Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 April 8

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April 8

Different people have different tastes

à chacun son goût OR chacun à son goût.

Which is better French, s'il vous plait? -- 00:45, 8 April 2010 User:Wanderer57

Jack's son has the gout. That said, i hear the second version more often, although both would seem to be grammatically correct. Gzuckier (talk) 06:05, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

As Flanders and Swann put it: I don't care for sherry, one cannot drink stout, And port is a wine I can well do without. It's simply a case of chacun a son gout, Have some Madeira, m'dear! AndrewWTaylor (talk) 07:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Not sure either of my sons would agree, Gzuckier. They're both pretty healthy.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Our List of French words and phrases used by English speakers article confirms what Gzuckier wrote, and adds chacun ses goûts and à chacun ses goûts - I'm assuming these are French phrases used correctly in that language. Googling sites ending in .fr shows à chacun son goût to be the more common of the two by a large margin, with the latter occurring mostly in song titles, etc. -- the Great Gavini 08:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

As a French native speaker (from France) I say: à chacun son goût. Of course it depends on the context, I could say: chacun a son goût particulier,…. Note, there is no accent on the a (it is a form of the verb avoir), in this latter phrase. The verb avoir can be ommitted like in chacun ses goûts as pointed out by The Great Gavini. Chacun à son goût seems to be used mainly by English speakers. I am not sure that it is correct in (modern) French (because of the accent on the a: à is a preposition in this case). — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:43, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I have to correct myself. We can say in French chacun à son goût. But I would not use it in the same way (Chacun à son goût = chacun selon son goût). I would say: Wagner ou Bach ? Á chacun son goût ! (Wagner or Bach ? It's a matter of taste! or Each to his own!) But: Ajoutez du vin blanc ou rouge, chacun à son goût.: Add some red or white wine, according to your own taste. Some may have a different opinion: I am not member of the Académie Française. — AldoSyrt (talk) 14:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Or perhaps, De gustibus non est disputandum Rmhermen (talk) 18:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

In the context of "to each to his own" we say chacun son goût, chacun ses couleurs -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 17:48, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Sprachbund

From the article on Khmer language: As a result of geographic proximity, the Khmer language has affected, and also been affected by; Thai, Lao, Vietnamese and Cham many of which all form a pseudo-sprachbund in peninsular Southeast Asia, since most contain high levels of Sanskrit and Pali influences....but why is it a "pseudo-sprachbund" since the languages in a sprachbund needn't be genetically related?--达伟 (talk) 12:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the "pseudo"-part is because those languages have not (primarily) borrowed from each other, but have a shared borrowing from other languages (namely Sanskrit and Pali). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Translation from French into English

Can a user please translate the following from French into English: “Il y a au milieu de leur synagogue une chaire magnifique & fort élevée, avec un beau couffin brodé; c’est la chaire de Moise, … ils mettent le livre du Pentateuque, & en font la lecture.” Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 15:20, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be something missing, but the passage is something like "In the middle of their synagogue there was a magnificent and high chair, with a lovely embroidered crib; it was the chair of Moses (?) ... they placed [there] the book of the Pentateuch and read it". rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Is chaire a chair or a pulpit? I think in this case, the latter. The word couffin in French means "basket" and by extension "a kind of basket used as a crib"; I think that a translation closer to the French meaning would be "Moses basket". But the translation will be ackward: "with a lovely embroidered Moses basket; it was the pulpit of Moses [~ dedicated to Moses]...". — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC).

(edit conflict)This page gives "In the centre of all is 'the throne of Moses,' a magnificent and elevated chair, with an embroidered cushion, upon which they place the book of the law while it is read" which I think is a little better. -- the Great Gavini 17:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

In hindsight, the translation I gave is probably the most preferable, because the original seems to be English and by a Mr. James Finn (as in the link I gave). -- the Great Gavini 17:23, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

According to this link the original language is Portuguese and the writer is Jean-Paul Gozani (a French Jesuit). Aside, in this book it is not a couffin (Moses basket) but a coussin (cushion), in old French some letters s looked like f: an error of transcription in the OP text? — AldoSyrt (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I have found the OP text here and, yes! it is coussin not couffin. — AldoSyrt (talk) 20:11, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Jean-Paul Gozani is apparently Italian, not French (don't have full access to journals, but see these results). But whether French or not, assumptions cannot be made from the French version as if it were the Portuguese original. -- the Great Gavini 11:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

