Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 3

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 3

Question about British apartment numbering

Hello, I know that in England the floor that would be the first floor to us Americans is called the ground floor, and our first floor is their second floor, but what I'm wondering is how they number ground floor apartments in England. In the US apartments on the ground floor could be 1A and 1B, for example, and on the next floor 2A and 2B. But if in England they don't have a number for the ground floor, what would they number apartments on that floor? 0A and 0B? Thanks,  Liam987(talk) 00:07, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Usually the numbers start at 1 for the flat nearest the main entrance, and go on from there. We don't normally start a new sequence for each floor. For example, Flat 4 might be on the ground floor, Flat 5 on the first. DuncanHill (talk) 00:16, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, what DuncanHill describes is also true in smaller or older buildings in older U.S. cities. Marco polo (talk) 00:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Mind you - we do have some odd schemes here and there. One example I know of (I'll use fictitious names) is a series of 4 blocks of flats on the same road. When they were erected, the flats were numbered as if they were house numbers on the street, so the first block had (say) 1-75 Miggins St, the next had 76-150 Miggins Street, and so on. Some years later the council decided to give each block a name, but the numbering of the flats stayed the same. So - we now have 1-75 Melchett Tower, Miggins Street, then 76-150 Baldrick House, Miggins Street, then 151-224 Percy Place, Miggins Street, and so on.

Also, when a building has been subdivided the numbering can go a bit awry - that's when you'll get numbers like 1A, 1B, etc - often those will have originally just been one flat which has now been split.

There'll always be a reason for how it has been done, but that reason may not be rational. DuncanHill (talk) 00:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

What, no Blackadder Place? Matt Deres (talk) 19:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Blackadder Boulevard is down the road, turn left, then the third right. DuncanHill (talk) 20:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

For the most part everything in England is different from in America. I am an American that is currently living in England. You are correct about the way that the levels of floors. The ground floor is listed as 0 and the ground floor is the first floor to Americans. Britain's are really direct about things so when you walk into the building you are walking on the ground before so therefore that is consider the ground floor and so forth. [1] ISPearson (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)ISPEARSON Now to proceed to answer your question address in England of course are different as well. It is There are not zip codes so their version of zip codes they have IP address's. The IP address are listed for every street for instance, Redwood Lane in Brandon, Suffolk is listed as IP27 9RB. So houses all on that street will have that IP Address. So with the flats they will have the same IP Address but each apartment will have its own number but share the same IP address as the others so there will be no floors numbering necessary. [2]ISPearson (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)ISPEARSON ISPearson (talk) 08:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

We don't have IP addresses for houses/flats, we have postcodes. The first letter or two letters represent the postcode area and derives from a major town or city - so IP (as mentioned above) is for Ipswich. I live in Brighton, so my postcode area is BN. DuncanHill (talk) 09:00, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Flats in the UK are normally houses, separated into two living spaces. I lived in 67 [blah blah] Road a few years ago, and the guy's address above me was 67a. There are various numbering systems. Keeps the Royal Mail on their toes. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 09:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

In Edinburgh (and I believe other Scottish cities) it's common to use an address like "88 Thirlestane Road, 1F2". This means that you go up one flight of stairs, and then it's the second door you come to on that level. I've also heard "1, Left" or "1, Right" to distinguish them. There is often another numbering, just from 1 to 8 or whatever, which may be used on the doorbells and postally, but for going to the flat, the xFy form is much more common. They don't need to mark flats on the ground floor, because these (in the cases I know) have their own front doors, and so a different street address (eg "86 Thirlestane Road"). --ColinFine (talk) 10:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Here in Germany floors are numbered the same way as in Britain, but in smaller houses with only 8 flats or so, the flats usually aren't numbered at all; the mailman is expected to simply look at the name on the letter and find the corresponding name on a mailbox. In larger Plattenbauten the flats are numbered, but there usually aren't any flats on the ground floor anyway, so it's not an issue. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:18, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I found a similar thing in Hungary, where everyone in my block of flats had a personal mailbox downstairs - no flats there - and my flat's room number was 5 even though we were on the top floor with about 8 different flats around and below us. Continentals are weird. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 10:30, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

