Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 May 6

Language desk
< May 5	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 7 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 6

Are these Japanese sentences grammatically correct?

1.　わたしの高校は悪名高いです。
2.　Smith先生は徳の高いです。 高圧的くありません。 63.231.224.176 (talk) 01:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like "My high-school is infamous" and "Mr/s. Smith, tall of benevolence." So the first one is okay, but the second is a little off. What's it supposed to say? --Masamage ♫ 01:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

"Mr. Smith is virtuous. He is not oppressive." And Smith is supposed to be a teacher, so make note of that if it affects anything. Since I'm doing something with the kanji 高, I used words that contained it, so 徳の高い　might literally translate as "tall of benevolence." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.231.224.176 (talk) 01:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see! "徳の高い" does translate to "virtuous". How funny. So, okay, that one says "Mr. Smith is virtuous" and is grammatically correct. I didn't even notice the second sentence, so let's see. "Kouatsuteki" comes out as "oppressive", but I'm not sure what the ku is. It seems to be a 'na' adjective, so I think the negative would be "Kouatsuteki janai desu". --Masamage ♫ 02:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

"Toku no takai desu" sounds wrong to me. There should be a noun modified by the adjective "toku-no-takai"; "Smith Sensei wa toku no takai hito desu". Alternaively, "Smith sensei wa toku ga takai desu" is also grammatically correct. As for the second second sentence, "janai desu" sounds colloquial. I would write "Kōatsuteki dewa arimasen". --Kusunose 14:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Both grammatically wrong. Number one should be わたしの高校は悪名高い or わたしの高校は悪名高うございます. But I prefer わたしの通っている高校は悪名が高い or わたしは悪名の高い高校に通っている. Number two should be, as User:Kusunose pointed out, Smith先生は徳の高い人で、高圧的ではありません. Strictly speaking, 徳が高いです is not good. Just Smith先生は徳が高い is better. Oda Mari (talk) 16:03, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait, 悪名高いです is wrong but 悪名高うございます is okay? I don't understand. -- BenRG (talk) 21:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Veränderungsmeldungen

In a 1952 archival photograph of the International Tracing Service facility in Arolsen, shelves with ring binders of document are topped by several signs with headings: "Transport Lists," "Effects of Prisoners," and another with two words together on one sign as follows:

• Fluchtmeldungen
• Veränderungsmeldungen

I understand the first to mean "notices of escape[s]" (?); what is the second? -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 11:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

"Notices of escapes" sound correct for the first one, the second one would be "notices of change" (change in a very general sense, a change of state of something or the other) -- Ferkelparade π 11:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Those "notices of change" can include births, deaths, new arrivals and people that were sent somewhere else. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 08:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, as in population movement. Excellent take; I'll incorporate that too. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 12:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Plurals and group names

moved from humanities desk Gwinva (talk) 20:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

1) Geese is the plural of goose; ducks is plural of duck, moose is plural of moose; mice is plural of mouse, deer is the plural of deer.

2) Male deer are called bucks and females are does; male moose are bulls and females are cows (moose and deer are related), male whales are called bulls and females called cows (not related to the moose/deer family), male bears are called boars (as are male pigs) and females are called sows (as are female pigs - not related families).

3) a gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, a heard of elephants, a pride of lions and a pod of whales.

How are these terms determined in the english language, particularly when the families are not related (such as bears and pigs or moose and whales)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.154.19.19 (talk) 19:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the terms used in your item number 3 are called Collective nouns; however I don't see what that has to do with the rest of your question. --LarryMac | Talk 20:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The usage comes about by usage, or by analogy, or sometimes by somebody deciding that there should be a word for a particular thing. (It's a herd of elephants, by the way) SaundersW (talk) 20:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

About your examples in 1) irregular plurals are just a coincidence caused by sound erosion over time. I recommend reading "The unfolding of language" by Guy Deutscher, if you want to find how irregularities are formed, and why they tend to affect specific words.