According to this link, Jean-Paul Gozani was from Piedmont which was part of the House of Savoy at this time. This can explain his "French" first name. — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Then I would question the English translation linked by the Great Gavini. Chaire is almost certainly a pulpit, not a chair. When one is going to read from a book, one places the book on a pulpit, not a chair. The English translator might have been put off by the cushion, but it is easy to imagine the Torah resting on a cushion atop the pulpit. Marco polo (talk) 20:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

That's what I thought, but it's a synagogue, and a rather plain one at that, making it uncertain whether it is a chair or something fancier. I doubt that Marcopolo's and AldoSyrt's translation as "pulprit" is tenable since it is a synagogue. [C]haire could well be a French mistranslation from the Portuguese - I don't think chaires exist in synagogues. But in translating as "chair" I'm assuming Finn translated from the Portuguese original and not a French version. I've hunted high and low for the Portuguese original but in vain, making this whole exercise futile at best. -- the Great Gavini 11:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

According to this link the bibliography of Mr. Finn's book refers to the French translation (Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, écrites des missions étrangères). I have not found a reference to the original Portuguese text. — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

There's an article about the long s which explains why the letter 's' could look a bit like the letter 'f'. --Kjoonlee 23:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Is that usage of "chair" as "throne" or "pulpit", where we get expressions like "chairman" and "I have the chair"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Apparently OED. -- the Great Gavini 11:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The feature of the synagogue that is probably being described as a chaire is the bimah, which is more like a pulpit than a chair. Marco polo (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think so. The bimah is the whole platform or dais, which may contain several lectern and seats. --ColinFine (talk) 20:40, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

However, this is one definition of chaire in French. Here is a link you can refer to, and especially the definition B. 3. Moreover you can notice the French phrase: Être assis (dans) sur la chaire de Moïse. Enseigner la loi de Moïse chez les Juifs in Definition B. 1. (To be seated (in) on the Moses Chaire = To teach the Moses law in Jewish people.) — AldoSyrt (talk) 10:42, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

According to the Portuguese Wiki, the word càtera (chair, professorship; chaire in French) at the origin means: " a seat located on a platform on which a professor gave medieval lectures". I don't speak Portuguese, so my translation may be wrong (I know, it is not good English either). Moreover, today, we don't know the exact word used in the Portuguese original, therefore I fear that this mystery will never be fathomed. — AldoSyrt (talk) 12:20, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 12:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there really such a thing as the "Jewish Bible"?

I went to a religious school, and also went to church frequently, as a child, and throughout all that time since then up until a minutes or two ago I thought that 'the bible' only referred to the Christian bible. Now, reading the Bible article for the first time, I've been shocked to see that the article is not just about the bible (as I knew it), but also describes what is described as the "Jewish Bible", which I've never heard of before. I'm really shocked that if I refer to "the bible" then someone asks me which bible I'm refering to?! Surely there's only one, although it does include both the Old and New Testaments, and with some variation for the Protestant and Catholic versions.

So do Jewish people really refer to the Torah and so on as the "Jewish bible"? Wouldnt they actually just refer to it as "The Torah"? Isnt the phrase "Jewish Bible" just a phrase or metaphor someone has made up very recently, and which seems to be loaded with an agenda? I'm now an aetheist so I've no preference or loyalty to either religion. Thanks 78.144.248.81 (talk) 21:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

See Jewish Bible. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:01, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Isnt that like a metaphor? For example I could call the British Prime Minister "the British President". And then when someone refers to "the President" I ask "Do you mean the American president, or the British President?" 78.144.248.81 (talk) 22:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

If there had never been any such thing as the Christian bible, then the expression "Jewish bible" wouldnt exist either. So its a derived phrase. 78.147.131.74 (talk) 19:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

See Bible (disambiguation). -- Wavelength (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Cross posted to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#Abrahamic religious_texts. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Please may I beg to disagree about it being cross posted, since the questions are not the same, although they are both about religious texts. 78.144.248.81 (talk) 22:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC).

See Definitions of Bible - OneLook Dictionary Search and http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Bible and http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Bible. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

78.144.248.81 — you are probably right. Based on personal observation I would say that common speech equates "Bible" with "Christian Bible." But the other usage is not unheard of. Bus stop (talk) 22:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The Concise Oxford Dictionary sixth edition has as its first meaning for bible the Christian scriptures, the second meaning says "Scriptours of other religions; authoritative book". It does not say anything about a Jewish Bible. How far back has the phrase "Jewish Bible" go in common use? What countries is it used in - I suspect it may be more used in North America perhaps.