My daughter recently reneted an "apartment". When she visited it she was surprised to see that it was a house (through-by-light terraced), with a private door, a house number, houste-type address (like 99 anytown terrace) and everything. After being there for some weeks she was surprised to receive a letter addressed to someone else with a "c" added to the number (like 99c anytown terrace). She put this down to someone who had moved out previously. When I went to see her I thought I would walk round and look at the back of the property, which was down a ginnel behind the terrace. To my surprise there was a whole flat underneath; the building was on a slight hill so it was like a semi-exposed basement flat, with steps going down about three feet in the back yard to a door marked 99c!. This raised the questions, "Does that make the house 99a, and if so what happened to 99b?". I expect that "c" stands for cellar, but I like to think that somewhere there is a 99b, a bit like Kings Cross's Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. (99 is not the real number) -- Q Chris (talk) 11:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I've also seen Scottish addresses in the form "2/1 322 Sauchiehall Street", which I think you interpret as "2nd floor, flat 1, no. 322 Sauchiehall Street", but I wouldn't swear to it! -- Arwel Parry (talk) 18:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

My apartment in France was like that. I guess there were 10 or 12 in the building, but none of them had numbers. I think for insurance purposes my apartment was officially "2nd floor facing the stairs", and of course to my North American mind it was actually on the third floor. The mailboxes were on the zeroth floor and were labelled with everyone's names. The buzzers outside had numbers, but the numbers otherwise had no connection to the apartments. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:16, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It depends on which part of the United States you refer to. In my mind, the first floor is the floor above the ground floor. The second floor is the floor above that, etc. etc. Furthermore, people who make blanket statements like "*siren* HEY EVERYBODY, I SPEAK FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND I SAY THAT EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT *siren*" don't really help with anything. They just add to more stereotype. But I'm from a relatively conservative region in the northeastern portion of the country, so that might be the reason why ground floor means ground floor to me. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:47, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Capitalization of "van" as part of surname

What is the preferred style, both on Wikipedia and in other style guides, for the capitalization of "van" in surnames? For example, there is a discrepancy in our articles on Melvin Van Peebles and Robin van Persie. In the titles of the articles, the 'Van' in Van Peebles is capitalized, whereas the 'van' in van Persie is not. That's the first issue. The second issue is whether Van should be capitalized where it appears in the middle of a sentence (obviously it is capitalized at the beginning of a sentence). Both these articles capitalize it in the middle of a sentence, which seems odd in van Persie's case where it is not capitalized in the title. (For another example taken from Dutch football, see Louis van Gaal). --Viennese Waltz 07:31, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

We have an article on it - van (Dutch). DuncanHill (talk) 07:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

There is no one-size-fits-all style. What you're supposed to go by is whether the person involved is known as "Van" or "van". Van Persie's name should not be capitalized in the middle of a sentence, but Van Peebles should. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

As the article makes clear, that's not really the whole story. Dutch people like Van Persie do capitalize the 'van' in their names in the middle of sentences, but only if not preceded either a first name or initials. So the full name of Van Persie is Robin van Persie. - Lindert (talk) 12:57, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Flats in the UK are normally houses, separated into two living spaces. I lived in 67 [blah blah] Road a few years ago, and the guy's address above me was 67a. There are various numbering systems. Sorry, wrong section, for some reason. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 09:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

When you call him Ludwig van Beethoven you don't capitalize but when you call him Ludwig Van you do :) Contact Basemetal here 11:08, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

What about this boon to cold vehicles? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Related question

As a related question, I recall there are two ways of alphabetising such a name when alphabetising with the surname first. One is to alphabetise "Melvin Van Peebles" as "Van Peebles, Melvin" under "V" but the other is to alphabetise "Robin van Persie" as "Persie, Robin van" under "P". Is there any relation between this and the capitalisation of "van"? JIP | Talk 12:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

