Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 September 28

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September 28

Khmer in Chinese

Has the Khmer language ever been commonly written in Chinese in recent history? I'm aware of other Indochinese languages being written in Chinese characters, e.g. Chữ nôm, but I wasn't sure about Khmer because it's really not addressed in its article; Khmer alphabet mentions that it was created in the ninth century AD, but it doesn't address Chinese or mention when the current alphabet attained its monopoly for writing the language. This is all related to 孟尼王, which is at RFD as an implausible foreign-language redirect to Sisowath Monivong, King of Cambodia until 1941; I wondered if his name might have been written in Chinese characters by Cambodians at the time. Nyttend (talk) 17:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think so. Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese are the only living languages I know they used or still use Chinese characters. And the East Asian cultural sphere doesn't include more countries. It's not what you thought. I wonder why there's the page 孟尼王 on the English Wikipedia at all. The current Chinese name is 莫尼旺. 孟尼王 is just an older Chinese transcription, not Khmer. --2.245.106.53 (talk) 21:11, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Any orthography that uses Latin characters is considered fair game for article titles in English Wikipedia, regardless of (a) additional characters (Þórbergur Þórðarson), (b) unfamiliar diacritics (Lưu Thị Diễm Hương), or (c) implausible if not apparently impossible combinations of letters (Benia Chkhikvishvili). But we draw the line at Greek and Cyrillic even though they both satisfy (a); let alone Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic and and other entirely non-Latin scripts. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Not really; we happily create titles such as იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი (Stalin's original name) or 廣東 (original name of Canton Province, China); the issue is that foreign-language titles need to be in a language related to the subject. We keep the two I already mentioned because Stalin was Georgian, and Chinese is spoken/written in Canton Province, but we delete titles such as 孟尼王 because Chinese is apparently irrelevant to the Khmer monarchy. Nyttend (talk) 03:48, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Those two are redirects. Are there any actual articles with titles that contain no Latin characters (apart from articles about numbers or symbols)? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:41, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

How about these: .бг, .бел, .рф, .срб, .укр? --Theurgist (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

But I see your point. Usually the threshold for eligibility of letters/characters for article titles and usage within plain English text is whether they belong to a Latin-based or Latin-derived alphabet (and are encoded in Unicode Latin), even if the letters themselves originate from elsewhere, like Þ. --Theurgist (talk) 11:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Pardon my confusion; I thought you were addressing redirects, not titles for freestanding articles. Your description of the situation sounds accurate, but I've never particularly paid attention to that kind of thing, while the WP:FORRED essay describes quite well what we generally do with foreign-language redirects. Nyttend (talk) 11:53, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

No, the Khmer language has never been written in Chinese or Chinese-derived characters. Of course if you are writing in Chinese about Khmer individuals you must have characters to represent their names but that's also the case if you are writing about Argentinians or South Africans. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Weird symbols seen in a decoration in Bratislava

I took this picture of some kind of icon or other decoration in restaurant 1. Slovak Pub in Bratislava, Slovakia, in early July. I have no idea what the symbols are in this picture. I think the letters in the scroll at the bottom are some kind of Latin and/or Cyrillic writing, but I have no idea what the symbols at the top are. I don't even know if they are letters or pictograms or signature monograms or arcane alchemical or astrological or religious symbols. Can anyone help? JIP | Talk 17:57, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Is it Glagolitic alphabet and a picture of Saints Cyril and Methodius? DuncanHill (talk) 18:01, 28 September 2014 (UTC

Some of the symbols at the top are certainly Glagolitic, but I can't identify all of them. I think they're rather inexpertly written. The text on the scroll is Cyrillic, I think, though it is possible that it's Greek. --ColinFine (talk) 18:06, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree the top is largely, if not entirely Glagolitic, and suspect some of the symbols are overlapping or in ligature form. The Scroll looks like Latin capitals, with a few Greek or other symbols thrown in, probably for sounds not found in Latin. I cannot positively identify anything on the scroll as in Cyrillic, nor can I segment it into anything Greek, although the theta on the first line screams Greek. A big problem in trying to read things in Byzantine Catholic churches is that they use Greek and Latin letters and have both abbreviation and run-on writing. μηδείς (talk) 18:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The scroll is in Greek. I'm not entirely certain about the first line, which seems to contain abbreviations, but the rest is pretty clear. I read: "Κ[ύρι]ε ὁ Θ[εό]ς ἡμ[ῶν], σῶσον τὸν λαὸν σου καὶ εὐλόγησον τὴν κληρονομίαν σου", a variant of a well-known prayer formula from the orthodox liturgy based on Ps. 28 ("Lord, save thy people and bless thine inheritance"). Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