Is there such a thing as the Muslim Bible then? Would Muslims refer to it as such, and not the Qur'an? 78.144.248.81 (talk) 22:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The Torah is only the first of three parts of the Hebrew Bible, also called the Tanakh so no, Jews would not confuse Torah with Tanakh. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 23:01, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Do Jewish people use the word "bible" in conversation between themselves? Wouldnt they use the word Tanakh? 78.144.248.81 (talk) 23:14, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Not always. See, for example, International Bible Contest. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Google's news archive has examples of the phrase "Jewish Bible" dating back as far as 1856, so it's not a new term. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

78.144.248.81 — "Tanakh" is not an English word. (It's actually a a Hebrew acronym.) Why would English-speaking Jews use a non-English term? Bus stop (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Because their Jewish? As Christians use as lot of non-English terms, such as "bible" for example. 78.147.131.74 (talk) 19:45, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not? Plenty of Jews I know say "Pesach" instead of "Passover", for instance. 128.135.222.164 (talk) 00:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Some Christians say "Pesach" too. Anyone can use any word that they choose. But the point I was trying to make is that an English-speaking Jew need not use a foreign-to-the-English-language term if a familiar English word is available. Exceptions certainly abound. The fact that someone uses a word (in this case) indicates very little. User:78.144.248.81 is questioning whether a Jew would use the word "bible." My answer, in a nutshell, is: possibly. Bus stop (talk) 01:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

More than "possibly". My Jewish friends refer to "The Bible" and what they are actually referring to is what us Christians called "The Old Testament". Keep in mind that "bible" is the anglicized word that simply means "book". Hence a traditional Christian bible is titled not just "Bible" but "Holy Bible" (holy book). Also, I think Muslims refer to the "Holy Quran", as the word "quran" by itself simply means "recitations" or something like that. Also, "Pesach" is Hebrew, and its exact translation is "Passover". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

If Fiddler on the Roof can teach you anything about Jewish customs, the book in question is usually referred to as "the good book". ;)-Andrew c ^[talk] 21:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

"The Good Book" is also used to denote the Christian Bible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

78.144.248.81, what do you think the "Old Testament" is? —Tamfang (talk) 04:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Weighing in here as a 4th generation US Jew raised anglophone in the Reform Movement and since the mid-1980s a "secular" naturalized Israeli speaking Hebrew: American Jews refer to "the Bible" whose first five books are "the Torah." Apart from this is the Christians' Scripture which Jews refer to as the "New Testament" and includes the Four Gospels. The term "Old Testament" is in widespread usage, as it's known that Christians refer to the Bible as including both "Old" and "New." Jews are likely to use the term "[what non-Jews call the] Old Testament" outside the fold. Besides being fairly intuitive, the term "Jewish Bible" may be considered a euphemism (presumably among believing Jews) for "Old Testament" to avoid the qualifier "old" by those for whom the "new" isn't acknowledged as part of the Scripture. In general, a Jew referring to a "biblical expression" unqualified, would implicitly not consider the New Testament as included. Being characteristically ignorant of Hebrew terms (as Reform Judaism didn't embrace Zionism until 1970), I didn't know the term Tanakh (Hebrew acronym for "Pentateuch, Prophets, Writings"), though American Jews of the streams (Conservative, Orthodox) better grounded in Hebrew do perhaps use it in the vernacular, similar to the variant usage in English of Passover/Pesach noted above, or [the]Sabbath/Shabbat (Shabbos). Deborahjay (talk) 08:26, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The word "Tanakh" has occurred prominently on the cover or title page of Jewish Publication Society Bible translations since 1985. AnonMoos (talk) 09:40, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Describing the Tanakh as the "Jewish Bible" is I think a prime example of a Reification (fallacy). It presumably was originally used as a metaphor, now for some (possibly mostly North Americans, I'm just guessing) its used without being aware of the metaphor. 78.147.131.74 (talk) 20:00, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

In what way is calling the Tanakh the (Hebrew or Jewish) Bible an example of reification? Jews have just as much right to refer to their Scriptures as "the Bible" as Christians do, if not more right to do so. First, see our article Bible, which correctly states that the term Bible can refer to either the Jewish or the Christian scriptures. In that article, you will see that "The Greek phrase Ta biblia (lit. "little papyrus books")[5] was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books several centuries before the time of Jesus,"[6] and would have referred to the Septuagint.[7]". This Greek term, which is the origin of the English word Bible was used to refer to the Jewish scriptures before it was used for the Christian scriptures. Perhaps you grew up thinking that "the Bible" was always a reference to the Christian Bible. In fact, it is not. Marco polo (talk) 20:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

