Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 November 1

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November 1

Irish uvular R - really?

Our article on Hiberno-English makes the claim, "A uvular [ʁ] is found in north-east Leinster." I have difficulty imagining an Irish accent with an uvular R. Is there any well-known person who speaks this way? Is there perhaps a YouTube video in which the pronunciation is heard? LANTZY^TALK 01:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Bars and clubs

Is it coincidence that the two words also represent things that can be used as a weapon? Imagine Reason (talk) 02:47, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Both words would appear to be related to their weaponry namesakes. A bar which you lean on and drink at shares its root with the bar that is a rectangular, typically wooden, object. A club (of people) comes from the same root, meaning a clumping together, as the club you hit your enemy with. HiLo48 (talk) 02:59, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I imagine it's a coincidence. There are several synonyms that aren't weapon words (e.g. pub, disco). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Tavern. Bus stop (talk) 03:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I've been in bars where anything might be used as a weapon...AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:11, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I've got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it. Nyttend (talk) 01:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

IPA notation for diphthongs

I think I understand the IPA fairly well, but I sometimes get confused with the way diphthongs are notated. Here (permlink) it says:

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pure vowels are transcribed with one letter, as in English sun [sʌn]. Diphthongs are transcribed with two letters, as in English sign [saɪn] or sane [seɪn]. The two vowel symbols are chosen to represent the beginning and ending positions of the tongue, though this can be only approximate. [emphasis added; non-syllabic vowels-signifying diacritics omitted for simplicity]

Why does it not say anything about the lips? In German, ‹eu› (as in 'deutsch' or 'Euro') writes a diphthong that Wikipedia describes as /ɔʏ/ (a dictionary of mine uses /ɔy/, FWIW), and we use the same notation for Norwegian ‹oi›. I've studied both German and Norwegian, and I've always known and sensed those sounds as (nearly) exact analogues of English ‹oy› /ɔɪ/ (/ɪ/ being the unrounded counterpart of /ʏ/), that is I've never known that the ending position of the lips is or should be like when articulating German short 'ü'. That said, I'm sure I have seen that German diphthong represented as /ɔɪ/; at least Wiktionary does so, and it says here that "instead of the transcription /ɔʏ/, the transcription /ɔɪ/ is used as well". Further, a diphthong of Icelandic, which is a language exhibiting very little regional variety, is represented as /øi/ here and as /œy/ at de:.

So does it not make any difference for the IPA notation whether a (falling and closing) diphthong ends with the lips being rounded or unrounded? I'm listening to the Dutch word neus /nøʏs/, but I don't think that's how I would pronounce Norwegian høy /høʏ/ or døgn /døʏn/.

And also, the diphthongs in the Dutch words (for example) buit and Cruijff seem, as a whole, quite unlike from each other, although both are notated as /œy/ (the respective audio files are found at Dutch phonology#Vowels and Johan Cruijff; I haven't studied Dutch). Could anyone clarify?

Thanks in advance for any replies. --Theurgist (talk) 04:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I think your problem is that you start from a too educated standpoint.

1. Of course it makes a difference whether the lips are rounded or not. As a German I can reassure you in your opinion that <eu> is actually /ɔɪ/. The lip rounding, as you know, is noted here, since it is I not Y. That is, it can well be /ɔʏ/ when unstressed, e.g. when short as in Feuer, but in stressed, slow or carefully speech I would go as far as to say that /ɔʏ/ is sheer and utter nonsense. E.g.: When parting syllables and saying FEU-er, it would sound strange to say /ɔʏ/. However it would not sound that strange to a German when saying /fɔɪɐ/ in quick talking.

2. That said, the Wikiprojects are made by people who come along and find it nice to help other people. When doing so they can only draw from their own knowledge. So a German making an entry can only use the IPA as good as he's been taught it - and that education might as well be just reading Wikipedia - and reproduce sounds only in the way he perceives them. Also, the entries might be drawn from sources instead of knowledge and those sources might be wrong already. Also (see example oi-oy) what stands there might be true but not the whole truth.Dakhart (talk) 05:12, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

A recent topic (Nur aus Noigier) on the German reference desk discussed why (for whatever reason hidden in history) the spelling "eu" is used for the German diphthong ‹eu› (as in 'deutsch') that would be much better approximated by "oi". --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 12:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Yesterday I managed to skim through another two up-to-date dictionaries, both one of which issued by the same publishing house that issued the one I cited. One of them, a unidirectional bilingual one, notated "eu" as /ɔɪ/; the other, a monolingual one, used /ɔy/ for "eu" and /ɔɪ/ for a non-native diphthong found e.g. in Joint.