So, the letters that look like capital G are actually for capital sigma, Σ? μηδείς (talk) 00:20, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, normal "lunate sigma", as used often in medieval writing and stylized writing in modern ecclesiastical contexts. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:49, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Duncan and Colin are right: the top is Cyril and Methodius with glagolitic letters. The portraits and letters are both based on this image of the brother saints: [1], [2]. It looks as though the artist was working from a low-resolution version of the original image; they simplified the garb, and supplemented the writing with some creative interpolations and additions. The poses and hairstyles are a match, and you can see how some of the odd letters came about as uncertain readings of the ones in the book. --Amble (talk) 21:40, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Here's another version that's clearly based on the same original. This is from a Czech church. It's a more faithful reproduction than the one you found in the pub, but it also has some oddities in the glagolitic writing. --Amble (talk) 21:47, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Aha. Found the original artwork [3]. It's by the Czech artist Jano_Köhler. In the high-resolution version on that page, you can see that the glagolitic text is a lovingly and carefully written rendition of an appropriate Biblical text, John 1. --Amble (talk) 22:03, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Word

Is vexsome a real word? Th4n3r (talk) 21:37, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no entry for it in the OED. DuncanHill (talk) 21:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The usual term is "vexatious". The roots "vex" and "-atious" (actually "-ation" + "-ous") are from Latin.[4] he suffix "-some" is from Old English.[5] That might be why there is no "vexsome" in English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:01, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It can be found in Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary

Hence Vexsome, adj. grievous, sad.

Rnf. The poor wee lambs, wi' vexsome lays, Ran ithers foul, FRASER Poet. Chimes. (1853) [...]

"Rnf." means Renfrew. The author of Poetic Chimes, Or, Leisure Lays is a John Fraser, but he's not listed among our John Frasers. This one was born August 15, 1812, in Edinburgh. [6]---Sluzzelin talk 22:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

According to linguistic descriptivism, 'vexsome' is obviously a real word, because you know it, and we understood what it meant. The only people who get too worried about whether a perfectly cromulent work is a 'real' word are proponents of linguistic prescriptivism, and my advice is to ignore them unless they happen to be your teacher, editor or publisher ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:26, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

"Vexsome" is not necessarily a real word, at least not officially. The only definition for this word I found in my search was located at http://www.seadict.com/en/en/vexsome and stated that the term "vexsome" was defined as "someone superficially appealing but ultimately a major problem for anyone who gets to know the person, i.e. initially winsome but ultimately vexatious". Upon checking with popular dictionaries online however, I found no definition. Some of these said dictionaries are http://www.thefreedictionary.com/, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/, and http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us. All three of these dictionaries when searching for "vexsome" couldn't find the word in their files. You can see the search results here: , , and . The guy above was right in the fact that the word DOES EXIST, I know so personally as I have seen it used in some novels before, but is not an official part of our dictionaries, as far as I can tell at least.

References

MatthewTaylor815 (talk) 00:05, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

"Vex" according to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vexReferences: means to annoy or bring distress. When first searching for the word "Vexsome" I did not come across a definition. One of the only actual references of the alleged words meaning comes from http://www.diclib.com/cgi-bin/d1.cgi?l=en&st=2&page=showid&start=0&base=amslang&id=10739&letter=V#.VC9dx1b4vwI. They state that 'Vexsome" means someone who is superficially appealing but ultimately not appealing once their personality is learned. Lastly there is an actual website titled www.vexsome.com. The title has the word "Vexsome" as scrabble letters and then underneath it says "Putting the pieces together". Sabirahray (talk) 02:49, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

References

"Very good, my lord"

We've all seen it on TV or movies: The lord/lady of the manor pulls a cord to summon a butler, who is then given some instruction. The butler answers "Very good, my lord/lady" and departs.

I've often wondered why they don't say "very well". What is it that's being described as "good"? Is this "very good" in the same class of expressions as "How do you do?", i.e. not meant to be interpreted literally?

