Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 15

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October 15

American knowledge of Shakespeare

I got into a discussion at alt.usage.english on how intelligible Shakespeare is to modern Americans and on what would cause problems ("Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill"?). Are there any facts on this, like the surveys on Americans' knowledge of history or the Bible? I'd prefer an attempt at representative sampling of native speakers of English but would settle for anything I could get. I didn't find anything in a quick Google. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 14:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

A few minutes spent on Google failed to turn up any research studies on this. A couple of observations though: 1) If there is an assumption that Americans would have a harder time with Shakespeare than Britons would, that is probably a bad assumption. American English is just as much a descendant of Elizabethan English as British English is. The split between the two varieties of English did not occur until after Shakespeare's time. 2) It might be possible to generalize about Americans' reading comprehension of Shakespeare, but results for reading comprehension would be different from those for listening comprehension, and results for listening comprehension would vary widely depending on factors such as actors' enunciation and acting ability. Also, obviously, American audiences would have a harder time understanding British actors performing Shakespeare than they would understanding American actors performing it. Incidentally, American pronunciations are generally closer than modern London pronunciations to the original pronunciation in Shakespeare's time. (On the other hand, pronunciations in Ireland are even closer to Elizabethan than those in North America.) Marco polo (talk) 15:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking. I suppose this kind of survey would be much harder than just asking whether "God helps those who help themselves" is from the Bible.

I was thinking of reading comprehension, though I neglected to say so. I wasn't thinking of a comparison with Britain or other countries, but if there's a difference, it would probably come from how much time schools spend on Shakespeare. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's at all obvious that Americans would have more trouble understanding British actors performing Shakespeare than understanding American actors doing the same. A hundred years ago that may have been true, but mass media has (I daresay obviously) improved mutual understanding of dialects to a significant degree. Just personally, I am an American, and I have no trouble at all understanding "Queen's English" (which I have to assume is the de facto standard for the RSC) or any dialect of English English, with the exception of some of the weirder North Country ones; a heavy Welsh or Scots accent can occasionally give me trouble, too. What I have noticed about myself (and I would very much be interested in seeing any scientific literature on this) is that, even if I have no trouble at all understanding the words, my ability to distinguish between different speakers of a dialect is much poorer than my ability to differentiate between two speakers of AmEng—that goes for British dialects as well as certain American dialects. Anyway, it's off-topic... Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:48, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

This book might be of interest [1], as might this article [2]. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

My tuppence: In my UK high school, Shakespeare was not taught at all, unless you studied English for A-Level (age 17-18). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:21, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

• This seems to be based on the premise that Americans as such would be different in their reaction to Shakespeare. But as noted, his works were written before the split between British and American dialects. The basic difficulties for all readers are the freer word order and changes in verb constructions, the vocabulary that's either changed meaning or been lost, and the different philosophies of the eras. For example, The opening soliloquy of Richard III: Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this Son of York confuses modern listeners who think Richard's referring to the sun, not the King who is of the House of York. There are plenty of words like descant that will send Just as many Brits as Americans to the dictionary. There's also Richard's mention that he's like an unlicked bear's whelp. Who here knows that in his time it was believed that bears were born formless, and were only properly shaped into four-legged animals by their mothers molding them like clay?

In my last for years of schooling before University we read Romeo & Juliet 4 times (once a year), Hamlet, MacBeth, and the Falstaff plays. Th first time I actually understood Shakespeare was when I saw Macbeth (being performed while I was) taking university courses over the summer between 10th-11th grade. Our learning in school was limited because none of the players understood the lines they were reading. It was very easy to follow when you were watching actors who knew the meaning of the lines they were speaking, and acted and emoted accordingly. μηδείς (talk) 17:39, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

What was Macbeth doing taking a university course? :) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:25, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, SemanticMantis. The book (which I looked at the end of at Amazon) doesn't seem to have anything relevant. I may be able to get access to the article.

Medeis, my question wasn't based on the premise you mention. I agree with your discussion of the difficulties, and I'd add one for many if not all readers: the figurative language. Thanks also for the point about the value of good acting. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 03:47, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I have this horrible image of George Lucas directing the kid that played Anakin in the fourth film as Hamlet, not understanding a word he was saying, with the producers saying, "But he's so cute!" μηδείς (talk) 21:50, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

How Texans understand Shakespeare. Still not as poorly as Canadians, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:00, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I think many here would enjoy the following Studio 360 audio story: Olivier Had it Wrong: Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation. Some really fascinating ground is covered such as that the some of the eye rhymes and seemingly poor rhymes in Shakespeare are just the result of not knowing the original pronunciation.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:54, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Great link. I never bought the "eye rhyme" explanation for a great many poetic oddities (in Shakespeare and elsewhere). Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:39, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

_{Wandering slightly off topic, South Africans can also have difficulty with the Bard. The phrase from Hamlet « I am thy father's spirit » falls very flat in Afrikaans as «Ek is die spook van jou pa ». --Clifford Mill (talk) 10:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)}

• I most strongly recommend Isabel River's Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry which address the Reformation as well, and literature in general. Much of Shakespeare is gibberish without such a grounding as this short, very well-written book provides. μηδείς (talk) 19:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Meaning of to roger and to dodger in the phrase roger dodger?

