Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 February 4

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February 4

caisson - refine meaning?

I understand what a caisson is in reference to building bridges (sinking the foundations). But I can't figure out how the military "caisson" is related to that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Srsr esq (talk • contribs) 05:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

See limbers and caissons. The only thing that the two have in common is that both are "box"es of a sort. Looie496 (talk) 05:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Srsr esq (talk • contribs) 16:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

SimSimi

How to correctly pronounce "SimSimi"? Would it be "Sim-Sim-i" or "Sim-Si-mi" or else? Thank you so much. --Aristitleism (talk) 09:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

In order to get the answer 'from the horse's mouth' I asked SimSimi. He/She/It gave the answer, and I quote: "NOO TELLAH CAUSE IT'S TE RITE WAY". Ahem... - Cucumber Mike (talk) 09:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Jokes - the translation of, and for connected purposes

"Two cows are standing in a field. One says "Have you heard about that 'mad cow disease'?", and the other one replies "Doesn't bother me; I'm a duck!".

Can this, and others like it, be accurately translated into other languages? Is word play/punning really such a brick wall against the translation from (or into) English?

doktorb _words^deeds 10:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Unless there is a word play here that I'm completely missing, this particular joke should be translatable into most languages that have a term for "mad cow disease" which includes the correct meaning of the word "mad". Which is, I think, almost all of them. Mainly because this is a very recent term that originated in the English-speaking world and got translated into other languages. It does not work in Russian, because the informal name of the disease got translated into Russian as "furious/rabid/berserk cow disease". But that seems to be an exception. In German, Spanish and French, "mad" in "mad cow disease" becomes "wahn", "locas", and "folle", which seem to have correct connotations in all three cases.--Itinerant1 (talk) 11:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't get the joke as it is. 92.80.9.138 (talk) 11:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You're not missing much. Contrast sense 1 of the word mad with sense 6. Dbfirs 12:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Er... I don't think that joke is an example of what you are describing. In this case, the punchline is that the other cow is already insane, correct?

Correct. Not sure what Dbfirs is laughing at. Alansplodge (talk) 17:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Well I was groaning rather than laughing, but, yes, that is exactly the point I was linking. Dbfirs 21:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what "sense 6" has to do with it. First cow is worried about going mad (insane); second cow isn't worried because she's already mad (insane). Boom boom! Alansplodge (talk) 01:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

But you are missing the point of the question. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy didn't gain its common name because cow psychologists (if they exist) judged the cows to have lost their reason! Dbfirs 20:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

You wouldn't have any problems with it in translation. Mad can be substituted for the other language's word for insane/crazy and the punchline would still be funny. Though I must say "mad-cow disease" is a discrete name and not usually translated.

A more apt example would be something like: "I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me."

In the latter case, the phrase "It hit me" in English, in addition to its literal meaning, is synonymous with "I realized why", "It occured to me", "It dawned on me", "I got it" etc. In other languages it may not. In our language for example, there is no equivalent. The closest we have is the matter-of-fact "Kabalo na ko" ("I know now") and the interjections "Aw oo!" ("Ah, yeah!") and "Tumpak!" ("That's right!").-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 13:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

That's probably closer to what I meant :) It's always interested me, how certain jokes can be understood and others not, and how certain idioms lose all meaning just by crossing a geographic border. Thanks for the replies so far. doktorb _words^deeds 13:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The jokes which don't translate in this fashion can almost all be classified as puns - jokes which rely on the same word (or two similar sounding words) having different meanings. The humor comes from the implicit or explicit substitution of one of the meanings where a straight reading of the joke would imply the other one. ... And the reason that translation is difficult is that other languages might not have the two different meanings connected by the single word/phrase. In fact, even in the origin language, the joke relies on precise word choice. "I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then I understood.", "Have you heard about that 'bovine spongiform encephalopathy'? - Doesn't bother me; I'm a duck!", and "Any man seriously considering marriage ought to be institutionalized." aren't really jokes. (Although the cow one has some residual humor from the cow calling himself a duck, as ducks are funny.) -- 67.40.215.173 (talk) 20:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

There could also be jokes that don't translate because of cultural differences, like "She's getting married again ? What color wedding dress will it be this time ? Plaid ?". This relies on the "virgins wearing white wedding dresses" culture. StuRat (talk) 20:26, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

For another example of one that might not translate: "Any man seriously considering marriage ought to be committed." This relies on dual meanings of "committed", as "dedicated to making it work" and "confined to an institution for the treatment of mental disorders". StuRat (talk) 20:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Or "A man isn't complete until he marries. Then he's finished".

