Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 June 6

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June 6

Word or expression that originally meant literally what it said but no longer means literally what it says, but is still in use

What is the term – indeed, is there a term – for a word or expression that originally meant literally what it said but no longer means literally what it says, but is still in use?

An example would be “greenback”. Originally it referred to the fact that only one side of Demand Notes were green. Now it refers to the US dollar, which in paper form is green on both sides.

Another would be the cleaning cloths known as “chamois” (French spelling and all, even though it’s pronounced “shammy”), which were once made of chamois leather but those days have long gone.

Fossil word doesn’t seem to quite fit. Any ideas, friends? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 05:22, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

You might the answer in Category:Semantics or in Glossary of linguistic terms.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:30, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a set phrase. In Chinese there's something called chengyu. DHN (talk) 05:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think chengyu are the same thing. They're more like what we would call proverbs in English. An example of a chengyu is 近朱者赤,近墨者黑. Literally, it means "one who goes near vermilion will be stained red, and one who goes near ink will be stained black", and figuratively it is used to indicate that a person will be affected by the company he or she keeps. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:30, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

What about idiom? It may not apply to all cases - like chamois, above - but it fits well with phrases like kick the bucket, bite the bullet or 'keep your powder dry'. Richard Avery (talk) 13:11, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Dead metaphor might be a useful read. Roger (talk) 13:18, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

By the way, Federal Reserve Notes still have black ink on the front and green ink on the back. —Tamfang (talk) 16:23, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The photo caption says only the $1 and $2 are still "in print" (cf. book publishing), and the photo of the $1 shows what I take to be the "front", but it's in that grey-green-murky colour usually called "green". Or is it in fact the "back"? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I think what that caption is clumsily trying to say is that the designs of the $5 and $10 bill pictured are no longer in use. All US bills of denomination $5 were redesigned circa 1996 (the first "big heads" as we called them, see the illustrations further down in that article) and then again circa 2004. Still, the overall ink color is black on the obverse and green on the reverse. Come visit and I'll show you various examples. --LarryMac | Talk 15:48, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd love to. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 08:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The back of the bill, with the Great Seal ($1) or a building ($5/10/20), has only green ink. The front, with a politician's face, may have several colors but the principal design – the portrait, the denomination and so on – is black. The paper may have a greenish tinge. The current $20's face has a background "wash" which is largely green. —Tamfang (talk) 03:50, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. The obvious question is: Why don't they get real and have a different main colour for each denomination? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:58, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

That's been suggested several times, but in the US, green is the color of money. (Ties in nicely with green for greed and envy.) Even with the slight additions of other colors in the last coupla years, people have complained. Americans have a hard time taking the euro seriously because they think it looks like Monopoly money. And given how much the US economy depends on the USD being the world's default currency, I don't think the Fed wants to do anything that might risk people's perceptions of its stability. I suspect that they are moving in that direction, but very slowly. — kwami (talk) 02:05, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

The theatrical poster for the film The Color of Money is predominantly in a sort of murky blue-indigo-steel-grey colour that I would never have called green. But is that close to the green of US bills, and/or was it meant to be redolent of that colour? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 04:11, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

The poster? — I visited England in 1986 and chuckled at seeing posters for The Colour of Money, because the joke only makes sense in American. (Green is also the colo(u)r of pool tables, where the central characters get their money.) —Tamfang (talk) 16:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Aha, OED seems to use the term "transferred sense". Not sure if this is a proper linguistic term. See, for example, "wikt:transferred sense". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting some good ideas, folks. It seems there isn't a single one-and-only correct answer to this, because everything you've suggested could fit, depending on the angle of interest. Thank you. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 08:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

On alt.usage.english, it was customary to refer to words or phrases that could no longer be used in their original sense as "skunked", especially if the sense now popularly heard is more or less an antonym. Willy-nilly is skunked (it should mean "something you are forced to do whether you want or not", volo nolo, "I want/I don't want", but now seems to mean something like "in response to trivial whims".) Beg the question is skunked, although in the weaker sense, because the now-popular meaning is not really opposite. There was at least a brief discussion as to whether skunked is itself skunked. --Trovatore (talk) 08:56, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

So many/much xyz, so little time !

Greetings! Used in all kinds of variations ("So many girls, so little time"; "So many books, so little time"; "So much to do, so little time" - but where is the origin of this Philosophical sigh ? Does it go back to the Greeks or Romans? Excited to learn ... Grey Geezer 06:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

At the moment the earliest example I can find is from 1797, where Google books gives "There are so many novels ; there is so little time" from The Spectator: Volume 4" (it doesn't have a full view). There may well be versions in Latin, which will be harder to find. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Compare Ars longa, vita brevis. —Tamfang (talk) 16:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The earliest usage in English I could find is from John Flavel (1627–1691): "... there is so much to do, so little time to do it ..." (source), although this is part of a larger sentence. - Lindert (talk) 16:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the last two additions! Flavel I found in the meantime, the Ars longa sentence could be a "precursor". I'll search with combinations. Case closed. --Grey Geezer 10:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grey Geezer (talk • contribs)