It's true that the notations for certain sounds in certain languages may vary in the various sources. But on Wikiprojects, while occasional mistakes are of course inevitable, IPA transcriptions are, in my observation, nevertheless relatively reliable (insofar as the sources are) - especially in pages "WP:IPA for X" and "X phonology", because Wikiprojects are usually supposed to be following reputable sources; and when it comes to things as widely applied within the projects as their standard transcriptions for German (and Norwegian) across articles, I think there still are people who are knowledgeable about the matter and take care of correcting whatever they find dodgy (hopefully) :). --Theurgist (talk) 03:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have to correct myself. The monolingual dictionary I checked is issued by another publishing company, namely Langenscheidt. A very nice hardcover illustrated edition comprising over 60 thousand entries. I'm revising my post. --Theurgist (talk) 20:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Dutch diphthong written as "ui" ("uij"/"uy")

Leaving notations aside, the second part of my query regards Dutch "ui" (spelt sometimes "uij", alternatively "uy", in proper names). I'm reading everywhere that its pronunciation could be nothing else but [œy], and so I'm hearing it in buit, huis and muis, zuid, Huijgens, Kuijt, etc, but I definitely feel that what is in Cruijff and Kluivert is something different. What is this due to? Presumably not a minimal pair, but maybe an alternative (non-standard?) pronunciation, or a regionalism, or am I just mishearing the latter two recordings? --Theurgist (talk) 03:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Dutch language#Polder Dutch discusses different pronunciations of the diphthong "ui" in different regions and social groups: it's a monophthong in Flanders, and there's a tendency in modern Netherlandish Dutch to lower the vowel. This doesn't give any indication why it would be pronounced differently in some words than others. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a linguist but as a Dutch native I can hear no difference between the ui in Cruijff or Kluivert (though of course I could have been trained not to hear a difference) Joepnl (talk) 22:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Apologies if I'm reminding you that the sky is blue, but European accents are terrifically/horrifically varied, sometimes becoming markedly different after 10km. I get frustrated enough with American pronunciation in SAE books, most of which were written in the 50s, when the accent was obnoxiously pure. (That people from the past sound silly is of course a well-known linguistic fact.) I resolve my frustrations in phonology by taking my own accent to its logical extremes of laziness, then doing a narrow transcription: "Utah" = /juɾə/ , "bosons" = /bɔːz.ns/ , and "rural" = /ɹ.ʟ/ . SamuelRiv (talk) 14:54, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Ring ring

When a phone alerts us that someone is calling, we say that it's "ringing". I haven't heard a phone actually ring for long time though. Not with a bell. And I bet there are plenty of children who have never heard a ringing sound come from a phone. Now they all emit some sort of electronic warble or beep. There is no bell to ring. Wiktionary defines "ring" as "To produce the sound of a bell or a similar sound". When did this "...or a similar sound" get added on? And can anyone tell me of any other words that have changed in this way? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 08:41, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, some of us still talk about "dialling" a phone number, when we actually punch numbers in a keypad, and the literal action of dialling is afaik obsolete pretty much everywhere. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:56, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

What's even stranger is phoning a business and being answered by the ubiquitous automated system that says "Dial 1 for ... Dial 2 for ...". If I actually had a dial telephone and dialled it almost certainly wouldn't work. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