Hello, I'm doing an adaptation of this article Roger Dodger (phrase) for the Wikipedia in French. I've nearly no problems with the usual vocabulary and sentences but the usual dictionaries are not clear about the meanings of some words. Some questions:

Q1) Can I considere, as this dictionary says [3] that in this phrase to roger means to (ass)fuck?

Q2) Dodger isn't easier. Is there a sexual meaning as proposed here on n°2 [4] or is it just the meaning of draft dodger?

Thank you very much for the help.--Jojodesbatignoles (talk) 16:29, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

As per the last paragraph of that article, "roger" in this context means "I have received all of your transmission." This is supported by this dictionary definition. "Dodger" in this context doesn't "mean" anything in particular, as far as I know. It simply rhymes with "roger". I think it's a bad idea to look to urbandictionary.com for meanings of World War II era expressions. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Right. Just to clarify, there should be no confusion on the "roger" part, our article points out that it is part of the controlled vocabulary of the International_Civil_Aviation_Organization. OP should also keep in mind a phrase like this doesn't follow compositional semantics. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:58, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

It's possible the originator of the phrase was a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. But, unless you can find secondary sources that make that connection, it shouldn't be mentioned in either article. It's an unfounded guess. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, "roger" is radio-speak for "read / registered" because it starts with the letter "R", and "dodger" is just a nonsense word that rhymes with "roger". This reminds me of the Roger Ramjet episode where another pilot said "roger" to Roger on the radio, causing Roger to spend the rest of the episode wondering who this other Roger was. JIP | Talk 17:59, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

So the "Roger, Roger" exchange in Airplane was already an old joke. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:42, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not exactlty thrilled with the direction this conversation has taken. Roger is my real first name, it's a reasonably common English name. Dodger is simply one who dodges, whether it's the draft or a ball thrown at them isn't really significant. It's been used as a nickname at least as far back as Dickens. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:08, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I should have said "in this context, 'dodger' is just a nonsense word". JIP | Talk 18:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with JIP. It's similar to how 'OK' can be extended to 'okeedokee' (which I personally use a lot). It just rhymes. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:31, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

You could also say "See you later, alligator" to a crocodile without worry. So long as you don't smile, anyway. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:05, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Back in the day, my dad had a CB radio in his Dodge. He thought he was being clever and sophisticated to use the CB handle "Artful Dodger", combining Dickens with the make of his car. I thought it was lame. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

It's a father's job to be lame in the eyes of his know-all children. I should know: I have fulfilled this role magnificently. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:02, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:09, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why the OP gravitated to sexual connotations for both words, when there was ample evidence for other connotations in the wiki article from which they started. Hell, even urbandictionary's second definition of "roger" is consistent with the article. How we get from that article to questions about doggy sex and ejaculation avoidance is beyond me — unless we have been successfully trolled. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 02:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

"Roger dodger" is an example of what's called "rhyming reduplication",[5] as with "razzle-dazzle" and "super-duper". And the "roger" part refers to two-way radio communication. It means the same thing as the CB slang 10-4: "Received / Acknowledged / Understood". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

It's possible, though, that a few people saying "roger" on the radio have felt some enjoyment or distaste because they knew the sexual meaning of "roger"—which I believe has been obsolete for a long time in America, at least. The OED says it's "chiefly British".

The OED says the radio "roger" is originally American and stands for "received". Its first citation is from 1941.

