Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 February 27

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February 27

Identificacion de una sello

ver sello no. 16

Búsqueda asistencia con la lectura del texto en este sello no. 16. Yo leo: «Serie 5», «SOCIEDAD (...)RAL DE CU(...)NES PROGRESO», «50», «CINCUENTA CENTIMOS». El logotipo fue utilizado por la Asociación General de Electricidad en 1888, ver [1] o [2]. Gracias. --91.50.31.10 (talk) 01:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I interpret the question as, "Identification of a postage stamp -- [I need] search help reading text on this stamp number 16. I read: 'Series 5','SOCIEDAD (...) RAL DE CU (...) NES PROGRESO ','50',' FIFTY CENTIMOS [cents]". The logo was used by General Electric Association in 1888, see... Danke, y'all." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:29, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that first part reads Sociedad General de... then maybe Correos, which would refer to the post office. But I'm not finding anything on Google so far. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

"Sociedad general de cupones 'Progreso'". [3] --Amble (talk) 08:01, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• "Progress Coupons"? As in the GE slogan, "Quality is our most important product"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• More like green stamps. [4] --Amble (talk) 16:34, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Makes sense. That would account for the number imprinted on it. It's funny how something can seem exotic until you know what it means. "Denali" sounds rather more exotic than "Mt. McKinley" until you discover that "Denali" means "the really tall one". "Really Tall One National Park". Yup. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:51, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

And here I was sure Denali is a river in Egypt.... μηδείς (talk) 19:13, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Q: Why do Egyptian rivermen turn their backs on reality? A: Because dey're in de Nile. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Q: Who was that sultry temptress I saw you with down by the river last night? A. The sauce of the Nile. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Gracias --84.58.246.235 (talk) 08:17, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

pronunciation

What is the correct pronunciation of the word Orre(from Pokemon)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C541:CC60:4897:AF86:CD38:DFCF (talk) 02:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

All Japanese is pronounced the way it is written, so it would be 'O-rr-e'. Like Spanish 'Olé', but with a trilled 'r' instead of an 'l'. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:01, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Does "rr" exist in Japanese? As far as I can tell (e.g. [5]), in Japanese it is オーレ, Ōre. 86.155.201.148 (talk) 15:15, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Really, an Alveolar_trill? I bow to your experience in Japanese. I only watch Anime, but I would say at most it's an Alveolar_flap. The latter article even gives Akira as an example in Japanese. An American could get by with pronouncing ⟨ɹ⟩ (as in 'red', Alveolar_approximant) or even ⟨d⟩ (as in 'dog', Voiced_alveolar_stop) if they can't manage the flap. I think of it as an r that just barely hints at a d, which is easier for me to do if I'm saying the word loudly or quickly. But really, OP should just watch Pokemon and other Anime in Japanese with subtitles, and then they won't have to ask us how to pronounce things ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:25, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

A trilled r does exist in some dialects of Japanese. I associate it with yakuza or tough-guy speak, but if this thread is to be believed, those (fictional) yazuka are actually speaking Hiroshima-ben or Ōsaka-ben (much as fictional pirates speak West Country dialects, I suppose). I wouldn't roll an r in Japanese when saying Ōre or anything else—in fact I'd actively avoid it because of the yakuza connection. -- BenRG (talk) 19:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

But the alveolar flap is fairly common, right? At least that's what I think I'm hearing when they say "Akira" in the movie Akira, e.g. here [6]. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:42, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

It's definitely common and it sounds right to me in Ōre and Akira, and it may be the standard pronunciation in those words, but Japanese phonology#Consonants makes it seem so complicated that I'm not sure. -- BenRG (talk) 20:55, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Watching anime wouldn' t help me in this case, since Orre is only mentioned in two video games with no voice actors(unless you count the Pokemon).I'm the OP. Ohyeahstormtroopers6 (talk) 15:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I just saw that on Bulbapedia [7]... They also say that the name is a pun on the English word "ore" which is pronounced just like "or." So that might have influenced the spelling and pronunciation. Still, based on what I know, I'd say /Oh-reh/ or /Oh-deh/, unless you can do the flap, then say /Oh-ɾeh/. But since this is a made up name in Japanese influenced by English, I'm pretty sure people will say it many different ways. So you could try asking at Bulbapedia or other Pokemon sites. Even if they don't know Japanese or IPA they might be able to tell you how they commonly say it or hear it. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:48, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

It is true that the trilled 'r' does not exist in Japanese, but you must understand that Pokemon are meant to sound exotic. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 16:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The Japanese Pokemon names generally don't seem as exotic-sounding as the English names. Many of them are obviously Japanese (Pikachū, Fushigidane, Hitokage, Zenigame). Although オーレ does sound foreign, it seems unlikely to me that it was meant to be pronounced with a rolled r. The "Orre" spelling was probably picked by English-speaking localizers, just like the English Pokemon names. -- BenRG (talk) 19:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Gemination (doubling) of consonants does occur in Japanese, see Japanese_phonology#Gemination which helpfully neglects specifically mentioning /r/ but does say any consonant from a foreign language borrowing can be geminated, even if it is not geminated in the lending language, and even if it is voiced, which is forbidden in native Japanese words. Trilling and gemination are not excatly the same thing, but more like far-reaching in, say, rhotic Scottish English. μηδείς (talk) 19:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think r is ever doubled in this way. If it were it would be written オッレ rather than オーレ. -- BenRG (talk) 19:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, 'r' is never geminated in Japanese. It may be, as said above, that the (probably American or Japanese) localizer has used the double 'r' to demonstrate the usual 'flapped r' of Japanese, not knowing that this sound is actually standard British English anyway. But hey, we didn't create this language.... Oh, no, hang on.... :) However, perhaps the localizer used the first 'r' to show length of the previous 'o' vowel, which is normal in non-rhotic dialects. I can understand the OP's dilemma, though, as 'Orre' as it stands would be pronounced in English as 'or' in both rhotic and non-rhotic dialects. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:50, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Arabic transcription request