We might also speak of the "return key" on a computer keyboard, which, uh, makes the computer's carriage return to the left side of the page. The shift key shifts the metal stamps up to allow their capital letters to reach the paper. SysRq is also fantastically anachronistic, but hasn't shifted in meaning because nobody ever talks about it or uses it.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Your ears can "ring" without sounding exactly like a bell. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I think perhaps that doesn't count because it's one of those etymologies that are apparently based on metaphors: and likewise, etymologies based on similarities wouldn't count. To borrow from a thread higher up the page: a bar is roughly bar shaped, a club is sort of a bunch of things (people). Nearly every word has a history like this. I presume Dismas wants a more specific search. Heh, unless he just wants words related to ringing. Hadn't thought of that interpretation.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I was responding to "When did this "...or a similar sound" get added on?". If your ears ring with "a similar sound" then this usage could be quite old. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

OIC, sorry.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I was on the same page as Card Zero. I see now as well. Dismas|^(talk) 09:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

What way is that, to be precise? I think you mean words which shift in meaning because the object (or action, or whatever) they refer to gradually evolves, rather than because a new object has appeared and needs a name. It could be one of the types listed under Semantic change#Types of semantic change, although I'm not sure which one. Perhaps "generalization of meaning" or "cohyponymic transfer".  Card Zero  (talk) 09:12, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was referring to the evolution of the object but would be interested in other examples as well. One that I just thought of is when we say that we are "writing an email". We aren't writing with pen or pencil though, we're typing. And I wasn't looking for just those related to ringing. Dismas|^(talk) 09:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

So that's what you're talking about ... oh wait, you aren't actually talking. Is that a metaphorical shift? I'm not sure. Is extending "writing" to include the creation of digital characters really a shift of meaning, or was the concept of writing future-proof all along, so that it already included such possibilities? I'm not sure about that either. We could say that "to ride" changed meaning with the invention of the bicycle, or the car (or the two-wheeled chariot), but I'm pretty sure it didn't. Hmm, writing and ringing were fairly narrowly defined prior to the recent technological explosion. Whatever other possibilities they might include didn't matter, because there weren't any other possibilities extant. I think "generalization of meaning" is what you're looking at.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:43, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

... We aren't writing with pen or pencil though, we're typing....
We're not typing either... Mitch Ames (talk) 12:09, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The glove compartment or glove box in a car is rarely used to store gloves these days. HiLo48 (talk) 09:57, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I beg to differ: I always keep a pair of gloves in mine (together with a scarf and balaclava), and have witnessed gloves in several other peoples', though it's not something one ordinarily checks out. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.254 (talk) 12:21, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Postage stamp. Not currently applied by stamping.  Card Zero  (talk) 10:05, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Spreadsheets used to be written on a sheet of paper, and words were typed on a typewriter. HiLo48 (talk) 10:09, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

You often hear people talking about "filming" something, even when they are using video equipment. Some will have advanced to using the term "taping," referring to videotape. Commercial television is now most often shot on cameras that record on a disc, yet we have not evolved into calling it "discing." And for even smaller cameras, does it become "chipping"? — Michael J 10:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

"Art" no longer has to involve any skill. Corks can be made of plastic or rubber. Holidays aren't all holy days, and I suspect Christmas no longer has as a prerequisite any mass (liturgy) or any Christ. A battery (electricity) can be a single cell, not necessarily a battery of cells.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:00, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

According to the OED, a car originally meant any wheeled vehicle or conveyance, and generally referred to a carriage, chariot, cart, wagon or such contrivances ("They gaue carres that they should bring Cedar trees from Libanus." 1 Esdras v. 55, King James Bible (1611)). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The shortstop no longer positions himself between second base and the pitcher. Speaking of which, pitchers don't really pitch, and bowlers don't really bowl: since the 19th century, they have delivered the ball overhand. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:55, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Except on one occasion in 1981 when New Zealand went close to declaring war on Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 01:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Carrying on Bugs's sports theme: In American football, you don't have to actually touch the ball down on the ground to score a touchdown; however the game that American football evolved from, which is rugby, has a score called a try, where you DO actually have to touch the ball down on the ground to score. The word touchdown comes from the rugby practice of "grounding the ball" in the goal area to score points; very early on American football abandoned the need to physically "ground the ball" to score a touchdown, but still kept the word to describe the score, making it a "misnomer" of the type noted throughout this thread. --Jayron32 02:52, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you even have to use your foot in American football? Mitch Ames (talk) 11:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

It is rather hard to run without them... --Jayron32 13:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

