Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 February 29

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February 29

Japanese myth -- need kanji confirmation

I am doing research on Asian mythology and I need help locating a specific set of Kanji in the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. The section about the man retrieving the robe of the fire rat talks of how it was supposedly brought to China by an "Indian Priest." I'm pretty sure this is referring to a Buddhist priest, but I would like to know if the kanji for "priest" in the story is the type that is usually applied to Buddhist masters. I believe this is the full tale here. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

From Googling around I think it is かしこき天竺の聖 (kashikoki Tenjiku no hijiri) "great Indian priest".--Cam (talk) 03:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The online dictionaries that I have consulted state that this is often used to refer to a Buddhist monk. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 03:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Cam is right, but it is 賢き, not かしこき. See Tenjiku and this and click こうそう(高僧). Oda Mari (talk) 07:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Spanish translations

I'm working on making Spanish captions for File:PepperswithscovilleCentralMarketHoustonTX.JPG - Illustrating increasing levels of spiciness with the Scoville scale

Some questions:

• "That's quite hot enough now" (as in "please don't make it hotter") - Would "Es lo suficientemente caliente ahora" express the idea adequately?
• "The # of scoville units indicats [sic] the amount of capsaicin present." is it best as "El número de unidades Scoville se indica la cantidad de capsaicina." ?
• "The greater the # the hotter the pepper." is it best as "Cuanto mayor el número más potente es el calor de la pimienta." ?
• "What heat?" (as in, "I am not feeling any heat") - "¿Qué calor?"
• "Oh, that heat." (as in "I am starting to feel heat")
• "Uh oh." - "¡ay no!" (as in "I have a feeling the heat may be difficult")

And what are these names of peppers in Spanish?

• Cubanelle
• Anaheim
• Cascabel
• Red Fresno - "Fresno rojo"?
• Hungarian hot wax
• Serrano de arbol - "Chile de árbol"?
• Thai
• Habanero

How best to represent the onomatopoeia "Ha ha... ha..." (NOT laughing, but as in a person is in pain) and "Aahhhh!" (as if one is screaming) in Spanish? WhisperToMe (talk) 05:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Spanish Wikipedia has a list of peppers by Scoville rating at es:Escala Scoville, which contains many of the chillies you mention (they all seem to be more or less equivalent - e.g. Hungarian hot wax is chile húngaro de cera - although as adjectives they probably all need to modify the word "pimiento" or "chile" rather than stand on their own). As regards the others, not sure what the Red Fresno is (though the article on Fresno mentions "pimiento de Fresno"), the cascabel simply seems to be chile cascabel, and es:Merkén suggests that your guess about chile de árbol was spot on. Smurrayinchester 13:17, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! I added some more translations! I would like to get some additional feedback on some of the other items WhisperToMe (talk) 02:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

ALTERNATIVE WORDS TO

• RADIANCE
• ZING
• SPARKLE
• GLORY
• INNER STRENGTH

86.98.148.151 (talk) 08:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

[1] I like "effulgence", "gusto", "zip", "kudos", "aplomb". However many of these words have multiple related meanings, so you must be careful to get the precise meaning you want: this is why a thesaurus, such as the one I linked, is so useful. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I like pazazz. Alansplodge (talk) 11:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If speaking of human appearance and attitude, "Panache" works for the first 3 or 4 (not "inner strength")... AnonMoos (talk) 18:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

For "radiance", I am fond of "lambency". gnfnrf (talk) 00:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Excellent. Not one you hear every day though, I can only think of its use in an Epiphany hymn: "By its lambent beauty guided, See, the Eastern Kings appear..." Another word is "effulgence" which I think I read in Gulliver's Travels, quoting a fawning Lilliputian courtier. Alansplodge (talk) 10:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I read "effulgence" much more recently than that.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry! Alansplodge (talk) 00:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

"My heart expands..." —Tamfang (talk) 04:54, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Latin phrase

I think there is a word or phrase in Latin referring to a gap in knowledge. For instance if one is ignorant of an area of knowledge, this blank spot in what could be one's education could be referred to by this Latin phrase. I think I have heard of such a phrase but I can't remember what it is. Bus stop (talk) 16:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Lacuna. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:52, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yikes! Yes! That's it. Wikipedians are smart. Thank you. Bus stop (talk) 16:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems the irony of this question has been lost on everyone except me. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 19:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Not at all. I got a good laugh out of it when I read it. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Barbara Kingsolver was stuck for a title for her half-completed novel, and describes in the preface how in a moment of inspiration she decided on The Lacuna, only to have her husband gently try to persuade her that the word was simply too obscure. It is perhaps slightly better known as the plural, lacunae. Our page Lacuna lists several disambiguations, including music, law, histology, and linguistics (which redirects to lexical gap). A nice touch: the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind features a company known as Lacuna, Inc. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Pre-ordering and pre-booking

Is there any real difference between "ordering"/"booking" something, and "pre-ordering"/"pre-booking" it?