You clearly do not understand reification. Another issue is if there is a Jewish bible then there ought to be a Muslim bible, a Hindu bible, and so on. As a former Christian I am offended by the word bible being misused in this way. Its like Linux users deciding to call it "Windows(Linux)" or "Lindows" or whatever, or Canadians calling themselves "Camericans" or some other made up name. Pity its not a trade-mark. If you are going to have a seperate (although Abrahamic) religion, why try to disguise it as another religion? 89.242.144.8 (talk) 11:47, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Why should there be any such thing, considering that the Bible is not an authoritative canonical scripture for either Muslims or Hindus?? Your other assertions approach close to unintelligibility. AnonMoos (talk) 15:09, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Some Christians regard the O.T. as being merely "background" to the N.T. Similarly, Islam seems to regard the O.T. and the N.T. togethr as being merely "background" to the Quran. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:16, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Any form of Christianity which relegates the Old Testament to being "merely background" to anywhere remotely near the same degree that Islam relegates Jewish and Christian scriptures to being "merely background", is called "Marcionist", a derogatory epithet which refers to a severe ancient heresy... AnonMoos (talk) 15:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

That's not quite true. There were several different streaks of early Christianity that did not believe that "God" (i.e. the Jesus-sender) was Jehova/Yahweh/the creator god of the old testament. This was quite prevalent in the gnostic streaks influenced by Platonic philosophy, who used this argument to explain the apparent contradiction that the creation of a perfect, omnipotent and well-meaning god was anything but. The Marcionites were only one of these groups. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and Marcionism was considered to be borderline Gnosticism by some, as explained in the Marcionism article. Marcionism includes the distinction between a semi-evil demiurge and the true high God, but omits most of the fanciful Gnostic cosmogony and claims to special exclusive private mystical revelations -- so from the traditional mainstream "orthodox" Christian point of view, Gnosticism is Marcionism plus other additional objectionable heretical features... AnonMoos (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems like the OP is saying that just because he never heard the Old Testament referred to as "The Bible", that somehow something's wrong. Although "Holy Bible" is now the predominant use of the term, probably thanks to there being so many more Christians than Jews, it's pretty evident that the Christians borrowed the term from the Jews. Just another example of Christians having borrowed something from Judaism (such as reconfiguring the Seder as the Communion). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Speculate all you like. 89.242.144.8 (talk) 11:47, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Thus spake the driveth-by. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:32, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

According to Biblical scholar Mark Hamilton (chosen at random -- any source would do), published as part of the "From Jesus to Christ" website for the PBS series "Frontline" episode of the same name: "The English word 'Bible' is from the Greek phrase ta biblia, 'the books,' an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books several centuries before the time of Jesus." So that answers your question: the Jews used the word "Bible" hundreds of years before Christianity existed. Meanwhile, without searching for citations I can assure you that the Jewish Scriptures (later falsely called the "Old Testament") were essentially established in their present form by 100 AD, a time at which some of the books of the Christian "Bible" had not yet been written, and at which there was nothing REMOTELY resembling a "canon" of Christian books (which resulted from a two-century process -- eliminating dozens of early Christian books -- that did not properly begin until the mid- to late-second century). So, quite simply, the "Bible" WAS the "Hebrew Bible," i.e., the "Jewish Scriptures," and needed no qualifier. Only after the Jewish Christians were marginalized and finally eliminated (circa 135 AD at the latest) did the Gentile Christians find it necessary to refer to the "Hebrew" Bible or the "Jewish" scriptures (you certainly don't find any qualifiers in the many, many references to "scriptures" in the "New" Testament, including those attributed to Jesus himself, for whom "'Jewish' scriptures" would have been an outrageous redundancy). What exactly is your gripe with this historical fact? 63.17.91.51 (talk) 05:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Past tense words

What are the types of different versions of verbs in the past tense called, such as "Mommy, it fell and broke" versus "Mommy, it didn't fall or break?" DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 23:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

See Participle. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 00:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the participles would be "falling", "fallen", "breaking", "broken", not any of the forms above.... AnonMoos (talk) 01:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Hm. When there's an auxiliary verb (here did), is the main verb called an "infinitive" though to is absent? —Tamfang (talk) 04:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It's called "non-finite". rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes called the "short infinitive" (but the only verb where you can really tell based on morphological form in Modern English is "be"). AnonMoos (talk) 09:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

See English verbs. The forms you ask about are all examples of the English preterite. The affirmative forms use the inflected preterite form of the main verb. The negative forms use the inflected preterite form of the auxiliary verb do (i.e., did), plus the negative particle n't, followed by the "naked" or "short infinitive" form of the main verb. Marco polo (talk) 16:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

From my memory of high school grammar, I thought that they were called: simple (he swam); emphatic (he did swim); and progressive (he was swimming) forms of the past tense. Thanks. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC))