be 19th century Yorkshire dialect [1]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Should it be "he and his men" instead of "him and his men"? Rmhermen (talk) 16:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Nope, it's an object of as: Try rearranging it as "England will never see again such outlaws as him and his men." Deor (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks like modern Scots - with some idiosyncratic spelling. Roger (talk) 16:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Which sorta fits, since in Robin's time the earldom (though English) belonged to the Scots royal house. —Tamfang (talk) 06:30, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• The translation looks spot on. The phrase him and his men is in apposition to outlaws which is the direct object of the verb see in the following line, so it takes the case of outlaws. The word as doesn't make it accusative. One could say "Such outlaws as he and his men/Will never England plague again" in which the nominative he following as would be correct. μηδείς (talk) 18:15, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The earliest references I could find for the epitaph is in a letter of Josiah Relph who said he got it from a friend, who in turn got it from Gale's posthumous papers. It is also mentioned as being found in an appendix to Ralph Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis which I couldn't locate. There is no first hand claim from Gale to have found it, that I know of, it is just as likely to be written by Relph or Thoresby or Gale unless earlier evidence is found. It is certainly very unlike pre-Chaucerian middle English in vocabulary, orthography, grammar or form. meltBanana 19:13, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi All. As OP, I write now a sincere thank you for all your most learned and kind responses before this query gets archived. --Shirt58 (talk) 11:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

teaching terry

From a book (Robyn Carr FORBIDDEN FALLS (2010)): In the story playing in Humboldt County, California, a priest coming from Seattle inspects his new chruch and states: "It didn't have more rooms - not even for teaching terry..." Later on he refused to wear sweaters or a tweed jacket when he arrived for teaching terry.

Question: Any idea what could be meant by terry? References ? Thanks! GEEZER^{nil nisi bene} 13:50, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary.org, "terry" is "a type of coarse cotton fabric covered in many small raised loops that is used to make towels, bathrobes and some types of nappy/diaper" -- what I would call terry cloth. This fits in with the fact that he was concerned about sweaters or tweed jackets. Maybe "teaching terry" means teaching people to make the small raised loops? Duoduoduo (talk) 14:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, i think we got it: It's an "Search&Replace"-Error in the german translation. In the english text it's just "teaching", in the german version it's "teaching terry". Thanks a lot, --Tröte (talk) 15:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

"too meta"

During a disagreement, one party is told that they are being "too meta" about it. This is meant to be conciliatory and to convince them that the disagreement is worth dropping. But what does it mean? 92.13.74.22 (talk) 17:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, being "meta" is a slangish term for treating a situation abstractly -- for trying to deal with it on the basis of universal philosophical principles rather than paying attention to the specific circumstances. Our article meta discusses this usage. Looie496 (talk) 17:59, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Aristotle's book Metaphysics was named that because it came after his book Physics in the canon. Since the former books is more abstract than the later, meta- became reinterpreted later to mean more abstract. So you can have historical and ethical arguments about whether an event had a certain effect or whether a certain action is justifiable, or you can have metahistorical arguments about how history itself is actually to be done or metaethical arguments about whether value systems are necessary or arbitrary. Complaining that someone is too meta in an argument means he is being to abstract, probably putting methodological concerns above the facts of the case. If you want a prime example of meta at wikipedia, click "talk" at the to of this page and read the reference desk discussion page. Online Etymological Dictionary is always a good start: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=meta- μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Over at Wiktionary, there's a user with the delightful name I'm so meta even this acronym. Angr (talk) 18:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Does it? It links to meta-discussion, anyway, which "may seem a waste of time" as that article says.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:00, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I particular direct your attention to the section Meta#Quine and Hofstadter. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:18, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Let me give an example. Say we want to ask people their names and then record them at the start of a meeting. Here the "data" is the actual names, while "metadata" is information about the names, like how many there will be, how long they will be, whether they will include first, middle, and last names, titles, etc. If somebody insists that we can't start taking names until we set all the parameters for them, then we might say "they are being too meta". Think of Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. StuRat (talk) 22:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I would take it to mean that the debate has drifted from its original substance (if any) to questions of how the debate itself is carried on. Contrary to Looie, I'd say it has nothing to do with the level of abstraction. —Tamfang (talk) 06:37, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, you've all been helpful! 92.13.74.22 (talk) 22:21, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

You're quite welcome. StuRat (talk) 01:22, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

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