Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 July 4

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July 4

What does the Chinese character 萱 mean?

Often see it in names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.178.201 (talk • contribs) 00:09, 4 July 2013‎

Hi! According to the English Wiktionary, it means daylily (Hemerocallis), a type of flowering plant: see "wikt:萱". — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Dragonfly watcher

I thought a dragonfly watcher was called an Oder but I can't find a reference for that. Was I wrong? Dismas|^(talk) 15:19, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Since dragonflies and their relatives are sometimes known colloquially as "odes" (short for odonata), I can imagine that some watchers might call themselves that, but I'm unable to spot any online occurrences. Looie496 (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• user:Dismas, using Looie's confirmation and reasoning, I've found a ref! This South African page [1] is all about how to "Become an ODER and go ODING". Definitely a slang/colloquial/informal term, but then again, so is "birder" for "bird-watching enthusiast". (I found the web page with this google string /"oder" -river -frankfurt dragonfly/) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Languages - written

I was reading your article on mirror writing because I have a 16 year old daughter who mirror writes perfectly legibly, without training. She also writes backwards as easily as forwards. We are Americans. She has taught herself fluent German. She is studying Arabic and Russian on her own (knows all of the characters, etc.) and she takes Spanish and French in school and Chinese in virtual school. She can write all those languages mirror, too. She also knows the International Phonetic alphabet, which I never heard of?

I just learned the mirror writing part by happenstance, going through her school papers from last year. She does not do that well in school, and she is painfully shy. She tests very high though - 99th percentile in the PSATs, 1800+ on Lexile.

My questions are: isn't this highly unusual and if so, is anyone besides me interested?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.58.33.194 (talk • contribs) 15:42, 4 July 2013

I don't know what to make of the mirror writing, but if your description is accurate (I'm always a bit leery of trusting what parents say about their children), then she will pretty shortly exhaust the resources of her high school, if she hasn't already. You might consider inquiring whether it would be possible for her to take language-related classes at a local university. USF-Sarasota probably doesn't have anything very strong, but the St. Pete or Tampa campuses might, if she could get there. People in academia are always enthusiastic about providing opportunities for especially gifted high school students. Looie496 (talk) 16:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Just an anecdote - I badly broke my right arm many years ago, and had to have it in a special plastic casing for several months. During this time, I had to use my left hand for everything, including writing. Once I was absent-mindedly writing a note on a piece of paper, when half-way through my second word, I realised I was doing mirror writing. I put it in the mirror and it was a bit odd, but far, far easier than trying to write normally with my left hand. It only took a little practise to perfect it, even for Chinese and Japanese, which were my majors in university. I don't want to put your daughter down, but it's not that difficult, really. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Spontaneous mirror writing is fairly common, especially in left-handers. It takes no more than a couple of days to learn a script such as the Arabic, Russian, or IPA ones, so none of those are much indication that there's anything strange in your daughter's brain. I wouldn't worry. Henry^Flower 00:01, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Though it's noticeably more impressive if it's not just the scripts but the language she's teaching herself. It's pretty easy to teach yourself Cyrillic or Arabic writing and be able to pronounce things, but putting actual meaning to the words is what would be more impressive (given she's apparently taught herself German and is taking Spanish, French, and Chinese, it does sound like the OP may be referring to the languages, and not just the writing systems). Lsfreak (talk) 20:58, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Translation of "Мёртвая зыбь" ?

Hello Learned Ones ! How'd you translate that title of a novel inspired by Operation Trust , written in 1965 by Lev Nikulin (a russian writer who has an article in WP ru [2] , & some lines in WP fr [3]). "Swell" seems to me not to give back the hint to death...What about "Deadly tide" ? Thanks a lot beforehand for your suggestions. Arapaima (talk) 16:23, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It's very hard to make such recommendations unless you know the gist of the novel. μηδείς (talk) 17:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The Deadly Swell and Deadly Swell have been used in a couple of previous book citations: [4]. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 21:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if those are over-translations. According to my Oxford Russian-English Dictionary, "зыбь" means a ripple, while "мёртвая зыбь" means a swell. I have no idea why the Russians add the word "мёртвая" - which by itself means "dead" (see Dead Souls, Мёртвые души), or "deadly" - to their word for ripple, to get an expression for "swell". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's the expression of a cultural thanatophily ? Anyway, thanks a lot to all of you, t.y. Arapaima (talk) 06:44, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Мертвая in this context is supposed to mean "very quiet and calm". In English there are similar expressions: deadly "very", dead calm, dead silence (in Russian мёртвая тишина).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 00:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, so I think I'm right in saying that "мёртвая зыбь" should not be translated as "dead" or "deadly" anything, but just as "swell". Согласно? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

• No, in general context it shouldn't. Though I am not an expert in marine terminology at all. Frankly speaking I've never known about this phenomenon and never seen these terms in both Russian and English before. I suppose ripples are the small waves caused by the wind or something. Then ripple≈зыбь (notice it has no plural in Russian). If it's not caused by the wind then it's мёртвая зыбь (i. e. зыбь во время штиля "ripples or waves during a dead calm"). If swell means this and nothing else (I was not sure, but I now did some research and cleared the issue for myself - it really does) then let it be translated properly as swell. BTW, I've just googled out this.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:15, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
• Bbbbut! We are not sure what Nikulin originally implied, he could intentionally play on words. As I understand he meant that "the storm" of the Revolution and the Civil War and its "destructive waves" were all over, but some counterrevolutionary forces were still hidden somewhere and ready to act. They were like a swell that echoes the waves from the wind from far away. They were "remainders" (зыбь) of the past "storm". And they were still "deadly" as well.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:15, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Just as Medeis said first up. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:29, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Request for Korean translation

Some background: I just bought an LG Optimus phone and was interested that a good deal of its UI was not using the normal Roboto font. So I found the font files and opened them on my computer. The font is called LG SmartGothic, and the font's metadata gives its license URL as [5], but not the license itself. The "Copyright" link on that page leads me here, but I can't use a translation service because all the text is in images. Can someone provide a translation for the information on that page, or a link to the license for these fonts if that page does not in fact have the license? Pokajanje|Talk 17:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)