Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 November 17

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November 17

Hungarian Syllables

b_jonas since I've got you a Hungarian speaker nearby may I ask you a question about syllabization in Hungarian? When you syllabize a line of verse, do final consonants and initial vowels combine to form syllables, for example the sentence above (ok, that's not a line of verse) should it be syllabized as follows?

két - mat - ró - zés - grant - ka - pi - tány - par - tra - ve - tő - döt - ta - ta - bor - szi - ge - ten

Or to take material from real verse: is the following well known poem to be syllabized as I do below?

Text:

Fa leszek, ha fának vagy virága,

Ha harmat vagy: én virág leszek.

Harmat leszek, ha te napsugár vagy...

Csak, hogy lényink egyesüljenek.

Ha, leányka, te vagy a mennyország:

Akkor én csillaggá változom.

Ha, leányka, te vagy a pokol: hogy

Egyesüljünk, én elkárhozom.

Syllabization? (Is this correct?)

fa - le - szek - ha - fá - nak - vagy - vi - rá - ga -

ha - har - mat - va - gyén - vi - rág - le - szek -

har - mat - le - szek - ha - te - nap - su - gár - vagy -

csak - hogy - lé - nyin - ke - gye - sül - je - nek

ha - le - ány - ka - te - va - gya - meny - nyor - szá - gak -

ko - rén - csil - lag - gá - vál - to - zom -

ha - le - ány - ka - te - va - gya - po - kol - ho - gye -

gye - sül - jün - ké - nel - kár - ho - zom

Or is it not the case that final consonants and initial vowels are joined into syllables? Thanks.

Incidentally, is Hungarian poetry based on the number of syllables? Here you've got an alternation of 10 and 9 syllable lines but is this sort of regularity in the number of syllables of verse lines a general principle? Does syllabic quantity matter? (Hungarian having long and short vowels.)

Contact Basemetal here 11:32, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

PS: Regarding the poem above it seems from what I found on the net that it is actually longer? Is that correct? Does it continue with what follows? Or what?

Barna kislány fekete szemébe,

Szerelmes lett egy szőke legény,

Meg van az a sors könyvébe írva,

Elkárhozik ő majd a szegény.

Mért van az, hogy mindig azt imádjuk,

Aki hűtlen aki mást szeret

Mért van az hogy szív epedve várjuk,

Pedig rajtunk ő majd csak nevet.

Contact Basemetal here 11:32, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think so. The first one is a famous poem: Petőfi Sándor, “Fa leszek, ha...” (read on Wikisource), (read also on MEK). I don't know where the second part comes from. – b_jonas 16:51, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Neither had I ever heard of a second part. That's why I asked. Contact Basemetal here 17:18, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Plaintiff's decedent, intestate, etc.

Many cases where the plaintiff is not the injured party but is suing on behalf of someone else use language like the above. What is going on here grammatically? ÷seresin 02:34, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Grammar as in 'proper grammar' is a sentence-level matter. Intestate has a meaning (having died without a will) and it's an adjective. Plaintiff's decedent is a possessive phrase. Can you give some example sentences? μηδείς (talk) 02:56, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

"Plantiff's decedent helped the horse to its feet" and such. Grammatically was the wrong word. It just seems like an odd construction to me. ÷seresin 03:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

These are well-established legal idioms. "Plaintiff's decedent" means "the person who died and on behalf of whose estate the plaintiff is suing." "Plaintiff's testator" means the same but specifically means the decedent died leaving a will that designated the plaintiff as executor. "Plaintiff's intestate" means the deceased died without a will and the court has appointed the plaintiff to administer the estate. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:16, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Brad's answers are correct. μηδείς (talk) 04:24, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Linguistic term for the female ending of something?

I do remember that there is a specific linguistic term for the female ending of something. People use it to make a noun feminine. Some languages have this feature, some not. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 14:59, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Suffix? Not specific to the feminine though. There's all kinds. Contact Basemetal here 15:29, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Diminutive.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:12, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Not quite, "Bobby" is the diminutive form of "Robert" -- not en ending, and not feminine. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:17, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

It's used for both. Read the links. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:25, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I did read the links. -ette (-elle, etc.) is a diminutive suffix that gives feminine gender, but "diminutive" is not a word that means "suffix that gives a feminine gender" I think the article explains this all rather clearly. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:42, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and there are also masculine diminutive suffixes, such as -ito in Spanish. Marco polo (talk) 18:26, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and 'managerette' (if existing) would be clearly diminutive, whereas 'manageress' simply specifies gender which I have no problem with, because if I go out with a woman on a date and she insists on gender equality, I expect her to pay half the bill - can't have two worlds at once.... KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:43, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