This is also touched upon in the article. Basically the answer is yes, because the "one" you mention is standard in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, and the "other" is standard in the Netherlands. However, note that whether "van" is capitalized or not is determined by the nationality or custom of the person belonging to the name, while the question of alphabetizing under "V" or not is determined by the custom of the author of the alphabetic list (or his/her audience). - Lindert (talk) 13:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Or it can be mixed. Each WP biographical article is DEFAULTSORTed according to the perceived surname of the subject. Some of these people will be like "Van Gogh, Vincent", but others will be like "Gogh, Vincent van", and they will appear in their relevant categories in whatever way is specified at the article level. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:34, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Clint Eastwood Sudden Impact movie in Japanese

I put this in the Language section though it's kind of Entertainment as well. I was wondering, if there has been an "official" Japanese translation of the Clint Eastwood movie Sudden Impact, what words did they use to translate the quote "Go ahead, make my day!"? 20.137.2.50 (talk) 13:27, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

According to this page, the subtitle was "撃て、望むところだ " and the dubbed version was "さあ、撃たせてくれぇ". But this page says the DVD subtitle is "撃てよ、望むところだ". Oda Mari (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

What's this small ぇ in さあ、撃たせてくれぇ。? Contact Basemetal here 17:25, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Used as a lengthening of the vowel. It's for emphasis. It also shows the change of tone, like やれ！やれぇ！ would be. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes but what would be the difference if they had written さあ、撃たせてくれえ。? Do you have to write やれぇ！, 助けてぇ！, etc. or is it ok to write やれえ！, 助けてえ！, etc. and it amounts to the same thing? Contact Basemetal here 21:16, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It's just not done that way. Like in British English, we don't pronounce the 'r' in 'hard', but we still have to write it, as it signifies a long vowel. We don't write 'haad', though it would be pronounced the same. It's just convention. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 00:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I find くれぇ significantly easier/faster to read than くれえ, probably because くれぇ can only be a lengthened くれ, while くれえ looks like it might be a distinct word, or two words, and it takes me a fraction of a second to eliminate that possibility. The small ぇ is useful in identifying word boundaries much like the kanji-kana alternation is. This may be why native speakers use it in this context, but I have no other evidence for that, and I'm far from fluent myself. This search actually suggests that くれー is the most common, with くれぇ in second place. くれえ is relatively rare but does occur in the wild. -- BenRG (talk) 20:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the voice actor, Yasuo Yamada actually said that way and it was the description of it and probablly the script was just written "さあ、撃たせてくれ". Oda Mari (talk) 16:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Any Romance languages that historically shifted Latin's "f" and/or "b" to "h" or something like that?

The main reason why I do not like Latin is because it (or rather, its late ancestor, Proto-Italic) fronted its /θ/s and /ð/s to /f/s and /b/s (some were fronted to "d's, which is fine, but they were few and far between).

Because my main concern was with "f" and "b" being used in places in words that etymologically had /θ/s and /ð/s, I looked about for Romance languages that may have shifted Latin "f"s and "b"s to something more palatable (which in this particular case means pretty much anything that's not in the /p/, /b/ or /f/, /v/-type categories, really).

What I have found (in terms of things that majorly affected those consonants) is that Aromanian shifted Latin /f/ to /h/ in some instances, and that Spanish shifted Latin /f/ to (a silent) "h" in many instances, and Latin /b/ to /β/.

Now, whilst Spanish's changes to Latin "f" and /b/ are perfectly fitting for what I'm looking for, I'm still wondering if perhaps there are any other Romance languages that have done better (or at least did something). I know French did some stuff to Latin /f/ and /b/ (for instance /b/ in some cases was shifted [due to surrounding phonemes] to /dʒ/ [later /ʒ/] which is a swell phoneme shift in this case), but that's about it.

