Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 6

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October 6

What is the Japanese character in this image?

In http://uhockey.blogspot.com/2010/07/kihachi-2-columbus-oh.html I am trying to figure out the first Japanese character of the restaurant name Kihachi. The second character is 八 but the first looks like the number seven three times. I can't find the character for it. Which is it?

This is for: Japanese in Columbus, Ohio

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 02:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Looks like 㐂 ([1]) to me.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 02:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

It's [2] and is pronounced or . Basically it is "three sevens" () so it probably means "three-times lucky" or "three-times happy" and is another way of expressing . It also doesn't seem to be used a lot, except in some proper names like the name of that restaurant. If I'm mistaken, someone else will correct me, but I think that's what you're looking for. - Marchjuly (talk) 02:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Oops, didn't see WilliamThweatt's answer so sorry for essentially repeating what they said. - Marchjuly (talk) 02:56, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 06:51, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Inthronization or enthronement?

Is "Inthronization" a real word? An editor has used it to our Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth article, but it sounds a bit odd to me. I would have used "enthronement". Alansplodge (talk) 10:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh my goodness. Surely that's what would happen across the pond? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The OED says it's an "obsolete variant" of "enthronization"; its oldest reference is to the Morte d'Artur (which spells it "intronysacyon" (there are even older references for the verb "enthronize"). Of course "enthronization" is itself listed as equal to "enthronement". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] Believe it or not, such a word does exist. OED says it is an obscure obsolete variant of enthronization (another word which I did not know existed), and the adjective inthronizate is dated to the 15th century. The latter is derived from "late Latin int(h)ronizātus, past participle of int(h)ronizāre to enthronize". — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:53, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Whatever the history of the word, it's not modern English and needs changing. Malory used Intronysacyon in the fifteenth century (Morte d'Arthur) and the last recorded use of inthronization in the OED is from 1750. The last recorded usage of enthronisation in the OED is from 1879, and even earlier for the z version. Use enthronement if you don't want to sound weird or archaic. Dbfirs 11:18, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The whole section where the word appears is in rather puffed-up and old-fashioned language, so I suspect it may have been taken from some official source (there are some places where use of the present tense hasn't been altered in accordance with the rest of the text). I can well imagine that the Order of Service for the ceremony might include such archaic terms. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:03, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah, well done AndrewWTaylor, I hadn't thought of that. The Supplement 34453 of the The London Gazette, 10 November 1937, Page:7056 does indeed use the term "Inthronization". Perhaps I'll add something to the article. Thanks for your help everybody. Alansplodge (talk) 16:24, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, well spotted! I wonder if the archaic word was used anywhere between 1750 and 1937. Dbfirs 17:32, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I added this quotation to Wiktionary, and using the Quiet Quentin tool found other quotations ranging from 1645 to 2000. Many of the uses, including the 2000 one, are ecclesiastical in nature. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Dbfirs, isn't the OED interested in the earliest recorded instances of words, rather than their later usages? The fact that their examples of early use stop at 1750 and 1879 respectively says nothing about any later usages, I'd have thought. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

You'll have to check the front matter of the OED to be sure. My understanding is that they do not necessarily pick the first instance, but rather the first instance where the usage is clearly in accord with the definition at hand. When I looked up "go to town" the other day, there were several citations from ~1940-1970s, but no recent usage quotes, despite the fact that the phrase is still in use. I don't think I've ever seen an OED usage quote claimed to be a last known usage. As for usage of these words, every-handy Google Ngram viewer indicates that both spellings have occurred in print well into the 20th century, albeit rarely. [3]. Whether a word that is used at ~1/10^8 frequency in a large corpus of published works should be considered 'archaic' is left as an exercise for the reader. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:48, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

SemanticMantis, your Google ngram had "Inthronization" with a capital I, and "enthronization" with a lower case "e", and was case sensitive. If you make it case insensitive, "inthronization" comes out marginally ahead by 2000. But both of them come way behind "enthronement", the word most actual English-speaking humans would use. --Nicknack009 (talk) 07:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Print? Isn't that what they read from in 1937? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:54, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Jack, the full OED usually gives a range of what they consider the best examples of usage over the date range of common usage, with a slight bias towards earliest and most recent usage. They have not found good examples of usage since 1750, so they mark inthonization as obsolete with that spelling. They do have an entry for enthronization with variant spellings, the variant "inthronization" being marked as commonly used from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. The OED has not yet updated the entry, so they will have missed the 1937 (deliberately archaic?) usage.