I'm also reminded of "If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution? Angr (talk) 11:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

A. "How are you?" B. "Better" A. "Better?" B. "Better not to ask" ...is a mildly funny joke, favoured by one of my family, who uses it [wearingly often] in English, German and Hebrew. For all I know, it may work in most languages. --Dweller (talk) 15:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"Lycidas" by John Milton (page on Wikipedia)

How do you pronounce "Lycidas"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.149.73 (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Listen 77.125.249.87 (talk) 18:53, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, you can know how Yale graduates are going to pronounce it: [1] --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

"International Lease Finance Corporation" in Spanish

Hi! For es:International Lease Finance Corporation (en:International Lease Finance Corporation) I want to explain what the name "International Lease Finance Corporation" means.

So would the best translation be "Empresa Internacional de Arrendamientos financieros y Finanzas"? Would the translation depend on the national variety of Spanish?

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 19:21, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking for languages, other than English, in which "to be" and "to see" rhyme.

77.125.249.87 (talk) 19:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Spanish: ser and ver. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The closest German word for English "to be" is "sein", but there is also the close "bestehen" (more like "to exist") which rhymes with "sehen", "to see". --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Italian and Portuguese work.  Omg †  osh  21:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I speak neither Italian nor Portuguese, so would you like to add more details? 77.125.249.87 (talk) 22:36, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Italian: essere and vedere. Portuguese: ser and ver. Derived from Latin, as with the Spanish. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Italian "essere" and "vedere" do not rhyme. The former gets stressed on the first (or third-last) syllable (ES-se-re), the latter on the second or second-last syllable (ve-DE-re). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:07, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

If you use some less-usual words in Latin, they rhyme, existere + specere/adspicere/inspicere. (Videre wouldn't rhyme in classical Latin but I guess you could get away with it in medieval/ecclesiastical Latin). 09:33, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but in Italian, essere [ˈɛssɛre] doesn't rhyme with vedere [veˈdeːre], and in Latin, exsistere [ɛk(s)ˈsɪstɛrɛ] doesn't rhyme with specere [ˈspɛkɛrɛ], a(d)spicere [a(d)ˈspɪkɛrɛ] or inspicere [ĩːˈspɪkɛrɛ]. Angr (talk) 10:07, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, the "ɛrɛ" parts rhyme, at least. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

But since the "ɛrɛ" parts are unstressed, the words don't rhyme. "Happily" and "funnily" don't rhyme in English either, even though both end in [ɪli]. Angr (talk) 10:58, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Japanese: "iru" = "be", (used of animate subjects); "miru" = "see". --ColinFine (talk) 00:18, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Hebrew -- lihyot, lir'ot להיות לראות, even on English Wiktionary -- wikt:להיות , wikt:לראות -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I thought of Hebrew, but "rhyme" is a bit of a trivial concept in Hebrew, since the vowels by and large depend on the grammatical function of the word, not which lexeme it is. Any doubly weak very has an infinitive of that shape. --ColinFine (talk) 13:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It's a bit of a stretch, but Mandarin has 是 "be" and 视 "look at", both pronounced shì. (But 视 isn't really used by itself much, it's generally part of other compounds; and of course these have other pronunciations in other Chinese languages.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, homophones aren't generally considered to rhyme with each other. Angr (talk) 10:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

.

@Rjanag, how would you pronounce "to be or not to be", and "to see or not to see", when translated into Chinese (in Latin transcription with tones), according to your suggestion? 77.125.249.87 (talk) 10:39, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Literally it's like "to exist or to 'go out'" (生存 means 'to exist' or 'survive', not 'to be', but in this case it's a better translation of Shakespeare's meaning). As for your other question, like I said above the meaning of 视 has to do with 'look at', not 'see', and anyway it's not really used by itself as a verb (there are other words that would be used in that instance, like 看见 kàn jiàn. Like I said, my example was a stretch. rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

They used to rhyme in Russian, but the word for "to see" fell into disuse over the last century and it is now considered extremely archaic. The pair might still work in some other Slavic languages.--Itinerant1 (talk) 12:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Which verb for "to see" are you referring to, Itinerant? The two I know are in current use, far from archaic. You're not perhaps confusing this with the present tense of the verb "to be", are you? That is indeed so archaic that most Russians wouldn't even know what it used to be. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:14, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

"зрить".

Колика радость нам Тебе врученным быть!
Велика сладость коль себя любиму зрить!
Геройска бьется грудь, смотря Твоих забаву,

А наша, чтоб Твою почтить довольно славу.