I see the pre- words used all the time these days, while the other ones get short shrift. Yet in most cases, the "pre-" seems to be redundant. If it's about organising a ticket to some concert or sporting event, or securing a motel reservation, or a place at a conference, or most other contexts, it's not possible to do the ordering or booking after the event, so talking about "pre-booking" is just silly. People generally seem to be interested in abbreviating words and expressions as much as possible these days, yet sometimes they go off in the other direction. What's going on here? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 23:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

In the case of books, DVDs and the like, "pre-ordering" means ordering before the release date, so it will be held for you, which is handy in case there's a shortage. Once it's released, you're not "pre-ordering" the object any more, you're merely "ordering" it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

But isn't that an artificial distinction? In both cases, you're still indicating your desire to obtain a copy of the book. The fact that it may not have been published yet doesn't alter that basic piece of information. Or are you saying that no money changes hands at the pre-order stage, and in order to physically obtain the book you then have to make further contact to pay for it? If the sellers and the public both know the book is coming out on Day X, and it's attracting considerable advance attention, surely it's in everyone's interest to be able to pay for a copy online in advance of publication date, rather than having to go through 2 separate transactions of pre-ordering to secure your copy, and then ordering to pay for it. If it's of such public interest, they'd surely have plenty of copies produced, wouldn't they? Or is it that the only accurate way of gauging public interest in the first place is from the number of pre-bookings? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 00:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

There may be a legal component to it. Usually vendors are contractually obligated (or at the very least have an implicit agreement) not to sell items before their official release date. Placing an actual "order" would possibly count as selling the item and thus contravening that agreement. But if you "pre-order", the vendor can make the claim that the sale hasn't actually happened yet, but rather they have simply entered into an agreement with the customer that once the item does go on sale, they'll place an order for it on the customer's behalf - perhaps a bit nebulous, but possibly enough of a legal fiction to keep people from suing. There might be legal issues on the other end as well. Depending on local customer protection laws, by agreeing to an "order" or "booking" you might affirm that you have the item and promise to provide them with it. However if, for example, the number of sold tickets isn't enough and you decide to cancel (or the book publisher never comes through with the goods), customers might be able to successfully argue that you attempted to defraud them by selling them something you didn't have, have no guarantee of obtaining, and (in the case of canceled-for-lack-of-interest) possibly had no intention of providing. By calling it a "pre-order" or "pre-booking" you alert the customer to the potentially tentative nature of the deal, and give yourself more legal wiggle room in case something bad happens. CYA is worth three extra letters. -- 67.40.215.173 (talk) 03:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes, the legal aspect, there's always that. Makes sense. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:11, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

In the US, we are often mailed credit card applications which say "you've been pre-approved". It doesn't mean what you would think (that based on what they know about you, you've already been approved before sending in an application). At best it seems to mean you fit into some broad demographic with higher than average approval rates. At worst, it means absolutely nothing.

So, they might mean something similar. For example, "pre-booking" might not actually reserve the item, but only check to see if it's currently available, and maybe add your name to the customer list so you are notified if they are running low. In the case of airline reservations, they should all be called this, if they overbook, since you have not, in fact, booked a specific seat. StuRat (talk) 00:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

(e/c) I'm not sure they are not used also in a redundant way, but they have a common meaning of ordering or booking something that is not yet available that ordering and booking definitely do not. When you pre-order a book at amazon.com, it means the book has not been released and when it's released, it should be sent. When you pre-book a cruise ship spot, they charge you a pre-brooking fee and the purpose is that though you haven't booked a specific time frame or berth, they will keep open a spot for you for specific booking during a set time frame.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

If you pre-order before release, you get more of a priority than if you order after release. It also gives a indication to the store of how many are needed. And arguably it is in fact "abbreviating", as a wordier version might be "pre-release order". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

See This video, skip to 1:25 and watch. It is exactly regarding this topic... --Jayron32 04:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Jayron, that's priceless. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It's a good day when I get to use George Carlin as a reference... --Jayron32 15:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You increasingly see the word "pre-sale" used regarding concert tickets. Sometimes this is because certain types of people (members of the venue, for example, or owners of mobile phones whose companies are sponsoring the concert) get priority booking. More often than not, though, "pre-sale" just means sale in advance, as opposed to buying tickets on the door. --Viennese Waltz 10:33, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I think "advance sale" used to be the more common term for the same thing as "pre-sale". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)