Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 December 2

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December 2

Fiat

In the Village Pump there is a thread about people doing something "by fiat". Despite I can guess the idea from the context, what does "fiat" means? Is it a real word, or is it an acronym of something else, such as LOL or IMHO? I didn't want to interrupt the thread with such an off-topic question, so I prefered to ask somewhere else MBelgrano (talk) 12:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's Latin. See wikt:fiat. Algebraist 12:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia also has an article on Fiat (policy debate), but it's so badly written you'll probably be more confused rather than less if you read it. +Angr 13:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Near as I can tell "by fiat" (by "let it be done" - possibly from the verb "facere", "to do") is essentially the same as "by executive order". The car company called Fiat was originally an acronym. That article doesn't seem to say if they intentionally named it for "fiat" or whether it was a coincidence. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This even led to jokes about Fiat having bribed the Roman Curia to promote their brand through product placement in Pater noster ("Fiat voluntas Tua"). — Kpalion^(talk) 17:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's actually from fio which functions as the passive of facere but is etymologically unrelated to it. +Angr 14:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

See fiat lux. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

"See me right" in US English

I was listening to One Day Like This, by the magnificently named Elbow, and it occurred to me that the lyrics "One day like this a year'd see me right" includes not just colloquial ENGVAR but a British English colloquialism that isn't fantastically widespread, even in Britain.

My question is, when Americans (in particular) hear this lyric, do they intuitively understand the expression because of context? Or is the expression well known in America? Or are you baffled? I appreciate I'm asking for some subjective opinions, rather than generalising. I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who don't have much contact with Brits, especially northerners, like the members of Elbow.

Ta! --Dweller (talk) 15:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll make a stab at it. I am not the most insular American, but I've never lived in the United Kingdom, and I'm not familiar with the song. The meaning of this lyric is not at all transparent to me, and the idiom is certainly not used in my variety of English. If I had to guess, I'd guess that "see me right" means something like "satisfy me". That is just an intuitive hunch, and I'm not sure where it comes from. Marco polo (talk) 16:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Also never been to the UK, though I have seen a fair number of Britcoms (haven't heard the song though). My initial impression is that it's talking about money, and that the day in question was particularly profitable - enough to live off of for a year. I also get the impression that on most days the speaker doesn't make much if any money. This impression is probably colored by the recent Black Friday in the US - a very large shopping day which puts retailers "in the black" (makes them profitable) for the year. -- 128.104.112.95 (talk) 17:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, American, never been to the UK, and watch a few shows like Dr Who and Top Gear. I'd take it the same as Marco Polo above. So who's right? Dismas|^(talk) 22:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm American, I have been to the UK on multiple occasions, I attend a Church of England church every week where at least 30% of the congregation is British, and I currently work with a woman from Yorkshire and a man from Lancashire, and I've still never heard this figure of speech. I too can only guess at what it might mean, namely "One day like this a year would be enough for me". +Angr 07:39, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

(native speaker here) You're both right, Marco and 128.104: obviously it depends on context. In the context of the song - a man waking up on a sunny day and realising for the first time he's in love - tells you it's Marco's version that's in use here. The idea is "if I only had one day like this each year I would be happy". We tend to use the second meaning in the sense of settling a debt. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:53, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm English but haven't returned to the UK from the States in four decades. Isn't there also sometimes an implication of something that will look after you, provide for you or protect you (not necessarily financially) as in "Good seamanship and good weather will see this ship right", "Listen to nurse, and she'll see you right" or "Just you see, British grit, the R.A.F. and Mr Churchill will see us right" — or is that more "see [us] through"? —— Shakescene (talk) 12:12, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, if preceded by a person or pronoun, it does mean "look after". How interestingly confusing for our visitors. --Dweller (talk) 09:43, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no right to exist in this thread, but I'm going to anyway. The expression is sometimes heard in Australia, where it usually means someone is being assured they'll not be left uncompensated or out of pocket as a result of something they've been asked to do. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting stuff guys, thanks. Yes, it's about being satisfied. In London colloquialism, we're more likely to say "that'd do me fine" or "that'd do me just fine" or just "that'd do". --Dweller (talk) 13:19, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd go along with JackofOz's definition above being equally applicable to English English. Bazza (talk) 14:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the idiom (I'm British), but only in the second person, except as a more-or-less direct quotation. ie. "I'll see you right" is usual, but if I heard "He'll see me right" I would take it that 'He' had actually said so to the speaker. --ColinFine (talk) 00:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Rounded front vowels in English