About 2) and 3) It is the same mess in French and I am pretty sure in other languages. Unless the term is very frequently used in the language, the word chosen was simply decided by analogy, sometime in the last 500 years, by a handfull of farmers or hunters that were not educated to the genetic family tree (which by the way probably didn't exist at the time, or was incorrect if it did). Not surprising that it doesn't make sense to modern biologists. Not everything is wrong, though: whales are relatively close to bovines actually (at least whales are closer to bovines than bovines are to horses), so "bull" and "cow" do make sense, in a way. --Lgriot (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The study of this subject is called venery.

(Interrupting) No it isn't; the words, or some of them, are "terms of venery" because venery is an old word for hunting and it was hunters that used them, or are supposed to have. --Anon, 23:50 UTC, May 6, 2008, edited 01:04, May 7.

There's a lovely little book called "An Exaltation of Larks or, The Venereal Game" by James Lipton, that lists hundreds of such terms, many of them very surprising indeed. And not all of them are about groups of animals, unless one considers humans to be animals. Four of my favourites are "a persistence of parents", "a descent of relatives", "an ennui of haute bourgeoisie", and "an indifference of waiters". Lipton describes 6 ways in which venereal terms come into being:

• onomatopoeia, e.g. a murmuration of starlings
• characteristic, e.g. a skulk of foxes
• appearance, e.g. a knot of toads
• habitat, e.g. a nest of rabbits
• comment, e.g. a cowardice of curs, and
• error, e.g. a school of fish (originally an incorrrect transcription of "shoal"). -- JackofOz (talk) 22:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

School wasn't "originally an incorrect transcription of 'shoal.'" It came into Middle English as an adaptation of Middle Dutch schole, which is indeed akin to the Old English scolu from which shoal descends, but the etymologies of school (the fish one, that is) and shoal are quite separate. Deor (talk) 22:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Well!! Double well!! I'll just shut up now. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

No, no! Don't shut up. I get a little pedantic at times, but I've nothing against Australians ("Don't want to hurt no kangaroo'). The initial [sk] sound in this school is a sure sign of its continental (Scandinavian or Dutch) ancestry; what's odd is how the other school (the academic one, from Latin scola) came to be spelled the way it is today. Deor (talk) 00:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

A rabble of ref-deskers? Gwinva (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Simply add to Lipton's categories a metaerror category:

• metaerror, e.g. a school of fish (originally incorrectly thought to be an incorrect transcription [sic] of "shoal").

But this prompts a question: are there any genuine occupants of the [first-order] error category?

We must not waste this opportunity to venerate the words venery and venereal (sullied though this latter be by fixed nosological associations), for the benefit of neophytes. Both can have to do with hunting – and so with chaste Diana, nicely enough; but in their other, separate derivation they are etymologically connected with Venus (as is venerate itself, by the way). There has been much play on these separate meanings by littérateurs of the frisky persuasion.

A caveat: venereal is recent and perhaps only jocular as an adjective for venery in the sense of hunting. It is not accorded that meaning in OED. The canonic adjective in the hunting sense is venatic, or venatical; or, attested only for the year 1612, venerial (separately listed also as a long-obsolete variant of venereal in the sense of sexual goings-on and proclivities).

Curious that Gwinva resorted to alliteration in finding a suitable collective for ref-deskers. That is a handy and effective move in this game, casting a glamour of aptness on the coinage. Compare some of the more fanciful nonce-formations – like cowardice of curs, above.

A kerfuffle of philosophers, a piffle of pedants, a waffle of Wikipedians.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 06:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

A lounge of linguists, a worry of wordsmiths, an allowance of alliterations. Gwinva (talk) 09:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