Or, why don't they just say "Yes, my lord/lady", as any normal human being would do? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:36, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

To answer "Yes, my lord" would imply that the answer "No, my lord" was possible. "Very well, my lord" sounds slightly snarky - perhaps the master has insisted on a particularly loud tie being laid out for him (of course, this would be an exchange with a valet, not a butler) - it expresses disapproval at the same time as compliance. "Very good, my lord" uses good in the sense given by OED "as an exclamation, expressing satisfaction", with the earliest citation for "Very good, my lord" being from Naval Officer by Captain Marryat, 1829. It gives "good-oh" in the same sense. DuncanHill (talk) 00:08, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I take it to mean "Your request is a very good one". Presumably, if the master had requested their golf clubs to play golf on the hilltop during a thunderstorm, the butler would not answer in that way, and instead point out the danger (unless they were eager for a new employer, that is). StuRat (talk) 00:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, but, to use Duncan's analogy, wouldn't "Very good, my lord" imply that the answer "Very bad, my lord" is possible? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:21, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

"Bad" isn't really used as "an exclamation, expressing dissatisfaction" is it? DuncanHill (talk) 01:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with that. "Good! You've ruined my day!" is far more common than "Bad! You've ruined my day!" KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:21, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

What I meant is, if "very good" is short for "Your request is a very good one" (per StuRat), then couldn't "very bad" be short for "Your request is a very bad one"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

For what it worth. In French we say in the same situation "très bien". The word "bien" is an adverb which, in this case, means graciously and emphasizes acceptance. Could it be a direct translation from French? — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:09, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure about the yes-makes-no-possible explanation, but I have a totally OR view: the longer the answer, the more polite it sounds, and so formal answers tend to go for longer forms. "Yes" maybe be perceived too short to be polite enough to a Lord. This is true not only in English, of course, to take another example, in Japanese, the politeness of any sentence is highly correlated to its length and the time it takes to utter it. --Lgriot (talk) 07:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes is the answer to a question. The lord's not asking, he's telling. If the servant presumes he had an option, he's no longer treating the lord as such, and it would be wrong to call him that. "Right away, my Lord" would be much the same, without the ass-kissing subservience. In movies and especially TV, they need to fit as much exposition into what dialogue time they're allotted. I'd rather hear "As you wish", if I were sitting in the lord's chair. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

That could come over as "What a dumb idea; but it's your call, so ...".

That aside, my point is that I can't think of any other context where a request from a person in authority (= a command) to do something would be followed by "Very good". It would sound unnatural, unidiomatic and ungrammatical. So, why is it considered none of those things in the context I refer to in my question? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:26, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

"If you say so" conveys doubt to me. "As you wish" is blind love. Everything sounds unnatural outside its natural context. Try ending with "over" when you're not on a radio, or "stop" when you're not reading a telegram. Or raising your hand before asking or answering a question. "Sir, yes sir!" would be a pretty weird thing for a butler to shout, staring straight ahead. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:48, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

If I may add a reference to all this badinage? I found Origin of “Very Good, Sir!” which quotes the OED, which itself gives this quotation from FRANK MILDMAY or The Naval Officer by CAPTAIN MARRYAT, London 1829 by way of explanation; "He was very particular and captious when not properly addressed. When an order is given by a commanding officer, it is not unusual to say, 'Very good, Sir;' implying that you perfectly understand, and are going cheerfully to obey it. I had adopted this answer, and gave it to his lordship when I received an order from him, saying 'Very good, my lord.'" (The OED references it as "F. Marryat Naval Officer III. iv. 101 " which I wasn't able to find on the Project Gutenberg ebook which is from a later edition and without page numbers, but I'll take their word for it). So it seems to be a naval term. Alansplodge (talk) 20:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Are there any references on how this ties in with "Aye aye, sir"? Not having much experience of naval matters, I can't say which (if either) of the phrases is to be preferred in various situations. And the "Aye aye" article could do with some references... Tevildo (talk) 22:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that "very good" would be a reply used by an officer to a more senior officer, and "aye aye" would be used by those from the lower decks to an officer, but I can't find a reference to confirm this. Alansplodge (talk) 09:54, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Surely "Aye Aye, sir" is the response to a direct order, "very good" to an order disguised as a gentle suggestion - so, "Scrub the decks!" - "Aye aye sir!", but "You might think about having a bit of a swab here and there" - "Very good sir". DuncanHill (talk) 13:03, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

As with any employer/employee relationship, it's fine for an employee to say the employer has a very good idea, but outright saying that he has a very bad idea may not promote continued employment. However, there are ways to get the point across, diplomatically, without saying so explicitly. In my previous example of the master who wants to play golf on the hilltop during a thunderstorm, a diplomatic reply might be "May I suggest a game of billiards today, sir, and playing golf tomorrow, when better weather is expected ?". StuRat (talk) 22:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

So, Alansplodge, it was made up by Frederick Marryat, and has since become culturally entrenched. Thanks for that. I bet most butlers would have little or no idea of the origin of the term. Except those who read these pages, of course. For their sakes, I'm glad I asked now. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

We can at least say that it was attested at an early date by Marryat, who helpfully described its meaning (suggesting that it wouldn't be understood by a wider readership), thus ensuring himself an entry in the OED nearly 200 years later. Alansplodge (talk) 14:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)