• In general, it would be a feminine derivative suffix. There may very well be a more specific term, but I can't remember having heard one. Let's ping AnonMoos, he may know. μηδείς (talk) 18:39, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
  • EO calls "-ess" simply a "feminine suffix".[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:50, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
    • That's fine in that context, but derivative suffixes are usually distinguished from grammatical suffixes like -ing, -ed, -s, -'s, so the full answer is -ess is a derivative suffix, while -a in Latin is the desinence of a singular nominative first declension noun, associated with, but not equivalent to a feminine suffix. μηδείς (talk) 01:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Dennis Baron in ISBN 0-300-03883-6 just calls them "feminine suffixes". Latin first declension -a would be an inflectional feminine suffix (though some first declension nouns, such as "nauta" and "poeta" are actually masculine), while English -ess would be a derivational feminine suffix... AnonMoos (talk) 02:27, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Meaning of Japanese characters

What does ニ ミク口一ル mean? 120.145.150.16 (talk) 16:46, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Can you supply the rest of the sentence? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

That shows an unusual mixture of katakana and kanji. If "口" is supposed to be "ロ", then it could be pronounced Ni Mikurōru (have no idea what it means)... AnonMoos (talk) 02:23, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Also the "一" ('one') would have to become "ー" (long vowel mark). —Tamfang (talk) 08:07, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

And I wonder if the initial 'ni' isn't actually a kana and meant to be part of the sequence rather than the kanji (given the other oddities). But let's not worry about it too much. We seem to be more interested by all this than the OP, who's gone surfing. Contact Basemetal here 08:59, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. I hadn't gone surfing. Had a medical emergency instead. There's no rest of sentence. It's a label on a bottle containing a liquid that appears to be a very low viscosity oil. The only other thing on the label is "32 mL" (which is about what the quantity is).121.221.213.49 (talk) 14:00, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Is this the bottle? Contact Basemetal here 14:18, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Looks exactly like it, including colour of contents. I see the brand Mitutoyo - a manufacturer of precision measuring instruments. Is the product instrument oil? 121.221.213.49 (talk) 17:12, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Just looked at the Mitutoyo Asia Pacific (English language) website. They have the same picture. It's apparently micrometer oil. Thanks for the lead. Perhaps the characters on the label mean "oil (for) micrometers"? 121.221.213.49 (talk) 17:23, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

What label? The one on your bottle? The ones you posted above? No. "Oil for micrometers" is マイクロメータのオイル (maikuromeeta no oiru). This (Mikurooru) seems to be a particular brand or type of micrometer oil. A line under the picture (   マイクロメータ   の   潤滑用   の   専用   オイル   です。   ) seems to be saying: "this is an oil exclusively for the lubrication of micrometers". How did you transfer the Japanese characters from the label to the computer? OCR? I'm still puzzled by 二 (or ニ, what the hell is the difference you're going to say but the first is a kanji and the second a katakana) before ミクロール which means either 'two' as a kanji or is just the syllable 'ni' if it is katakana. It doesn't make any sense here. Could it just be a smudge on the label? Contact Basemetal here 21:21, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the label on the bottle. It was very clearly printed with characters about 8 mm high, so I scanned it at 300dpi and uploaded it to a free OCR service at http://www.newocr.com/, expecting I could then copy paste the characters idenfified by NewOCR into an online translator. GoogleTranslate came up with gibberish as it usually does with Japanese. But so did a few other online translators I tried. If it was sold by Mitutoyo, and their website picture looks just like it, I would have expected their name on it, not someone else's. Perhaps it is the type of oil as you say, or the name for the process by which the oil was made? 121.215.21.78 (talk) 04:52, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