- "To the crowning of Queen Elizabeth of Russia", 1742, Gottlieb Friedrich Wilhelm Juncker, translated into verse by Mikhail Lomonosov. --Itinerant1 (talk) 22:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Not quite, but almost in Norwegian: å være is "to be", whilst å se is "to see". Both end with a consonant and an e. :-/ --Eisfbnore ^talk 19:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

You'd have to work pretty hard in order to collect more than a handful of Norwegian verbs that do not end with a consonant and an "e", although some of the most common and basic verbs in the language do belong to that group: å gå, å bo, å fly, å dø. --Theurgist (talk) 16:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Macedonian: да бидам (da bidam) [da ˈbidam] and да видам (da vidam) [da ˈvidam]. However, conjugated forms of those often won't rhyme, because the former is an е-stem verb and the latter is an и-stem verb. There is no infinitive in Macedonian. The two forms here, which do rhyme, are the first-person singular present-tense perfective forms for "to be" and "to see". --Theurgist (talk) 13:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Can the word Am start a non-interrogative sentence?

Note that I'm not talking about the word "Am", but rather about the word Am. i.e. I don't want examples like:

• "Am" is a word.

and the like. Note also, that - by Am - I mean the auxiliary verb following the first singular pronoun. i.e. I don't want examples like:

• Am is better than Fm.

and the like. 77.125.249.87 (talk) 19:42, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

There is an informal dialect where references to oneself are omitted, and it would work there:

"Am tired. Going to bed now."

Of course, the "Am" might also be omitted.StuRat (talk) 19:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Which dialect? Is it possible in the major informal varieties of English? 77.125.249.87 (talk) 20:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Dialect is perhaps a confusing word to use. It's more a lazy or relaxed way of communicating and is used in Australia, the UK, the USA and elsewhere. In the example given, I don't think many people would say the phrase, but people might write it, perhaps in an e-mail or text message. Another example, which is probably a bit more natural would be:

X: "You're stupid!" Y: "Am not!"

There's also a possibility of using word order changes for emphasis: "Am I tired! I just ran an ultramarathon." - Although I don't know how much of a dialect/ENGVAR issue that is. -- 67.40.215.173 (talk) 19:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This usage seems rather old fashioned. I recall reading Enid Blyton books in which the characters would speak like this to emphasize something. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 21:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Old fashioned? Perfectly good English it is. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say it wasn't grammatical, just that it seemed rather dated. Mother: "Would you like to have some cucumber sandwiches and jam tarts for a picnic?" Children: "Would we! How perfectly ripping!" — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 22:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

If you want "perfectly ripping", I suggest brown beans. StuRat (talk) 22:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

"Just don't let those jam tarts spoil your appetite for dinner. I'm cooking potatoes in their jackets." "Ooh mother, we shall be hungry!" IBE (talk) 22:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

:-D I feel like we should have a midnight feast right now. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 22:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Am I pregnant? hungry? registered (to vote)? normal? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The question marks sort of give the game away. We're after non-interrogative uses. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Am I embarrassed. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:15, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

If that was a sincere recovery and not a contrived demonstration of the usage, you are very quick on your feet indeed. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 11:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not that Machiavellian. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't find "Am I glad I found you!!!" to be dated. --ColinFine (talk) 00:20, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that uses like "Am I tired!" are really non-interogative. I've always taken them to be rhetorical questions used for emphasis. I think you find that not only is such a sentence not possible with am, but it's not possible with any conjugated form of to be. 112.215.36.177 (talk) 00:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You might find this in messages where economy of words was important, such as telegrams, military dispatches, or in hastily scribbled notes (the OP's example might fall into this category). Telegram example: "Am proceeding London Tuesday"[2]. Military example: "Am engaging enemy aircraft.” [3]. The meanining is still obvious without the missing "I"; not sure if there's a grammatical term for this kind of shortening. Alansplodge (talk) 10:43, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi! A subject which is not explicit in its clause is called a null-subject. See [4] for a little bit on these in English. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 11:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Am I supposed to answer this question? Whoops, missed the "non interrogative" -- Q Chris (talk) 11:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggested summary: it sort of appears as though it's perfectly valid, but mainly in rare forms, a bit like a fossil word. IBE (talk) 21:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Am thirsty; will drink. Bus stop (talk) 17:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Am I glad to hear that from you, but I think you're not and you won't. 77.125.249.87 (talk) 16:52, 11 February 2012 (UTC)