SemanticMantis, does Google Ngrams pick up quotes of archaic words from more recently published books? Dbfirs 07:02, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

• Here's how the front matter of the OED1 actually explains its practice: "IV. The Quotations illustrate the forms and uses of the word, showing the age of the word generally, and of its various senses particularly; the earliest and, in obsolete words or senses, the latest, known instances of its occurrence being always quoted." The OED fascicles containing "enthronization" and "inthronization" were published in 1891 and 1900 respectively. For "inthronization" and the content in the OED1 and OED Online are identical but for format changes; for "enthronization", the Morte d'Artur quotation has been added at some point since the OED1 and its Supplements were published, as it was earlier than the earliest previously listed usage. --174.88.135.222 (talk) 16:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, yes, I think an instance of "inthronization" in a book published in e.g. 1950 would be counted by google for these purposes, regardless of context. I don't think we can distinguish if the word occurs inside a quotation, or if the author might just be using a rare word. A bit off topic, but my point above was that it's not clear what the threshold is for a word to be obsolete/archaic. For instance, is the "ye" spelling of "the" really archaic when it occurs on shop signs in many modern towns? Maybe I'll ask a question about that later :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:28, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Dear Mantis, maybe you do too much shopping in a bygone age! In fact what you refer to may be "a pseudo-Early Modern English stock prefix, used anachronistically. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:40, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, but if the (mis)spelling "the" as "ye" with a pseudo Thorn_(letter) is commonly used today, even in an anachronistic sense, then it's not really an archaic or obsolete word, to my reckoning /endtangent SemanticMantis (talk) 18:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

How bizarre. Is there some kind of rule that articles have to use the language of the period in which the event took place? Even in 1937 surely that word was archaic. Shouldn't the coronation of the incumbent monarch set the precedent for the current article, or are we writing an article using language that no longer has any real currency? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and no, respectively. "Inthronization" is a repellent word. The Court Circulars are hardly the stuff of everyday discourse; their content can be used for reference on factual matters but should not be mined for guidance on wording. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, the British coronation service is a fascinating thing, which was originally devised by Dunstan in 973 AD. At each coronation, the various elements have been re-ordered with parts added and taken away according to the requirements of the time. It was first translated from Latin into English for the coronation of James I in 1603, and radically revised for that of James II of Great Britain, so most of the language has remained unchanged since the 17th century. Therefore, if that part of the service is properly called "the Inthronization", I think we ought not to call it something else. I see that [[User:Dbfirs has already amended the name of the subsection to "enthronement", so I have added a sentence to the text at Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth#Enthronement and homage to the King which I hope will meet with your collective approval (ever the optimist!). Alansplodge (talk) 10:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

That looks fine to me. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:16, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, that seems fair. I hadn't realised that the documentation of the service used the old word. Is it available on-line? If the OED had read the service, they might have marked the word as archaic rather than obsolete. Perhaps they will in the third edition when they eventually get round to that entry. Dbfirs 11:21, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello all, I can see this has now been resolved; I had no idea this conversation was happening until after the edit took place, otherwise I may have contributed to the discussion. I was the one who added the content; the word seemed odd to me at the time, and I have never heard of it myself, but I was simply following the order of service, which is technically the official record of it, and so I chose to call it by the name used in the source, even if it did sound rather eighteenth century. I also wonder whether the term was used in the radio broadcasts made during the service - that would be another interesting modern use of this archaic (at least) word. Thanks, --Noswall59 (talk) 22:18, 7 October 2014 (UTC).

Sorry, I should have let you know. Alansplodge (talk) 16:23, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

жить и не умереть/умирать

The literal meaning is clear enough, but is it some sort of common expression or part of a saying or quotation? If so, then what is the broader meaning? Thanks, --catslash (talk) 22:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Google Translate has it as "live and not die / die". Is that the literal meaning? Where did you see it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:13, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Is this the theme to a James Bond movie or the cover of one by Guns-n-Roses? μηδείς (talk) 03:06, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Probably from the Book of Genesis 42:2 [4]: When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you just keep looking at each other?” 2 He continued, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.” Russian text. No such user (talk) 07:03, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The context is a discussion of the future, with the phrase just thrown in as an isolated remark. I take it that the meaning is we should be content to..., the plan is to..., the purpose is to... etc., but I wondered if somebody could be more specific, or identify it as a quotation. --catslash (talk) 08:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC) Genesis 42:2 does seem plausible, in which case I take the expression to mean you must make some effort in order to get by? --catslash (talk) 12:53, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, if it's the same in Russian, but in Polish the same phrase (żyć, nie umierać) means to live a life of luxury, a life you would like to live, or more generally, a very convenient situation of any sort. Example: He works only five hours a day, gets 40 day of paid holidays per year, and a bonus equivalent to two monthly salaries! Live and not die! — Kpalion^(talk) 18:13, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

That's surely it; life of luxury is a much better fit in the original context that a struggle to survive. Google readily finds it as a Polish expression (e.g. here), but not so in Russian. This is surprising as original context is a conversation in Russian reported mainly in English by a Pole, with жить и не умереть flagged as a Russian expression. So how does not dying equate to luxury? Is it saying that the life is so good that -unbelievably- you don't want to die? --catslash (talk) 22:07, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Never heard this, it's definitely not a set phrase in Russian, it simply means what it means.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:13, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Google Translate gives Żyć, nie umierać -> Рай на Земле/Nebe na Zemi/etc., confirming the meaning and supporting the idea that this phrase is peculiar to Polish. Thanks everyone - searching in the wrong language, I would never have found this. --catslash (talk) 13:14, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

So it was a Polish person who used a calque translation of this phrase when talking in Russian, assuming it would have the same meaning in that language? Seems like a plausible mistake to make. And yes, I think the phrase is supposed to convey the sense that life is so good, you just want to keep living it. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:46, 8 October 2014 (UTC)