You're right. The brand is Mitutoyo (ミツトヨ, pronounced "Mitsutoyo") and it's the same manufacturer that's mentioned at all the places selling this oil (Google "ミクロール", w/o the quotes; why on earth is this also sold at Amazon?) Odd the brand's not on the label. But the box the bottle comes in clearly carries the manufacturer's name (picture at Amazon, same at the Mitutoyo Japanese site) Mikurooru must indeed be the type of oil. (And also the name of the manufacturing process?) Anyway, now you know what's in that bottle. How did that bottle end up with you? Do you even own a micrometer? Contact Basemetal here 13:00, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm finding several different products that go by the name Microl, including an Australian device-rinsing product and a Canadian food-grade lubricant. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:13, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know why it has a '2' before it. Thank god it wasn't this... :) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:47, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Dunno. Don't tell me you prefer this. Yuck. While I'm not a big fan of Rick Astley Yamaguchi Momoe really makes my stomach churn. Contact Basemetal here 12:21, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Haha, memories of sitting in an izakaya with old men singing such songs on karaoke, reminiscing about the economic bubble..... Happy days.... :D KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:52, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I can see there's the risk you'll believe I dislike Japanese songs in general. Not that at all. There's many Japanese songs I do like in fact. Here's a minimal sampling of three Japanese songs in three different styles from those years Japan was sitting on the top of the world, so at least you can reminisce tastefully: "Tokyo" by Yashiki Takajin (in a kind of jazzy style), "Kazari ja nai no yo namida wa" by Inoue Yousui (in a pop/rock idiom) performed by Nakamori Akina. I'm not crazy about Nakamori Akina either, but all the better versions have apparently been taken off YouTube (one of them by Inoue Yousui himself together with Kouji Tamaki of "Anzen Chitai"; update: a shorter video of the same song at the same concert recently posted here); there's also this interpretation by television actress Matsuzaka Keiko ("kore mo ai, are mo ai..."), but people make fun of me when I tell them I think her version is better than Nakamori's. Finally in the enka style "Amagigoe" sung by Ishikawa Sayuri. And for comic relief: Ishikawa Sayuri in "Amagigoe" together with Marty Friedman (Megadeth guitarist 1990 to 2000) in what can only be called an embarrassment. This said, Marty's instrumental guitar version of "Amagigoe" (live and studio)is sort of ok. There's of course many more Japanese songs I like, but these should be enough prove that I don't hate Japanese songs. Contact Basemetal here 21:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I never insinuated that you hated nor disliked Japanese songs. There are many I like, too. It's just that that particular one you linked to brought back specific memories. This is completely getting off-topic, however, so if you wish to continue this discussion (to which I have no objection), it might be best to do so on my talk page. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:40, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Little Latin inscription

What does this mean?

TIMOTHEVS ALDEN
PRA S.PRI. COLL.ALL LAP. AN
AVLÆ. BENTLIENSIS
POSVIVI A.S.H. MDCCCXXII

This is the entirety of an inscription on the side of Bentley Hall, designed by Timothy Alden and in the middle of construction in 1822. Over the 192 years since the inscription was placed, it's degraded a good deal, and I'm not sure that I've performed the transcription correctly. Nyttend (talk) 01:07, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Don't feel like trying to unpack all the abbreviations, but the key words are LAP. = lapidem "stone" and posuit "placed, set"... AnonMoos (talk) 02:34, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

If there's a possibility that there's an E between PRA and S at the beginning of the second line, then "PRA[E]S.PRI. COLL.ALL" might expand to something like PRAESES PRIMUS COLLEGII ALLEGHENENSIS ("first president of Allegheny College"). LAP. AN might be lapidem anguli, I suppose, meaning "cornerstone". AVLÆ. BENTLIENSES is "of Bentley Hall", of course. POSVIVI isn't anything I recognize as Latin (although just POSVI, "I placed", would make sense), but I think AnonMoos is right that it's supposed to be some form of pono. I don't know the abbreviation A.S.H. So maybe "I, Timothy Alden, first president of Allegheny College, placed the cornerstone of Bentley Hall [A.S.H.] 1822", or something like that? I'm offering this with considerable diffidence, since abbreviations like these are often hell to interpret, and I'm not familiar with the ones used in the 19th century. Deor (talk) 03:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

According to this book, there is a similar inscription that reads

"Timotheus Alden

Praæs. Pri. Coll. All. Lap. Angu. Huj.

Aulæ Bentliensis

Posuit 5 Jul. 1820"

Which seems to support some of what Deor wrote. I would expect it to read "posuit" rather than "posui", because this is common in inscriptions and because there's no "ego". - Lindert (talk) 12:46, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Presumably, then, Nyttend's version says "POS. V IVL". I can't think of what A.S.H. would be, but if that's correct, then "anno" something, I guess? It must be something else, just difficult to read due to the degradation. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Here is a picture, by the way - looks like I am right about POS V JUL but it does seem to say A.S.H. pretty clearly. (Assuming this is the real cornerstone - I was expecting it to be fancier!) Adam Bishop (talk) 15:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Ante summo homine (endings? my Latin is rusty) makes sense in context, but I can't say that I've ever seen AD written that way before. shoy (reactions) 17:22, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