Could anybody here tell me if some other Romance languages exist that had shifts involving the aforementioned Latin phonemes? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 23:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Gascon is labelled number 8

The Gascon language shares f > h > 0 with Castilian, this is often assumed to be due to a Basque substrate. μηδείς (talk) 01:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks for letting me know. I will read up more on Gascon. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 01:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The shift itself is not unusual, I know it is common among the Austronesian languages. There's also Rhaeto-Romance and the Italic languages as possible candidates for research but our articles aren't comprehensive, unfortunately. This is an excellent survey of Romance you can get rather cheap usedly. You might look into getting a grammar of the Blackfoot language, as well. Ironically, Blackfoot lacks a native b or f sound. It's quite amazing phonologically from an Indo-European perspective, quite elegant, actually. μηδείς (talk) 03:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The Proto-Uralic language and the Finnish language both lack an eff. The Hungarian language seems to have one under the influence of Germanic. Even early Slavic lacks the sound as a separate phoneme, although words borrowed from later stages of Greek, e.g., Fyodor have it. μηδείς (talk) 03:30, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

French shifted /f/ to /h/ too, although only with the word "foris", which became "hors", "dehors", "hormis". I think "hors" (and related forms) are the only surviving French words with that change, but I'm pretty sure there used to be more in Old French, which were all artificially re-classicized later, as often happened in French. I could be wrong though, since none spring to mind. By the way, isn't this a silly reason to dislike Latin? Adam Bishop (talk) 11:35, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@μηδείς Ironically, Fyodor (IIRC) is a fronted borrowing of Θεόδωρος.

@Adam Bishop It's not silly as far as I am concerned. Th-fronting is the one sound change that I can never ever accept no matter what the circumstances are. I associate th-fronting with infantile discourse and Cockneys. As such, I cannot bring myself to speak a language that went through that sound change. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 13:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I think I have said this before, but my OR tells me that 'th' is difficult to pronounce for children, because they lose their front teeth at some point, to be replaced by adult teeth at a later date, so they go through a stage were the sound is replaced by 'f', which can be pronounced without front teeth. Some people just carry it on into adulthood. It's not restricted to Cockney. It can be found all over the UK. Anecdote alert: When I was about five years old, I remember my mother trying to teach me to read from flashcards I'd brought home from school. One word was 'with', and I was trying to read it, saying 'wi-tuh-huh', and mum told me (in RP) it was 'with', and I said, "What does THAT mean?", because 'th' is absent in our dialect (Scouse), as we replace it with a 't' (or 'd' in voiced cases), but in this particular word, we don't pronounce it at all (usually replaced by a glottal stop). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 16:55, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@KagetTora I never said that it wasn't. I just didn't mention it because it's a shame that Cockney influence has become so prevalent (and, yes, I'm aware that there were places such as Yorkshire that had independently possessed it for some time and the like. But that's not really relevant to this discussion). Part of the reason why I have come to refer to England as "Old England" (I live in a region in North America called "New England" that was half settled by East Anglians and half settled by West Countrymen [I come from the East Anglia-side] and tends to have more in common with English dialects than other North American dialects) is because I feel England has let itself down. I mean, heck, th-fronting is found in parts of Scotland now, too. How pathetic.

Meanwhile, the English dialects I have always held beloved, West Country (minus Bristol), Ullans-influenced Hiberno-English (I happen to have me a good bit of Irish heritage, personally), Norfolk, Suffolk, Northern English etc. have been growing weaker, being replaced by Estuary-esque speech. Blast it all, man! Why the devil does that have to happen? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

So, as an ethnic Irish (asõ I am), you don't mind the shift from P-IE pH₂tér- to Irish athair, which has dropped the first consonant 'p', and the 'th' is pronounced as an 'h'? Yet, you can't stand the 'th' becoming an 'f'. Here in Liverpool we pronounce the 'th' in 'father' as a 'd', so it sounds like the Dutch 'vader' (incidentally, that was a clue to the storyline in Star Wars. Darth Vader....) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 09:42, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

You don't like th-fronting but you like the Hiberno-English use of "seen" as the preterite of "see"? Man, this is some poor quality trolling. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Céad míle fáilte to the WP Ref Desk. I think we are getting off-topic. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:35, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@KageTora Indeed. I suppose it's just a stark pet peeve of mine.

@Adam Bishop What?! First of all, WP:AGF. I am no troll. I contribute honestly to Wiktionary and Wikipedia and have done so for years. Just because something doesn't make sense in your eyes does not mean that it was an attempt at trolling. Also, I never claimed that I liked all aspects of a particular dialect. Rather, I simply said that, as a whole, I liked that particular dialect.

