Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 February 26

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February 26

What does it mean to "thigh" someone?

thanks.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 01:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you put this into context? It sounds like a kick, but instead of using the foot to strike, one uses their thigh. This wouldn't be a terribly effective attack, though. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 04:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it means something sexual. Like, "he thighed her". --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 07:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

A likely guess, caressing her thigh, see petting... 惑乱 分からん 14:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

On a sidenote, Urban Dictionary is usually quite good at explaining slang terms, but it lacks an entry for "thigh". 惑乱 分からん 15:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the OED, it means "to carve (a small bird)" or "to cower down, squat". Neither of which, I suspect, are what you're looking for. -- Necrothesp 19:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• I understood it to be to strike someone in the thigh with your knee,easily done in contact sports and quite painful.hotclaws**== 10:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

What is a " PICS Rules File " , and a " DSC File "

Yes I use the google search, and the search box. I have found that what the Two files are, but I mainly like to know what the two are use for, and what "DSC" is define what the three Letters "DSC" means70.244.82.53 04:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC) Thank you for the help. Most gratiful. Thank you.70.244.82.53 04:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this question is more appropriately asked at the computing reference desk. —Angr 05:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Translation of Chinese sign

What does the Chinese text on this sign say? NeonMerlin 06:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

General medicine consulting room 1. —Angr 14:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of a word

(I hope this is the correct place for this question) In this excerpt from the article on Vivaldi;
Vivaldi started his career as opera writer in undertone: his first opera, Ottone in villa (RV 729) was performed not in Venice, but at the Garzerie theater in Vicenza in 1713.
What is the meaning of the word "undertone"? Clq 16:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard that expression. However I suspect it's a literal translation of the musical term sotto voce. 10 marks for a cute attempt. A better rendering in this context might be "quietly", or "slowly". JackofOz 21:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Apostrophe in the Qur'an

What is the apostrophe in the Qur'an for? The article doesn't mention anything about omitted letters. Thanks, Bioarchie1234 18:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The apostrophe does not indicate any omitted letters. Instead, the apostrophe is used, in many systems for the romanization of Arabic, to transliterate a hamza, a letter in Arabic that indicates a glottal stop and does not have an equivalent in the Roman (Latin) alphabet. In the word Qur'ān, the apostrophe shows that there is a glottal stop between the "r" and the "ā". Marco polo 19:06, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Marco polo. So is it pronounced (very roughly) like this: kuh-an, where the hyphen is a glottal stop? Or is it like this: kur-an? Or should I just stop stumbling over glottal stops and pronounce it how I always have done (and how I've heard almost everyone else pronounce it)? I imagine it's a sound which cannot be properly pronounced by those who have not been brought up speaking it (like a French person trying to say the consonant 'h')? Thanks, Bioarchie1234 19:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

You should definitely pronounce the "r" in Qur'ān. I think that most Muslims will not be offended if you pronounce the word with sounds that you are able to make based on your knowledge of English. The closest you could get using English sounds would be something like "kur ahn", in which you do not run the "r" at the end of the first syllable together with the long "a" of the second syllable but instead pronounce "ahn" as if it is a new word. If you speak a non-rhotic variety of English (e.g. if you are from London, Boston, or New York), you may find it difficult to end a syllable with an "r" sound. In this case, it is probably okay not to attempt the glottal stop at the beginning of "ahn". It is probably more important to pronounce the "r". However, this will not be the Arabic pronunciation of the word.

If you are ambitious and want to attempt the Arabic pronunciation, IPA can be your guide. Here is the pronunciation in IPA. You can click on each IPA symbol to read about its pronunciation:

qʊr ʔæːn (edited)

Marco polo 20:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Neat. Is there an effortless way to link to the explaining articles? Do you use some tool? Wikipeditor 02:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Most of the IPA symbols are redirect, otherwise you could look up the corresponding symbol on the IPA article. 惑乱 分からん 18:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Re the IPA above - really, æ? I'm not an Arabic speaker, but I would have expected a. Or is this a dialect question? --ColinFine 00:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur. I would write qurˈʔaːn. The normal hamza sign is not used in this context, but madda. — Gareth Hughes 00:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help!Bioarchie1234 16:44, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

"Villian"

Why on Earth does the word "villian" in the English language exist? From what I've come to learn from the English Wikipedia, its real meaning is an English name for what we Finns call viili, but I have never ever heard viili being called so, and apparently very few others have either. It's much more common as a misspelling of villain, but why? Native English speakers don't misspell train as trian, or tainted as tianted, or disdain as disdian, or maintain as miantian. Why is this one word such an exception? Does it have something to do with English being pretty much the only European language not to follow a logical, close to one-to-one relationship between written and spoken forms, but instead an awkward one that can only ever be learned by experience? Speaking of that, while I have an awful Finnish accent when speaking English, I regularly spell English better than native English speakers do. JIP | Talk 19:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Villian" is actually an old-fashioned alternative spelling of "villain". This is the only meaning listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. As for misspelling, it's fairly easy to transpose two letters if you're not careful. -- Necrothesp 20:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Villain" is probably more often misspelled as "villian" than "train" or "tainted" are misspelled as "trian" or "tianted" because the "i" in "villain" is completely silent, whereas in "train" or "tainted", the "i" is essential to the pronunciation of the word. So, an English speaker might remember that "villain" is spelled with a silent "i" but might forget just where to put that "i". On the other hand, the pronunciation of "train" or "tainted" makes it easy to remember the spelling, since each of these words is pronounced with a vowel that is often spelled "ai". Marco polo 20:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict -- I wouldn't call the i silent since to me villain has the same end sound as the word "in", but perhaps that's regional) I'd guess the reason natives often make this mistake and not the others mentioned is because of the sounds. Villain has an i-ish sound like VILL-in (sorry, I don't know IPA) whereas your other examples have an a-ish sound like TRAYN. A similar common mistake is misspelling marriage (which has an a-ish sound but the i comes first). I don't think it happens as often because it's used more commonly and it's drilled into our heads in school. Ingrid 20:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, as an english english speaker - I've never seen or heard that spelling ever before in my life.87.102.37.39 20:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe that's because you're from Britian. :) JackofOz 20:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