Roger and out. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:06, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Hard telling. I never heard of that alleged usage till today. But I don't run in the same circles as you, evidently. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:36, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

EO explains where that usage came from,[6] and indicates that usage has been obsolete since around 1870. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:38, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, but I get the feeling this "Roger" is a gay joke. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe that's why some of the Monty Python characters were named "Roger". But if it's been obsolete in general usage since the 1870s, it's a pretty obscure joke. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:50, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

All the better to not offend the general public. Sometimes Seth MacFarlane's subtle. Often not so much. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:56, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I can't believe this discussion has come this far without mention of Roger the Dodger! --TammyMoet (talk) 09:51, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I am a gay man who has spent most of his life in the United States but who spent a period in London in the 80s, during which I was quite active in the gay scene there, and I had never heard of the sexual sense of the word roger until I read this thread. I don't think that it is widely used today, even in gay circles, even in England. Marco polo (talk) 18:37, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

On the sexual connotation: "roger" can be a name or a verb, but "rogering" I think can only be used to refer to a sexual act. See this ngram for print occurrence history [7]. I'm not quite sure where I picked up the sexual sense, but it was sometime in high school. Probably from Douglas Adams or Monty Python. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:54, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

There are 93,000 hits for a "jolly good rogering", some of which leave nothing to the imagination. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:38, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Not sure how I missed that all those years. Marco polo (talk) 19:42, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I imagine that "rogering" might be more the usage of a Rugby club rather than a gay bar, but perhaps that's just a stereotype. Alansplodge (talk) 21:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's my impression, too. Etymonline is wrong about the sense being obsolete (unless it refers only to American usage). The OED has cites from 1953, 1972 and 2003, and Evelyn Waugh used it in his 1931 diary. Dbfirs 06:09, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I’m the OP and I’m not a troll. I thank you all for your numerous explanations. I wish to explain how I came to these 2 questions with sexual content. First with my own English (Globish) Roger refers to airplane communication and Dodger to nothing. Then I used usual online dictionaries (wordreference.com, dictionary.reference.com, and the Wiktionary); the result was meaningless. Some days later, I thought about using the Ubandictionary with the strange meanings (see above). I was puzzled and before posting my adaption, I came to this desk to ask your opinion. Thanks for your help thank to which I’m going to post a more reasonable article. --Jojodesbatignoles (talk) 09:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Will to power

What is Nietzsche's 'Will to power' supposed to mean? The phrase get thrown around a lot for something that is not proper English - there must be someone who thinks it means something. It really looks like a mistranslation, unless maybe it's 19th-century English for "will for power". "Will to power" as grammatically correct English would require 'power' interpreted as a transitive verb - the determination to power something (maybe electrically). Peter Grey (talk) 22:15, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Unrelated to that other great lifestyle guru, I'm guessing. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:23, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I think "will to power" is best understood as a term expressing a single idea, albeit made up of three words, rather than a phrase to be grammatically parsed for its meaning. The Will to power article provides a reasonably good definition: "The will to power describes what Friedrich Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in humans: achievement, ambition, the striving to reach the highest possible position in life." - Eron^Talk 22:47, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Peter Grey -- I don't think that anybody would assume that "life" in the companion phrase "will to life" is a verb. It makes sense if you understand "to" in the sense of "toward a given state" (as the American Heritage Dictionary 3rd edition defines it)... AnonMoos (talk) 01:09, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Even as a verb, power makes sense. What's the point of having the noun if you can't make things and people work? But yeah, I hear it as "toward". InedibleHulk (talk) 04:59, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

"Will toward power" isn't good English either. Does "Will to/toward" + noun ever occur except in this one phrase which is a translation? Peter Grey (talk) 21:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Sure. Google "Will to succeed", "Will to persevere", "Will to flourish", "Will to kill" or many others. Don't confuse it with the "shall" sense. You will wake up tomorrow because you have no choice. But you will (to) do the things you want to do after that. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:06, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

He asked for examples of "will to" + noun. Those are examples of "will to" + verb. --Viennese Waltz 07:36, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh right. Brainfart. Guess I didn't have the "will to victory". Googling that suggests a "will to violence", too. Success and perseverance get a few hits. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:30, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Aren't Schopenhauer's "Wille zum Leben" and Nietzsche's "Wille zur Macht" parallel constructions in German? (With Leben and Macht being used as nouns). How does Schopenhauer's concept get translated in English in general? Contact Basemetal here 23:59, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

"Wille zum Leben" is usually rendered "Will to Live". - Eron^Talk 01:13, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

If that is the case then parallel constructions in German are rendered by distinct constructions in English, are they not? If "Will to Power" is OK in English then why wasn't "Will to Life"? My feeling is "Will to Power" doesn't sound that idiomatic in English and the reason whoever coined that translation did so is because there is in English no natural verbal equivalent to die Macht like there is to das Leben. They chose to stay close to the German at the cost producing a somewhat bizarre phrase. That's not so uncommon in the translation of German philosophical texts. Just look at the English translations of so many Heideggerian phrases. Contact Basemetal here 02:33, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

These "Wille zu ..." phrases could be translated more idiomatically into English with "Will for ...". Maybe the choice of "Will to ..." was a conscious choice to be exotic and/or "closer to the original". Marco polo (talk) 15:25, 17 October 2014 (UTC)