Please translate the following

hello,

please translate the following into good English:

Ich kann in gewißen Momenten innwendig in mir unbändig stolz werden, und mich bis zur Trunkenheit glücklich fühlen, daß es mir gelungen ist unsere sonst so verachtete und lächerlich gemachte Sprache classisch zu machen, und ihr eine solche Celebritat zu ersingen

Thanks.--GoP_T^C_N 10:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

J.P. Hebel. 1. Attempt (as you would say it today, not back then)

In certain moments I do feel all proud inside and happy beyond reason (lit. "as if drunk"), that I was able to make our otherwise despised and ridiculed language so classy (to have given it such a level of classiness) and to give it (present tense, evtly "to earn for its sake") such artistic fame. ("ersingen", literally "to gain or win by singing: a bit like Sängerkrieg). --Grey Geezer 11:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grey Geezer (talk • contribs)

Thanks. Your suggestion sounds great and I will incorporate into the article. Regards.--GoP_T^C_N 16:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Japanese romanization

If I can't use accented letters, should おう (or any other kana that ends in an 'o' followed by う) be romanized as 'ou', 'oo', or 'oh'? --108.227.31.161 (talk) 17:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it depends on the purpose and audience. If you are doing this for a general audience that may not know Japanese, I would go for "oh". The others are more specialised: Kunreishiki specifies "oo", but I think that is pretty much a dead dog today. And "ou" is really only relevant for people who are aware of the conventions of kana spelling and will understand its significance. --ColinFine (talk) 17:38, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Think that "o" (with no indication of length contrast) is actually commonly practically favored by e.g. journalists who do not use diacritics (it's the natural de-diacriticization of frequently-encountered "ô" and "Hepburn" "ō")... AnonMoos (talk) 01:47, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree. In ordinary use (i.e. outside of academic or language-learning materials), I think that plain "o" is the usual practice. "Tokyo" and "Hokkaido" are very familiar examples (final o's are long). However, certain words may deviate from this due to historical convention; for example, Noh. 81.159.111.3 (talk) 02:33, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

In Japan I've seen "Itoh" for the name (over an office door), but you'd never see that for Tokyo. — kwami (talk) 01:53, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Price with 3 letter currency

What is the proper way to write. "EUR 123.00" or "123.00 EUR" or without spaces "EUR123.00",... ? bamse (talk) 21:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

See ISO 4217#Position of ISO 4217 code in amounts --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Is this particular for "EUR" or does it also apply to USD, etc? bamse (talk) 21:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I take it to apply to all, but there is reason for doubt. Why is the European Union's Publication Office opining on the standard? Does the standard not set out conventions for the use of the codes? --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:01, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, it seems the standard sets out the same proceduare as these languages use for currency symbols. E.g. French places the '€' after the sum, and the same is the case for the ISO currency code. Is it possible that the ISO doesn't actually have any recommendations for where to put the code and that local language conventions are used? V85 (talk) 05:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Very possible. It's a shame that standards which oft-times form part of the law of the land are only available at extortionate cost, otherwise we could check against the text. But that's a whole other discussion. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:56, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The European Union Publications Office says in their Interinstitutional Style Guide...

Euro: In English texts published in the Official Journal, the ISO code ‘EUR’ must be used and amounts are indicated in figures:

EUR 10 000

EUR 1 000 000 (not EUR 1 million)

Other currencies: In English texts, for other currencies, when the monetary unit is accompanied by an amount, use the relevant ISO code for the currency followed by a fixed space and the amount in figures: A sum of GBP 300 was received and GBP 250 was spent. Alansplodge (talk) 17:25, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

That is interesting, because in all my invoices I use £300 GBP (for example). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:37, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

That seems a bit redundant. When you have £, you've already specified which currency it is. Similarly, I wouldn't write $ 100 USD. I guess in most contexts, it is clear what currency the symbol represents, i.e. in an invoice from an American company, $ represents USD, while in an invoice from an Australian company it represents AU$. If there is a need to make it specific, use the ISO code and scrap the symbol. V85 (talk) 17:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

That's generally what I've seen and done, US$ 500 or C$25.50, I£ 50 (for the Irish Punt, although confusingly it might also be read as Italian Lire) or (less ambiguously) Ir£50, but sometimes £70 Stg (for Sterling), but US 50¢, and usually 85 Fr. or 85 FF., 65 SFr., 18 Sch. or 18 ASch., although I think also DM 35. Punts, Deutschmarks, Schillings, Lire and French Francs, at least for the moment, are historical currencies, as they've been folded into the Euro. —— Shakescene (talk) 09:07, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

In the London Insurance Market, we moved away from US$, C$, GB£ etc in the 1980s in favour of the ISO codes. The version of the old style we used was called the ILU Code. Alansplodge (talk) 16:05, 9 June 2012 (UTC)