Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 June 1

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June 1

What does "Man the 50" mean?

Soldier Natalie commands Axe:

Natalie: Axe. With Steeler. Man the 50.

What does "With Steeler" mean? Does it mean Steeler will be leader of 50 soldiers? Rizosome (talk) 14:44, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

What is this from? Without knowing anything beyond what you have posted here I can't be sure, but it sounds like Natalie is ordering Axe to get with another soldier called Steeler and man the .50 caliber machine gun. --Khajidha (talk) 15:09, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

@Khajidha: .50 caliber machine gun make sense now. Thank you

Resolved

Rizosome (talk) 15:13, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy link for the intrigued: Monster Hunter (film). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.163.176 (talk) 18:26, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

And another: M2 Browning. Alansplodge (talk) 18:55, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Amiga 1200

How did native English speakers colloquially pronounce the number part of the Amiga 1200 in the 1990s? "One thousand two hundred", "twelve hundred", "one two oh oh", or what? JIP | Talk 21:59, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't remember that machine, but I'm sure it would be "twelve hundred". Anything else would just be weird. English doesn't use "one thousand two hundred" except in very stereotyped contexts such as accounting. --Trovatore (talk) 22:31, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Have to completely disagree, "one thousand two hundred" type pronunciations are in common use in British English, though would perhaps be seen as a more formal use. Please don't make blanket statements about "English" without qualifying which English you're talking about. Fgf10 (talk) 00:42, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps. I would still be quite surprised to hear a native British English speaker refer to the "Amiga one thousand two hundred", even if they might use that form in other contexts. --Trovatore (talk) 01:31, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Fgf10, thanks for playing. It's "twelve-hundred" in British English as well.

(I also found out how to say it in Greek!) Elizium23 (talk) 01:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23, I never said the twelve-hundred pronunciation wasn't used in English, just corrected the general assertion one thousand two hundred isn't used, which I assume is correct for American. Do try and read. Also, one example does not a categorical statement make. Fgf10 (talk) 07:50, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

In American English, model numbers like this would tend to be in the "____ hundred" format. Explicitly counted objects would tend to be in the "_______ thousand ________ hundred" format. Dollar amounts could go either way. If you are dealing mostly with amounts less than $1000, then the few exceptions might be given as "_______ hundred". If you are dealing mostly with multiple-thousand dollar amounts "$1200" might be more likely to be read as "one thousand two hundred). The "______ hundred" format is also most likely to be used for round numbers. Many people would read "1200" as "twelve hundred", but fewer would read "1237" as "twelve hundred thirty-seven". Unless you're talking about dates. But then the "hundred" would tend to be dropped. The year 1237 would be read as "twelve thirty-seven", not "twelve hundred thirty-seven" or "one thousand two hundred thirty-seven". --Khajidha (talk) 14:31, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Referring to this as a game is a bit unfortunate, but listening to available commercials and similar recordings from that time is, depending on the purpuse, probably the best way to go, not sure about the copyright and reliability status of the previously mentioned yt links. A quick scroll of the Amiga article also suggests they sticked to "00" numbers (probably something quite common at least in the '90). Some more colloquial names or more general considerations about numerals may require more effort, but that doesn't seem to be what you are looking for (by the way that's the Amiga sixty scores). Personuser (talk) 07:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

This is interesting, because in Finnish it is always pronounced as "tuhat kaksisataa", literally "thousand twohundred" (Finnish does not use a word for "one" in thousands or hundreds when there is only one). If you were to pronounce it as "kaksitoistasataa" ("twelvehundred") people would look at you funny and perhaps think the number was 12100 or something. JIP | Talk 08:10, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

What about years or "the 1200s" (I mean, I could probably look some of it up, but I'd much rather have it explained by a native speaker, JIP. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:36, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

In Finnish it would be "tuhat kaksisataa -luku" ("the thousand twohundred century"). In Finnish, no one ever uses the "hundred" constructions beyond nine hundred. After reaching one thousand, thousands and hundreds are pronounced separately. JIP | Talk 22:12, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

In Italian you can say "il Milleduecento" ("the thousand twohundred", skipping "century") or even "il Duecento" (skipping the millennium, more common with recent centuries or when the context is clear, uppercase is probably required if the number refers to the century, not otherwise), forms analogous to "thirteenth century" are common and require the "century"/"secolo" part. In Slovene "trinajsto stoletje" ("the thirteenth century") is as far as I can tell the only acceptable form. Something similar to "thousand two hundred" can be used in more informal settings (nothing suggests me a similar use to the english/american "hundreds" in both languages). Decades are commonly shortened in both languages, in Italian "gli anni settanta" ("the years seventy", years is mandatory), in slovene "sedemdeseta leta" ("the seventieth years"?, "leta" / "years" can be skipped). Referring to recent dates without the century part ('99) is common in speech and writing in both languages and faced some issues in the last 21 years. This is a bit off topic, but it would be really nice to have some more details on this aspects (especialy from a Finnish speaker) and may eventually lead to something more productive.Personuser (talk) 07:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