What is the Arabic text in http://lcdgdamas.org/uploads/ngrey/banner.jpg? I want to put the Arabic in Lycée Charles de Gaulle (Syria). Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 17:28, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

المدرسة الفرنسیة فی دمشق شارل دیغول Omidinist (talk) 19:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 23:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Publically

"Publically" seems to be gaining ground over "publicly". I'm seeing it more and more often, even written by people I hitherto respected.

Now, I thought the rule was that if an -ically word exists, then the corresponding -ical word must also exist.

• mathematics --> mathematical --> mathematically
• nautical --> nautically
• magic --> magical --> magically
• logic --> logical --> logically
• physical --> physically
• chemical --> chemically

BUT

• phonic --> phonicly (there being no "phonical")
• sonic --> sonicly (there being no "sonical")
• public --> publicly (there being no "publical")

BUT

• history --> historic --> historically (because the word "historical" also exists, and that is used as the base of the adverb)
• hysteria --> hysteric(s) --> hysterically (ditto)

Is this rule watertight? If not, what is the rule? Or is there even a hard-and-fast rule at all? Do we just have to remember which words are -icly and which are -ically? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:49, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos/Archive 3#Misspelling of "publicly". (June and July 2013).

—Wavelength (talk) 22:56, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Be careful what you wish for, because sometimes you get it. Here is a 365-page treatment on the topic. You wanted a reference, you got it. --Jayron32 22:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Spelling#Misspelling of "publicly" (June and July 2013) (version of 16:29, 15 January 2015).

—Wavelength (talk) 23:03, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

EO dates "publicly" to the 1580s and "publically" to 1812 or earlier,[8] with the amusing note that a lot of words ending in "cally" are pronounced as if they were spelled "cly". Presumably it's easier to get one word's spelling changed than all the others. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:06, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

See "publicly" and "publically" at Google Ngram Viewer.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:56, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

See “Publicly” and “publically” | The Stroppy Editor.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Now, that is most enlightening, Wavelength. It puts to shame my "rule" above. Hectically, tragically, archaically, cryptically, idiotically and probably many others, are all formed from the -ic word, and there is no corresponding -ical word (hectical, idiotical ...). I was not aware till now that "publicly" is a unique oddity ... the only adverb ending in –icly formed from an adjective that ends in –ic. Most intriguing. This also means that there are no such words as 'phonicly' and 'sonicly'. (Talk about proceeding from a false premise. I'm obviously in top form today.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:04, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

There's probably some sort of hypercorrection or related phenomenon going on here. There's an expected ic->ical->ically sequence, and when the "ical" form doesn't exist, there seems to be a hypercorrection (which has become actual proper spelling in many cases) to simply skip it to go ic->ically rather than ic->icly. --Jayron32 01:10, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

The irony being that in almost every case they'd end up with the correct spelling. "Publicly" is apparently the sole exception. But that's very satisying, in the sense that we expect every English rule to have at least one exception, usually many. If there were no exceptions in this case, that would be an exception to the rule that there is always an exception, and that would obviously spell the end of civilisation as we know it. But then, if there always has to be an exception, doesn't that mean .... nah, I ain't goin' there. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:25, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Here's a question that just came to me: is -ic treated as an actual morpheme in "public" or is "public" considered a single morpheme. That is, we have situations like history -> historic which demonstrate the morpheme "ic", but for words where "ic" occurs coincidentally, maybe the -ically form is not expected. After all, "public" is a noun where "historic" and "sonic" are not. Maybe that has something to do with it. --Jayron32 02:22, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Magic, music, metric, psychic, logic et al are (or can be) nouns too. They all take -ally and not just -ly. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:29, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but mage, muse, meter, psycho, logo, are all known morphemes in English. Is there any "publ-" known morphemes that would take an "ic"? --Jayron32 03:49, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I hope someone comes up with an answer, but my main question is resolved. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

• Luckfully we have an article on Lucky Charms. They're magicly delicious! (Video documentation) μηδείς (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

and I thank all who participated. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I apologize for the late reply, Jack, but this the first opportunity I've had in days to get online. And I figured that you'd like to know:

Publicly is not quite unique. Rather, the Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition, also lists [politicly] (not to be confused with [politically]).

Apart from that sole exception, however, Wavelength's sources remain perfectly accurate. (Once upon a time, there was also catholicly, but the OED now marks that as obsolete.)

Pine (talk) 00:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Pine. I must now contrive a reason to use 'politicly', not to mention 'impoliticly'. I expect to find many opportunities on these very pages.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:30, 2 March 2015 (UTC)