Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 March 2

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March 2

Does final-obstruent devoicing occur in Albanian?

A book of mine says it does, another says it doesn't. --Theurgist (talk) 00:32, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

This source says "Final devoicing in Albanian is characteristic of Northern Tosk and transitional Southern Geg but not of the Standard." Other Google hits seem to be consistent with this.

http://www.XXXXXX.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cts=1330691229092&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seelrc.org%3A8080%2Fgrammar%2Fpdf%2Falbanian_bookmarked.pdf&ei=lLxQT_WfKOb04QTbmNnxDQ&usg=AFQjCNHhklwydjStL-uBxNeR0W0UWS48fw

Replace "XXXXXX" with "google" in link. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 12:34, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Why did you change the google link to a porno link? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 14:31, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Because WP spam filter doesn't let me give links to Google results. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Next time use the <nowiki></nowiki> tags - Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 15:21, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:41, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

That URL redirects to http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/albanian_bookmarked.pdf. -- BenRG (talk) 03:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Bahri Beci in Fonetika e gjuhës shqipe (Tirana, 2004) doesn't seem to mention it anywhere, but he doesn't treat phonological processes in very great detail (he seems to focus on a phonetic analysis in "ideal" contexts). He does mention that the voiced/voiceless opposition is neutralized in many dialects, especially in southern ones, depending on context and position (page 101). But he doesn't give any examples unfortunately. --Terfili (talk) 13:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Cantonese help

About 梁挺 - Long Ting (see Wong Fei-hung) - the first character is loeng4, but is the second ting2 or ting5? WhisperToMe (talk) 06:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

And what is the Cantonese reading of 吞食天地 (Tūn Shí Tiān Dì 3)?

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 23:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Medieval "almest"

Can you give me the definition of "almest"? Is it like what we would say today: "almost"? --Doug Coldwell ^talk 21:30, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Context would be Acts 1:15 - In tho daies Petre roos vp in the myddil of the britheren, and seide; and ther was a company of men togidere, almest an hundrid and twenti;

Yes, it is "almost". See sense 2 here. Deor (talk) 22:21, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Fly or flye?

A trainer at the gym, out where I work (take that prescriptivists!) said that the exercise I've thought of as a fly is actually spelt 'flye'

Our page confirms that that is an alternative, but I can't find any sources confirming that, or even explaining whence that spelling comes!

My question is--what's the scoop? Can anyone find any explanations for why the heck they'd call this a 'flye'?66.30.10.71 (talk) 23:38, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whye. :) Flye is an obsolete alternate for "fly", not just in the exercise context as our Wiktionary article implies, but also for the sense of flight (see: birds of a feather flock together "Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together." (William Turner, 1545)). I find it hard to believe that the exercise has been around since the days when flye and fly were on equal footing, but I suppose it's possible. Oddly, Etymoline has nothing for "flye". Matt Deres (talk) 01:25, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The earliest references to the exercise I can find through Google are in books on bodybuilding in the 70's - first in "Stay Hungry" in 1972, then in "Pumping Iron" in 1974, then in "Arnold" and "The sexual outlaw" in 1977. In those books, the word is usually used as plural ("flyes") and it is derived from the "flying motion" of the exercise. I would speculate that early bodybuilders chose the spelling "flyes" to distinguish between the exercise and the insect, and then someone turned "flyes" into singular "flye".--Itinerant1 (talk) 02:10, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Our article Fly (exercise) mentions the alternate spelling in the lede, and uses the plural "flyes" in the lede, and "flies" everywhere else. I'd fix it, except I don't know which plural to chose... -NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:10, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There's also one source of uncertain reliability that says that George Eifferman mentioned bent arm flyes in an article in the Muscle Builder magazine in September 1953, but it is not known how the exercise was called at that time, and the magazine does not seem to be available online.--Itinerant1 (talk) 02:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

This sort of (seemingly) arbitrary "silent-e" adding to words to distinguish their meaning by spelling happens in other cases as well. Consider Barre chord, which is named because the index finger forms a stiff "bar" across all of the strings of an stringed instrument, like a guitar. The spelling evolved to "barre" so as not to confuse the term with the musical term Bar, but the two different words come from the same root word (bar, meaning a straight line or stiff rod). The same thing happens with "lede/lead" for the first paragraph of an article. --Jayron32 13:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

OP here---Fascinating! If Itinerant is correct that some early bodybuilders simply invented the term, it's odd how little ground it seems to have gained in modern parlance. The vast majority of sites I checked don't use the term.66.30.10.71 (talk) 19:34, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

My gut feeling, and that's all it is, is that it wasn't so much "invented" as a simple spelling mistake when forming the plural of "fly". Someone misspelled it as "flyes", and then someone backformed the singular to "flye" - all in the mistaken belief that they were following the rules of English spelling (to the letter - pun). It's amazing how attached some people can be to their errors and misconceptions (not just with language, either), and insist on their correctness, usually because someone they trust told them so and it sounds plausible to them, so it must be so. They then help spread the erroneous word to others. (I've lost count of how many times people have insisted to me that the true etymology of the word "fuck" is an acronym - but the set of 4 words they proffer is always slightly different.) If the someone they trust was known for their prowess in body building but not exactly renowned for their expertise with the English language - and to be fair, those two fields of human endeavour don't often coincide in the same person - then there's your answer to why the term is not entirely unknown but not widely used or accepted either. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly plausible. If so, it wouldn't be the first time, "fly" was unintentionally modified for a sport. In the realm of baseball, for example, the past tense of "fly out" is not "flew out", but "flied out", as in "Jones flied out to the left fielder to end the game." But we would still say "The Yankees flew out to Seattle to begin their road trip." Intentional or not, I think it's a good thing for the most part; English words can acquire so many different meanings, it only seems fair to spread the load around a bit and invent new words to carry some of the burden. Just consider all the work words like "set" and "run" have to do, poor things... Matt Deres (talk) 14:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)