To be quite accurate, the vowel indicated by the "ai" in "villain" is neither an "a" nor an "i" but a schwa. In any case, "ai" does not usually indicate a schwa, and so it is easier for English speakers to transpose the letters, since they are not essential to the pronunciation. Jack's example of "Britain/Britian" is one of the other cases where "ai" indicates a schwa instead of the usual [ei] diphthong, and it is another case where the letters are often transposed. Marco polo 21:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not a schwa in my idiolect, to concur with Ingrid above. Tesseran 22:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

That's because it's archaic and would only be seen today in very old documents or as a mistake. -- Necrothesp 23:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that the weird spelling of "villain," like that of so many other words, is because the word used to be pronounced in a different way, and that its spelling was established before its current pronunciation. (French is hard to pronounce, too, by the way.) -- Mwalcoff 00:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. But does "villian" really mean a fermented milk product? Wikipedia was the first place where I had heard it in that context. JIP | Talk 17:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Never heard it used to mean that and not according to the OED. -- Necrothesp 20:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the redirect from Villian to Viili should be removed. Corvus cornix 22:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

English transliterations

How do we end up with English transliterations, from languages which don't use the Latin alphabet, which aren't phonetically correct ? For example, how did Thailand get to be spelled that way, since it's not pronounced "thigh-land" ? I would have expected it to be spelled "Tailand", in English. StuRat 23:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

From nearby languages with earlier trade routes? 惑乱 分からん 23:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thailand changed its name from Siam in 1939, so they have no one to blame but themselves for the "misspelling." My guess is that the "h" reflects the fact that in Thai, "Thai" is pronounced (in IPA) /tʰaj/, not /taj/. I don't know what that superscript "h" means, but presumably it reflects a different type if "t" sound than a normal "t." -- Mwalcoff 00:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Right. The superscript h means the "t" sound is "aspirated"--pronounced with a puff of breath afterwards (like word-initial English voicless stops--p, t, k--are) --Miskwito 00:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

These days English generally accepts a country's Latin-script version of its name, despite things like:

• the spelling being according to the conventions of other languages. For example, an "English" rendering of Guyana would be more like Giyana, and of Djibouti would be more like Jibuti. If Côte d'Ivoire had been written in the indigenous script, we would probably have been within our rights to transliterate it into English as Coat Divwah. (It used to be known as the Ivory Coast, but they asked the rest of the world to use the French-language version some years ago). We spell the Czech Republic that way, not The Check Republic, because the former is the way that country spells its own name for English-speakers (and it uses Polish orthography to boot, not Czech)
• the pronunciation being markedly different from the look of the word. For example, Kiribati is pronounced Kiri-bass; this name was only adopted in 1979! JackofOz 01:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right on everything but "Czech." That word predates Czechoslovakia. OED traces the "Czech" spelling to an 1850 book by Robert G. Latham. The native Czech spelling of the word is "Čech." (That's the noun; the adjective is "český," pronounced "CHESS-key.") "Cz" is how the Poles spell the sound we spell "ch" in English. Czech used the "cz" digraph in the early-modern period but switched to hačeks a few hundred years ago. Perhaps Latham chose to use the Polish spelling rather than an English transliteration like "check" because it was more authentic (but, unlike the native spelling, didin't require any funny diacritics). For the record, the "ch" at the end of the word "Čech" is pronounced like the end of the word in the question below (/ɣ/). -- Mwalcoff 01:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks indeed for the fascinating history. Funny how some things just stick, and how inconsistent we anglophones are about this sort of thing - see Chetnik, which would have looked somewhat odd if it were spelled Czetnik. JackofOz 02:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure about that pronunciation, Mwalcoff? I'm fairly certain that in Czech, "Čech" is [tʃɛx], with a final voiceless velar fricative, [x]. --Miskwito 03:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I was just going with what it said in the article voiced velar fricative, which claims /ɣ/ is the sound at the end of "abych." Confusingly, the article voiceless velar fricative says /x/ is the first sound in the Czech word "chlap." -- Mwalcoff 04:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Not quite... the article says /ɣ/ is the sound at the end of abych in the phrase abych byl. The /b/ at the beginning of byl turns the /x/ of abych into /ɣ/. —Angr 05:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)