Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 May 12

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May 12

"Are you embarrassed of me ?"

This phrase is used in a TV ad running in the US now (the father, wearing a dog suit, is instructed by his daughter to let her off a block from the school, but it turns out it's the ugly car that embarrasses her). However, this phrasing just seems wrong. I would change it as follows:

"Are you embarrassed of me ?" -> "Do I embarrass you ?"

But, oddly, I would do the reverse with the word "shame":

"Do I shame you ?" -> "Are you ashamed of me ?"

Does everyone agree with my preferred usages ? If so, is there some reason these phrases are treated differently, or is it just an oddity of how they have been used in the past ? StuRat (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

ngrams analysis shows that "embarrassed of" is almost entirely unknown, especially in comparison to the more common "embarrassed by". --Jayron32 16:29, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

• To my (American) ear, "are embarrassed of" sounds totally normal, as does "are embarrassed by". The former puts more emphasis on the person who is embarrassed, with "embarrassed" being an adjective derived from a verb, while the latter is a passive verb construction putting a bit more emphasis on the person (or car) that is doing the embarrassing thing. Maybe this is a regionalism? Loraof (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. To my American ear "are embarrassed of" sounds completely wrong. Changing to the noun form, "you have an embarrassment of a car" sounds proper, though overly dramatic. (Of course, Jayron32's ngram analysis is more informative than my personal opinion.)--Wikimedes (talk) 19:27, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

It sounds completely wrong in British English too. Is it some regional American usage that has been picked up by the advertisers? Dbfirs 19:32, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Must be. It certainly sounds wrong here in Detroit. Loraof, where are you from ? StuRat (talk) 00:34, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can't pin it down to the region where I got it, because I've lived in 10 different states and one territory. I grew up in Buffalo and upstate South Carolina. Loraof (talk) 02:18, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

"...are embarrassed of..." sounds fine to my southern Ontario ears (as does the "by" version), though now that I think about it, "by" makes more logical sense. Matt Deres (talk) 14:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all. StuRat (talk) 21:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I became aware of these weird (to me) changes in the English language around the year 2000. The first one I heard was "be bored of me" (instead of "bored with me"). That almost drove me to drink. Then "embarrassed of me" (instead of "embarrassed by me"). About the same time, I began to hear "if you would have come" (instead of "if you had come"). And 17 years later, these barbarisms still make my eyes water. And there are others. Suddenly, people are prefixing every story/explanation with "so": Judge: How did the accident occur? Plaintiff: So I was driving south on Main. —Stephen (talk) 02:54, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Two lines I can't make out in a song in a Norwegian dialect

It's this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZO3MmYaQng

I would be grateful if a native speaker can take a listen to a couple of seconds of it. I don't think I'll need a translation of the lines, just seeing them in written form would be enough. The lines I can't make out are the following (I include the preceding and following sentences):

0:33-0:38: (og ringte for å sjekke) ............... (det vakke så lett å skjønne hva a sa.)

01:04-1:06: (den fyste kvelden gikk jeg for meg sjøl;) .............. (- hadde lyst på litt øl.) Thanks,

--84.238.136.52 (talk) 22:06, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Pinging User:NorwegianBlue (who may not be following this page as he hasn't posted here in a while). ---Sluzzelin talk 13:37, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

0:33-0:38: (og ringte for å sjekke) å det kosta dette huset (det vakke så lett å skjønne hva a sa.)

"å det kosta" = "hva det kostet".

(den fyste kvelden gikk jeg for meg sjøl;) på den lokale kroa (- hadde lyst på litt øl.)

--NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:37, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much, I would have never been able to make sense of these lines! I actually could hear 'kroa', but I couldn't recognise 'LOkale', probably because of the dialectal/folksy initial stress. And I frankly still can't quite wrap my mind around his pronunciation of 'dette huset', but it certainly makes sense in context! Cheers,--84.238.136.52 (talk) 02:52, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

You're very wellcome. It's my pleasure to assist! I'm puzzled that you find the pronunciation of "dette huset" difficult. He's saying "detta huset, which is very common in South-eastern Norway, at least in informal speech. The same speakers who pronounce "dette" as "detta" will tend to put the stress on the first syllable in words like lokale(t), garasje, banan, telefon etc. etc. The most exotic dialectal variations in the soundclip to my ear was "å det kosta", which was really pronounced "å det koste". Both "å" instead of "hva" and "koste" instead of "kosta" are regional variations. I cannot pinpoint them on a map, but my guess would be than they originated in one side of Mjøsa or the other. I'm no expert in Norwegian dialects, and will gratefully be corrected should an expert come along. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:49, 16 May 2017 (UTC)