Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 April 5

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April 5

cretivity and achievement in english

is there a significant relationship between cretivity and achievement in english?202.88.252.28 (talk) 08:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)remy

For the question to be meaningful, a definition is needed of the population. For example, the Russian avant-garde, although quite creative, is not particularly known for its achievement in English. A clarification of how creativity should be assessed is also welcome.  --Lambiam 10:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Great minds are thinking alike with the same idea here[1] on the humanities desk. Julia Rossi (talk) 04:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

horse or reindeer riding accessory

I looked through many pages about riding horses and reindeers, but could not find exact name of the object. This thing was used by Siberian people - Yakuts, and in Russian has the name "tebenki". It was placed on the back of the horse or reindeer under saddle, consisted of two rug-like square parts, connected with two belts, and hung on those belts on both sides of the horse below the saddle on the level of stirrups. It might have some pockets and could have garments made of beads, etc.The names that I managed to find were blanket, shabrack, body-cloth, caparison, horse-cloth, horse-cover, saddle-bag,- but descriptions and pictures of none of them matched my photos. What can be the exact name of the object, wearing Russian name "tebenki"? Thank you.Seaweed71 (talk) 10:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose the generic English word for a thing of that kind is "pannier". If you want a more specific name for writing about it in English, I think you can call it by the transliterated Russian name in italics, tebenki, and briefly describe it the first time you use the word. That happens a lot, where a thing does not have a name in English because we never saw one. There might be an English word for a tebenki, but I don't know it, and a search of the OED for "under near saddle" yielded nothing. --Milkbreath (talk) 20:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You could try asking the specialists, as opposed to us generalists on the refdesks. I would suggest the good folk at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Equine. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not a biscuit!

[This sort of food http://www.recipezaar.com/153610] passes for a biscuit in the US. What would we call such a thing in the UK? ----Seans Potato Business 12:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

A scone? Deor (talk) 13:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Our biscuit and Scone (bread) articles discuss the terminology. Make sure to note the discussion on the talk pages. Rmhermen (talk) 14:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a standard name but Delia's How To Cook Book One has a goat's cheese, potato and onion "bread" that's very similar (i.e. based on SR flour, egg, milk and cheese). AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 23:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It's like a herb scone but the 30 minute cooking time is too long (about double) for scones. Julia Rossi (talk) 01:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

If I may redirect the original questioner's puzzlement at the use of the word "biscuit" back in his direction... I've known for a long time that cookies are called biscuits over there. But (from the biscuit article) I now learn that crackers are called biscuits too! Really? Can we possibly take seriously a system of culinary nomenclature which fails to distinguish Oreos from Saltines? Your version of the definition of "biscuit" appears to be so wide-ranging that one must wonder whether it might also include beer and/or rope. This word, as you use it, has nearly the same degree of semantic content as Smurf. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:23, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Hardly. Neither beer, nor rope, nor smurfs are "small, flat, crisp unleavened cakes" (OED def. of biscuit). Nor is the biscuit that was originally the subject of this section, hence the confusion.

One might equally be astonished at the fact that the American use of "cookie" fails to distinguish choc-chip cookies from custard creams. This line of argument seems a lot like the problem of Distinguishing blue from green in language. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 10:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's bring in Sapir-Whorf! (I'd add that crackers are only really referred to as biscuits in the context of cheese, in practice. Which is presumably why Cheddars are referred to as cheesy biscuits.) 130.88.140.121 (talk) 13:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Swahili greetings

The Swahili Wikibook states that "Greetings in Swahili are a crucial aspect of Swahili culture; it is not uncommon for a conversation to last five minutes before it actually moves beyond saying 'Hello'." The second part of this has a citation needed tag and seems rather dubious to me (but quite interesting if true). Can anyone shed any light on this? -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is one source; it says This greeting can last between 3 to 15 minutes under normal circumstances. 65.92.188.177 (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and they can speak so quickly for those 3-15 minutes that it's hard to follow.

Greetings are extremely important throughout Africa. I've seen strangers spend several minutes saying hello, inquiring about every possible relation and livestock, even when they don't speak the same language and have no idea what the other's actual words are. If you are a teacher running late for class, and someone says hello to you, you stop and greet them properly. The students can wait: If you don't stop, your principal will chew you out for embarrassing the school. If you approach someone and say, "Excuse me, Sir. Could you tell me where X is, please?", he'll likely grunt and point you in the wrong direction: Why bother with you, if you're going to be that rude? However, if you take the time to say hello, in many areas there are no real words for 'please' or 'thank you' (though there are in Swahili, due to the Arabic influence). The politeness is in the greeting, and after that you can just say "Gimme your shirt!" or "Gimme your food!" without causing the slightest offense. (Actually, in some places, "Gimme your shirt!" is equivalent to "What a nice shirt!" — it's not actually a request, the exact opposite of much of East Asia, where if you say "What a nice shirt!" they'll feel obligated to give it to you.) kwami (talk) 00:01, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and one of the worst insults you can make is to tell someone they're impolite. It's equivalent to "your mother!": It means that their entire family is too ill bred to have raised them right. Don't ever tell anyone that their child was disrespectful, unless you don't want the kid to be able to sit down for a week. I've only done that once (he deserved it), and I've never seen a kid so terrified. kwami (talk) 00:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, interesting stuff! Thanks to both of you. -Elmer Clark (talk) 07:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)