A.S.H. is anno salutis humanae. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 23:57, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Until the eighteenth century CE, the term Anno Salutis ("in the year of salvation") or Anno Nostrae Salutis ("in the year of our salvation"), Anno Salutis Humanae ("in the year of the salvation of men"), and Anno Reparatae Salutis ("in the year of accomplished salvation") were sometimes used in place of AD. [3]. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:04, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The text references (endnote #3) the article Anno Domini as of 28 July 2006. And indeed, there was a section 3.2. in Anno Domini stating that. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 00:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Aha! That's definitely it, perfect. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:26, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-Officially Accurate Renderings

I have an extended form of the Greek alphabet here that is based on my research on the various Modern Greek dialects, but I wanted to know if there are any better methods of transcription that comply with certain standards or the like.

It's hard to further explain my question, but let me try:

Are there any phonemes listed on the aforementioned page that have other transcriptions that have some sort of "official" status or something similar?

In addition, if I have made any mistakes with any of the phonemic values given on that page, please let me know.

I'm hoping that the aforelinked extended Greek alphabet can function as a way to try and transcribe certain sounds of Ancient Greek that have been lost in Modern Greek in a way that speakers of Modern Greek can understand (as well as contain some additional phonemes as a bonus). Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 02:44, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I have seen the name "Woodcock" transliterated into Greek as "Γουντκοκ", in the line-up of a football team on television, but I don't know if it is any way "official". "πφ" and the other similar examples seem misleading transliterations for "pʰ" etc. to me. I would have thought that "πχ" was at least as good. --ColinFine (talk) 18:00, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I was under the impression that τθ, πφ and κχ were the recommended ways to transcribe /tʰ/, /pʰ/ and /kʰ/ respectively. I know at least that I have seen more than one person transcribe them that way. But perhaps I am incorrect here? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

WWII C-H posters

Continuation of this archived thread.

I have received nothing from the Smithsonian Museum, and nothing definitive from AllExperts.com.

The last comment in the earlier thread was:

It appears that the posters may have come with a blank spot at the bottom. Compare File:Don't blab. Loose traps help the Japs. Increase production for Axis destruction. - NARA - 535396.jpg with the C-H version. Nanonic (talk) 07:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Looking closely at this example, one can see that stickers probably made of vinyl have been added to the top and bottom. They are both wrinkled, but the rest of the poster has little or no wrinkles. Further, the text at the bottom says, "SIGN UP FOR WAR BONDS. Make your department 100%". Clearly this is addressed to employees of a specific company.

Apparently the posters were produced by the War Production Board, but a company applied their own stickers to them. Per Nanonic's comment above, the posters may have even included empty space with that in mind.

Per Nanonic's research in the other thread, the most likely candidate for this company—and the only candidate we've found—is Cutler-Hammer of Milwaukee. Cutler-Hammer was acquired by Eaton Corporation in 1978, and Eaton's current CEO is Alexander Cutler (possibly a son of the C-H Cutler?).

I think that's the best we can do, and good job guys. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 08:49, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

What a puzzle to unravel! Given that info, here's a pre-War advertisement[4] which contains their logo which includes a "C-H". I found that and others by googling "cutler-hammer world war ii". A rather more stylized C-H is still part of their brand today, which you can see by googling just "cutler-hammer". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that nails it. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 16:21, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Very good! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:42, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, well done. That was bugging me. Matt Deres (talk) 00:58, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Tevildo - This was your question so I wanted to make sure you saw the answer before this one gets archived, too. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 07:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

And as a Milwaukee historian, I'm embarassed not to have had that occur to me. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:01, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Aina hey! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:53, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks again to everyone! This would also explain why the academic article we found that discussed the "I Gave A Man" poster didn't mention the caption. Now, how to record this permanently? The discussion will be in the RD/L archives, but would a note in the image description be helpful to future researchers? It's probably a bit too trivial to include in our main Propaganda or United States Office of War Information articles. Tevildo (talk) 21:55, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

If it were me, I would indeed add this information to the description of the picture itself. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:00, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd add it, but in hedged language, since we haven't actually found RS for this. A ton of OR is behind it. An image description is not an article, but accuracy in the comments is especially important if intended for "future researchers". I'd say "The poster was among a number of posters produced by the U.S. government War Production Board. It appears that companies added their own stickers, and the C-H probably refers to Cutler-Hammer of Milwaukee." -- or some such thing. Maybe you could wait until this is archived and then include a link to the archive section. We have multiple C-H poster images (there are two in the earlier thread alone), and I'd add the same explanation to all I could find. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 05:33, 22 November 2014 (UTC)