Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 July 2

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July 2

A super's banner

In The Inmost Light by Arthur Machen, Mr Salisbury is pondering his friend Dyson, a formerly-impoverished writer who has had a convenient inheritance. "As he walked he speculated on the probable fate of Dyson, relying on literature, unbefriended by a thoughtful relative, and could not help concluding that so much subtlety united to a too vivid imagination would in all likelihood have been rewarded with a pair of sandwich-boards or a super's banner." Now sandwich-boards I am familiar with, but a "super's banner" I am not. Does anyone know what it means? The story is from 1894. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 02:00, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Super is short for supernumerary, basically the stage equivalent of a film extra—someone hired to stand or move about in the background as needed. In some sorts of plays (Shakespeare comes to mind), a super might be a banner bearer. I myself was once a super standing absolutely still with a banner during a ball in a Stuttgart Ballet production of this.

Good story, isn't it? Deor (talk) 03:19, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Deor: Thank you, yes it is. We have an article Supernumerary actor. DuncanHill (talk) 10:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Also the related spear carrier, an actor given the most minor role. Alansplodge (talk) 15:17, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

It's sort of apropros that a decade later Machen himself, who might well have been described as having "subtlety united to a too vivid imagination", found himself employed as an actor, starting out in essentially supernumerary, nonspeaking roles before getting any lines. He seems to have found it somewhat more interesting than the fate he imagined for Dyson. Deor (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The definition in this article is rather different from that of an "extra", and is moreover in no way supported by the cited source.  --Lambiam 19:06, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

OED has as one of the meanings of super "A person employed on a casual basis to perform a non-speaking or other minor part in the theatre, a film, or (now more usually) an opera or ballet; an extra", and one for supernumerary "A person outside a regular acting company who is employed to appear on stage in a non-speaking role; an extra". DuncanHill (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Translation issues

I'm reviewing Tamara Milashkina over at Talk:Tamara Milashkina/GA1 and there's one sticking point I've been unable to resolve. It revolves around whether Milashkina studied library science or worked as a librarian. We have four examples to choose from so far, one from a German dictionary, one from a recent Russian obituary, the Russian Wikipedia version, and the resulting version on the English Wiki. I will list them in that respective order:

• Sie ergriff zunächst den Beruf einer Bibliothekarin[1]
• После окончания школы-семилетки она поступила в астраханский библиотечный техникум, занималась в хоровом кружке[2]
• Окончила школу и библиотечный техникум. Пела в самодеятельности.[3]
• She first worked as a librarian[4]

Did Milashkina "work" as a librarian, or did she study to become a librarian? I am particularly interested in how the Russian obituary entry is translated. On my screen, it says "After graduating from school-semilet, she entered the Astrakhan Library College, studied in a choir circle", which doesn't make much sense, so maybe somebody can help? It looks like she attended library college, which is what we should write, but there's no indication she ever worked as a librarian. Viriditas (talk) 20:59, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The two Russian sentences state that she studied to be a librarian, but do not address whether or not she worked as one. The German sentence says she worked as one. The English I figure you can make out. Xuxl (talk) 01:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Given the topic, the Russian reliable sources should carry the most weight. The TASS article states that at Astrakhan Library College she studied in a choir group and that she entered Astrakhan Music School in 1953. Her studying there is confirmed by the website of that school (now the Astrakhan Music College "M. P. Mussorgsky").^[5] Most likely, she was then on the cusp of turning 19. She left the Music School in 1954^[6] and was a third-year student at the Moscow Conservatory in 1957.^[7] This hardly leaves time for a stint as a librarian. By far the most plausible is is that she went straight from the Astrakhan Library College to the Astrakhan Music School to the Moscow Conservatory.  --Lambiam 09:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This is exactly my position. There wasn’t enough time for her to work as a librarian. Can you take a look at the German source and figure out why they framed it the way they did? Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The German sentence can be translated as "She initially chose the profession of librarian" and interpreted as meaning that she studied so as to be able to later work as a librarian. It does not necessarily imply that she already worked in that capacity. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, that’s exactly what I was looking for here. Viriditas (talk) 10:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia gets its info from the Großes Sängerlexikon. The latter cites two sources. For one source, in the journal Театр, 1961 issue 1, pp. 83ff, I find no more than a snippet view.^[8] The entry in the Großes Sängerlexikon got the name of the author of this source wrong ("Prokowsky" instead of "Pokrowsky"). I don't find any view of the other source, a book, whose title in Russian is a bit longer than suggested in the Großes Sängerlexikon's entry, to wit, Солистка Большого: Тамара Милашкина.  --Lambiam 10:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Resolved