However, for an old list of these terms, see ["Sports and Pastimes of the People of England", by Joseph Strutt, published in 1801] page 19: Hunting terms. Here are some samples: a fesynes of ferrets; a huske or a down of hares; a nest of rabbits; a clowder of cats, and a kyndyll of young cats; a shrewdness of apes; and a labour of moles... a blush of boys; a bevy of ladies; a nonpatience of wives; a gagle of women; a gagle of geese; a superfluity of nuns; and a herd of harlots. Similar terms were applied to inanimate things, as a caste of bread, a cluster of grapes, a cluster of nuts, etc. SaundersW (talk) 17:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want a current example of how confusing plurals are and how new versions enter into common use, just look at words ending in -us some of which are not changed to -i or -a because they are not Greek/Latin in origin or English endings have already become common. Cactus - cacti, generus - genera, autobus -autobuses /-autobusses. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 08:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you were being a little generous with the spelling of the singular of genera, 71.236. Methinks it's "genus". Noetica's reference to metaerror reminds me of the old story about the guy who admitted he'd been wrong, but only once in his life. Then he explained that it turned out he hadn't been wrong after all, except that he'd been wrong to think he was wrong. I know exactly how he feels, poor chap. -- JackofOz (talk) 14:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Case in point. It is difficult. Look at the archive of the science reference desk for April 21 under "Octopi die after reproducing - why?" for another example. Often one form, singular or plural, is commonly used and one hits a roadblock when one has to use it in the other. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 23:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

translation of english to transylvania old script.

My daughter wants to get a tattoo of the words "My blood is your blood." What would that be in old transylvania script? Is hun rovas alphabet the closest or is there something else that would be better?65.124.250.132 (talk) 22:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC) Kari --65.124.250.132 (talk) 22:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

There is an article on Rovas in the WP. Apart from that, there may be a linguist specialising in this alphabet. If all fails, you could try the Hungarian WP for help. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Considering the fairly permanent nature of tattoos, I would strongly recommend that you get such a translation from a source you can trust. I'm not saying that it can't be someone from Wikipedia -- sure it can, if they have reasonable credentials to present, such as being natives and established and reputable Wikipedia editors, for example! But it definitely shouldn't be just some guy on the internet, unless you want to risk your daughter going around with a tattoo that actually reads something like "I'm with stupid" or "my blood equals your blood" or "I love bingo nights and bad spleling, lol" or something. Or worse. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 01:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't you have to translate that into Old Hungarian first? Or perhaps you want an old form of Romanian, which would also have been used in Transylvania. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Why worry about accuracy when no-one will be able to read it anyway? Koolbreez (talk) 13:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, if you don't care, that's fine by me. But the people who end up in a situation where someone points out that they have "I am stupid" or some variation thereof tattooed on their body -- and some people do end up exactly there -- usually end up caring. It's not that much fun to go around with pretty definitive proof of your ignorance and stupidity fairly permanently stamped on your body. I mean, why not make sure you're not making a fool of yourself? -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I read a story in the news a short while ago about an English girl who got a supposedly Chinese version of her boyfriend's name tattooed on her stomach. A Chinese speaking friend later pointed out that it actually just meant 'supermarket'. The couple laughed about it for a while but they have since broken up (for totally unrelated reasons) and she was dying to get rid of the tattoo for two reasons: 1. It reminded her of him; 2. It was an idiotic thing to have 'supermarket' tattooed on your stomach. Moral of this story is, if you are going to do it, make sure you really want it, and make sure you get it right!--ChokinBako (talk) 20:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The Chicago Tribune translated a few, and the weblog Hanzi Smatter deals with this on a regular basis. --LarryMac | Talk 20:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

One more thing, it is always a good idea to remember that certain jobs actually require that you DON'T have tattoos, at least in areas visible whilst working (e.g. armed forces, hotels, practically any job in Japan, etc.) so, as I said before, you really must know you want one before you get it, and be prepared to sacrifice certain possibilities in future occupations, as well as other things. The only people I know who have tattoos here in the UK are either tattoo artists, labourers, or people on benefits. I mean, seriously, it does limit your work options. Better just using a permanent marker or transfer or something, because they can be removed easily without costly laser treatment. Having a tattoo is not like wearing a certain style of clothing or having a certain hairstyle or body piercing, as they can easily be changed. Tattoos are very hard to remove.--ChokinBako (talk) 00:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)