And they are essential for making field goals. Textorus (talk) 10:42, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Cavalry has nowadays come to refer to motorized or aerial miltary units rather than units of horsemen. Deor (talk) 12:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Misnomer begins with a few examples of "an older name being retained as the thing evolved", and says "this is essentially a metaphorical extension", which I think is itself essentially a metaphorical extension. (Old versions of the article, prior to a pruning effort, have some more examples.)  Card Zero  (talk) 12:28, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

"Upper case" and "lower case" originally referred to the physical wooden cases that the various bits of type were stored in, when (human) printers were laying out printed items. "Font" derives from the metal foundry where the type was actually created. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:31, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

One rarely uses a penknife these days to carve a feather into a quill pen. HiLo48 (talk) 03:18, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

If you are asking when the phrase "or a similar sound" was added to the Wiktionary entry, it appears to have been in 2005: diff. The OED entry on "ringing, adj.1", states, as the first definition, "Having or giving out the sound of a bell, or of some similar metallic body; resounding, resonant. Also fig." Some early and more modern quotations from the OED that don't refer to bells: 1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis ii. 25 "Thee skyes lowd rumbled with ringing thunderus hurring." 1602 F. Herring tr. J. Oberndoerffer Anat. True Physit. 17 "The ringing Name and Fame of a great Phisition." 2007 Independent 23 Nov. (Extra section) 5/4 "Ringing phones, beeping Blackberrys and bulging inboxes—the modern office worker finds it increasingly difficult to walk away from the desk." Also the noun form, "ringing, n.1", has as its first defintion "The act of causing a bell or resonant object to sound. Also in various extended uses." While I'm at it, the main definition for "ring, n.2", is "A ringing sound or noise, esp. of a bell." Example, 1856 E. K. Kane Arctic Explor. I. vii. 69 "‘Twang, twang!’ came a second report. I knew it was the whale~line by the shrillness of the ring." In short, the "non-bell" usage of "ring" and "ringing" seems to go back as far as the OED traces usage. I don't think it was ever "added on". Pfly (talk) 06:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

We still hang up at the end of phone calls, despite the fact that few of us hang our phones on the wall these days. Similarly, in French on raccroche, which would be a little more like re-hang up.

As for when phones stopped having actual bells inside, according to Trimline telephone#Timeline, in late 1984 the Touch-tone Trimline phone had an electronic chirp ringer in the handset, replacing the previous real bell ringer. I'm not sure if that was the first phone to ditch the bell, though.

For an example from another field, ASCII code had a "BEL" code from at least 1968, despite the fact that few computers had an actual bell. In most cases it would make some electronic beep. StuRat (talk) 02:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

As noted in the ASCII article, first use was for teleprinters, which did have physical bells. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

But it was soon used on computers (by the 1970's, at least). StuRat (talk) 05:22, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Folk who seem uncomfortable with the word toilet don't go to the restroom to rest nor to the bathroom to take a bath. HiLo48 (talk) 06:49, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

And folk who are not uncomfortable with the word toilet don't use the toilet as a cover or bag for their clothes. Angr (talk) 07:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to wash my hands of this entire thread (I will wash them in the toilet, of course). :-) StuRat (talk) 23:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Derivation of the English word "bad"

Where did the English word "bad" come from? It doesn't have a cognate with any other Indo-European language that I can find, and it isn't even cognate with the Germanic "schlecht". The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bad rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Was there an Old English word similar to "schlecht"? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:33, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and it's the source of the Modern English word "slight". [[1]] Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:56, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised nobody proposed "bed" as the source of the word "bad". After all, "to bed" had the meaning of engaging in sexual relations back then, did it not ? And weren't unmarried women who did so back then thought of as "bad" women ? StuRat (talk) 01:55, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this makes sense. Sounds like a bad folk etymology to me, and the pronunciations of bad and bed had very different vowels at the relevant time -- which is why they are still spelled differently. Hans Adler 10:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

"Bed" originally referred to a garden plot (noun) and to digging to plant (or embed) the seed (verb). The more general meaning of a "resting place" expanded into the current usages.[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:58, 4 November 2011 (UTC)