It is interesting to learn that Finnish does not use the 'twenty hundred' formula, while Swedish (the other official language in Finland) is singled out among the Scandinavian languages for using "tjugo hundra" (twenty hundred) from day one in y2k, while Danish and Norwegian have been notoriously undecided (and still are). --T*U (talk) 19:40, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Century deals with this in a completly unsourced section (what languages were picked and how may also be discutible). These namings are probably so young that genetic relationship doesn't play a significan't role. 2000 is both new and odd, while it is interesting, I wouldn't use it as a typical example. Personuser (talk) 20:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I have been wondering for decades: in Italian, what comes after il Novecento? (I now kick myself for not thinking to ask during a week in Sicily a few years ago!) —Tamfang (talk) 03:45, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

English numerals partly deals with this and differences between American and British usage in a poorly referenced section (which may interest some editors in this discussion). Actually the "score" counting may be more common than the "hundred" counting and I can tell you that omitting "one" is common or obligate also in other languages, it seems it can be omittet in english too (at least with an article or in some cases); there are or should be articles about this topic in general, that I currently can't search for. Personuser (talk) 08:43, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

In Britain (at least in my neck of the woods) I believe that we never count in hundreds above two thousand. Example; the Triumph 1300 car was pronounced "thirteen hundred" whereas the Triumph 2500 was "two thousand five hundred". Alansplodge (talk) 16:52, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

What about the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Atari 7800? --Khajidha (talk) 17:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Atari along with Commodore were American companies, so in Britain, generally, the name wouldn't be changed.Dja1979 (talk) 20:35, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't know about Americans, but I would pronounce Atari 2600 as "Atari two thousand, six hundred". Alansplodge (talk) 21:12, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't advertisers want to minimize the number of syllables? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:14, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe they didn't know or care about UK pronunciation of numbers. Atari called their first tennis game Pong despite the fact that the word is British slang for a bad smell (see Wikt:pong), allegedly forcing them to market the game here as Ping. [1] Alansplodge (talk) 22:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Kind of like the urban legend (?) about the Chevy Nova. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

For the perplexed: "no va" means "it doesn't go" in Spanish, but the car actually sold well in Latin America (I had to Google it). [2] Alansplodge (talk) 18:58, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

After having done some superficial 'research', my impression of English usage (mainly British English) is that the numbers from 1000 to 1099 form an exemption from the standard formula, at least when talking about years. The Magna Carta was signed in 'twelve fifteen', the Angevins came to power in 'eleven fiftythree', while the Norman conquest was in 'thousand and sixtysix' [and all that]. This could be extrapolated to the current century, but my impression is that the 'twothousand' formula is already losing terrain. It seems that 'twothousandfour' (or 'twothousand and four') is significantly more used than 'twenty oh four' (or the rather ambiguous 'twenty four'). When we come to the London Olympics, however, both 'twenty twelve' and 'twothousandtwelve' are used, while 'twenty-twenty' definitely seems to dominate over 'twothousandtwenty'. --T*U (talk) 20:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

You do mean "one thousand and sixty-six" there, don't you? --184.145.50.201 (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm missing a joke here T*U, but I've never heard anybody British say anything other than "ten sixty-six" for 1066. Alansplodge (talk) 18:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

This should be interesting, at least for the English part and the more historically inclined. Couldn't find anything about the "twelve hundreds" use, but mentions some other odd constructs (11*10 and similar) and has some typological considerations and probably some good generic referencies, not so much for modern uses. Personuser (talk) 21:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Tangentially, the usual BrE form for the years 1900–09 is (as all BrE speakers know) "nineteen-hundred", nineteen-oh-one" . . . "nineteen-oh-nine"; followed by "nineteen-ten", "nineteen-eleven", etc. The same usually applies for all earlier centuries (T*U's "impression" above is dead wrong).

By analogy one might have expected "twenty-hundred, twenty-oh-one" and so on, but instead these are usually spoken as "two-thousand", two-thousand-and one", up to "two-thousand-and-nine", after which "twenty-ten", twenty-eleven" usually takes over (as with everything, other rarer usages exist).

I harbour a suspicion that this was influenced by the usual pronunciation of the nineteen-sixty-eight film and book 2001: A Space Odyssey which (in BrE) is invariably spoken as "Two-thousand-and-one . . .". Ironically, I have read that Arthur C. Clarke, the originator and co-writer/author of the screenplay and novel, himself originally used the form "Twenty-oh-one" and was surprised when the public overwhelmingly adopted the form now used. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.163.176 (talk) 15:59, 7 June 2021 (UTC)