As you can see from my IP, I'm no native speaker of English. I noticed some sounds that seem to be rounded front vowels in English. I know that there are some dialects which feature those vowels, like [y] and [ʏ] in Scottish, [ʉ:] in Australian or [ø:] in SAfrican English. But I also hear those vowels in "normal" English (BE and AE). So I hear for example [bʏɹi] instead of [bɛɹi] for "bury". And /ɜ:/ seems to be rounded for me, like [œ:] or [ɞ:]: "nurse" is [nœ:s]. Are my ears fooling me? Btw, the creator of Volapük also heard those rounded vowels ;) --88.73.110.160 (talk) 17:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Ahem... an IP address in Germany does not necessarily make one a non-native speaker of English. +Angr 17:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It probably depends on the region. I'm from rural Pennsylvania and my vowel in "nurse" is definitely [ɝ] (it's quite ugly). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you are right that front vowels are rounded in certain contexts in certain (nonstandard) varieties of English. This rounding is not phonemic, however. I would not be surprised to hear [bʏɹi] for bury, though offhand I can't say which varieties of English would have that pronunciation. A well-known California pronunciation of the word dude is [dy:d]. Certainly the vowel in nurse is rounded in some non-rhotic varieties of English, though not in Received Pronunciation. Marco polo (talk) 18:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the question is, since I'm only seeing little boxes for the IPA's. About the other thing, the ones who say "dyude" also say "cyool". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added IPA encoding so more editors can see the IPA.— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Not only is the vowel of bird rounded in many dialects (especially rhotic ones) but the acoustic similarities with front rounded vowels (or, more generally, non-back rounded vowels) are so strong that many English speakers pronounce Joseph Goebbels's name as [ˈɡɝbəlz] (as if it were spelled Gerbles) and Russian speakers attempting to pronounce this vowel in English tend to palatalize the preceding consonant (because a preceding palatalized consonant causes /o/ to be more front in Russian) so that bird is pronounced [bʲɵ̞d]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Often /r/ and /s/ show rounding which can spread (especially to vowels) since rounding is underspecified in English vowel phonology. Synchronism (talk) 01:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

/s/? I'd heard the postalveolar consonants in English were rounded, but not /s/. You sure you got that right? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Well what I wrote was hearsay too, but I think this [1] might have something to that effect.Synchronism (talk) 05:28, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Finnish

How do you say (and pronounce) in Finnish:

• Look at the socks!
• Look at the sea!
• Look at the mink!

--151.51.22.147 (talk) 20:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

• Katsokaa sukat!

• Katsokaa meri!
• Katsokaa minkki!

--KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 19:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

These sentences are ungrammatical, the object needs to be in the partitive case. Also, katsokaa is plural, while the English look is ambigous. With singular forms the translations would be:

• Katso sukkia
• Katso merta
• Katso minkkiä

These phrases sound similar to Italian cazzo succhia, cazzo merda and cazzo minchia, all of which have a rather vulgar meaning. At least the cazzo merda one is a well-known joke, I guess that's the reason why the (Italian) IP asked the question. --BishkekRocks (talk) 20:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I guessed it was a joke question, this is why I gave a (partially) joke answer. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 23:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Meaning of the phrase "touch Indians"

On his nationally syndicated (USA) radio show, Dennis Miller uses the phrase "touch Indians" in the following context. When he implores listeners to call the show, he says something like "Give me a call so we can touch Indians". What is the etymology of that phrase?Chief41074 (talk) 20:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's one answer. --LarryMac | Talk 20:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Eleven minutes; I'm impressed. ThanksChief41074 (talk) 21:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Knowing Miller's enjoyment of extremely obscure references, it makes sense. Lost in America. Go out and see the real America. Touch Indians. Yup. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:51, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to have met................

Or......I would have liked to meet.....Or.......I would have liked to have met.......

I am English with a somewhat dusty English Language qualification but the older I get, the more uncertain I become about correct usages such as those above. Is it me, or this incredibly complex language? And is there any hope for me??? 92.21.53.35 (talk) 23:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for saying that - I'm glad I'm not alone! I was similarly confused about word order the other day, and Teratornis had a nice reply at User:Teratornis#Simple English Wikipedia. — Sebastian 00:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC) Struck after I realized that this was not about word order. — Sebastian 22:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that both possibilities you suggest are technically acceptable, but technically have different meanings: "I would have liked to meet" means "At some point in the past, I wanted to meet". "I would have liked to have met" means something like "At some point in the past, I wished that further in the past I had met". You probably don't often need to express the second thought, and people often use the second expression when they really want to express the first thought, so even if you wanted to express the second thought, people would probably think that you were expressing the first thought poorly. So "I would like to have met" is probably what you want. Marco polo (talk) 02:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

(out) "Is it me, or this incredibly complex language?" Every natural language is complex. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)