@KageTora I think so too. So, anyways, in summary we have Spanish, Aromanian, Gascon, and (sort of) French. Did I get all of them?

Oh, by the way, Medeis, is Gascon mutually intelligible with standard Occitan? Or is it too different for them to be significantly well-understood by both parties? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 12:22, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, frankly, who cares what you think about a particular dialect? Your questions are perfectly valid and interesting, but you could have easily asked them without referring to your personal (and rather childish) distaste for Cockney or whatever else you don't like. It's irrelevant and egotistical. But I guess I can't complain, I've said a lot of dumb things on the Internet too (haven't we all). Adam Bishop (talk) 12:36, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• No Romance language, but it's interesting that Mandrin h [x] often shifts to [f] in Shanghai dialect (not mutually intelligible with each other). --2.245.115.115 (talk) 16:14, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• I can't personally speak to the mutual intelligibility of Gascon and the rest of Provencal. Originally it was part of a dialect chain with Provencal, implying speakers in neighboring towns could understand each other from the Bay of Biscay to the Italian border. But the rise of the national standards has tended to disrupt that, and you'll have to read the article on Gascon to see the number of current speakers. There's also the fact that even speakers of standard Spanish and Italian can pretty much understand each other; it's a question of how conservative, and thus similar the phonologies are. Spoke standard French is incomprehensible to Spaniards due to the highly altered phonology of French. I suspect Gascon is not very conservative. There may be someone here with much better knowledge. Here is the Lord's Prayer, note Latin facta > hèyte

Noste Pay qui èts au Cèu,

que lou bos nom siyi santifiat,

que lou bos règne arribi,

que boste boulountat siyi hèyte

sus le Tèrre com au Cèu.

Balhats-nous oey

lou nos pan de chaque your.

Perdounats-nous les nostes ofenses,

com les perdounam aus qui nous an ofensat

é ne nous dachits pas cade hens le tentacioun,

mès deliurats-nous dou mau,

Atau siyi.

μηδείς (talk) 17:33, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@Adam Bishop My views may seem childish or extreme, but I suppose that may be because I tend to lean towards the "balancing" of a "tipped" metaphorical "scale". If one group or person goes to one extreme and drops a "boulder" onto the "scale" and tips it unfairly in their favour, I am wont to tip it back so that it is even again. Nevertheless, that does not mean that I do not have my own instances where I may tip the scale, but I honestly do try not to do so all that much. Still, we all have our preferences, pet peeves and biases. That's just how things are.

@2.245.115.115 Oh? Well, Mandarin is quite a popular place for sound shifts, from what I have seen. Didn't Mandarin's iconic "er" sound develop from a historical /n/ or something like that? But the fact that they have this sound change is quite interesting indeed. Thanks for the information; this is indeed quite interesting.

@Medeis Standard Spanish and Standard Italian are somewhat mutually intelligible? This is the first that I have heard of that! Very intriguing... I will have to look into that later. Thanks much for the information! Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:22, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It depends on the people, context, effort. I can watch Italian movies without subtitles, as can most Spanish speakers. Everyday commerce is possible. It also helps if you raise your voice. μηδείς (talk) 23:15, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 23:21, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Two other native Spanish-speaking informants just agreed, they can communicate on a basic level with Italians "mas o menos" and understand movies well enough. I think it's a question of having some exposure, and the desire to comprehend. (For example, many people will complain they cannot at all understand taxi drivers who speak perfect English, but with a foreign accent.) As an American myself, it took me about a year of watching Monty Python in my youth to come to understand some of the non-RP dialects that were used. μηδείς (talk) 17:46, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

It's somewhat surprising, though, considering the sound shifts that Spanish has gone through. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:33, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, unless you want me to repeat myself, Spanish has undergone fewer sound shifts in regard to Italian than has French. Compare bueno and buono to /bõ/. μηδείς (talk) 22:14, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

True enough. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 11:12, 7 October 2014 (UTC)