Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 January 10

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January 10

Chinese/Manchu word ’ha’hachutsze

From the article whipping boy:

• In 1876, the North-China Herald commented on the announcement in the Peking Gazette of the start of the education of the Guangxu Emperor (1871–1908):

  The next appointment to be made (though not gazetted) will probably be that of the child who, according to the Manchu Imperial custom, shares his Majesty's studies under the name of ['ha'hachutsze] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), in the capacity of a [souffre-douleur] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or "whipping-boy." Whenever the Son of Heaven is naughty or inattentive, the ['ha'hachutsze] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is beaten or disgraced

ref —— Translations of the "Peking Gazette" 1876, reprinted from the "North China Herald". April 1877. p. 4.

There are no google hits for ’ha’hachutsze. Can anyone interpret it? Maybe "chutsze" is 竹子 zhúzi "bamboo"? Were pupils beaten with bamboo rods? jnestorius^(talk) 00:51, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jnestorius: Not sure if you read Chinese, but here's the explanation on Baidu (哈哈珠子): [1]. Apparently it's the Manchu plural for "boy" in other searches. Alex Shih (talk) 07:49, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't read Chinese, but this is in English: Some Explanations of the 'Haha Juse' in the Qing Dynasty. I guess Manchu plural became singular in Mandarin the same way Italian plural panini has become singular in English. jnestorius^(talk) 18:29, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

An interesting use of "gazetted". Is the implication that the Manchu Dynasty has an equivalent form of publishing imperial appointments, or that the British authorities usually re-announced Chinese announcements? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 16:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

It seems a bog-standard instance of "gazette" sense 1 as opposed to or even subsense 1.1. Peking Gazette is linked above. jnestorius^(talk) 18:29, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

International Phonetic Alphabet - English Approximations are really American English Approximations

Hi, I am confused by the article on IPA and its use of "English approximations" in other language-related articles. For example, the article on Korean language will link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Korean

Why do the IPA references give "English Approximations" instead of correctly stating that these are "American English Approximations"?

The approximations given are never standard, proper English. This obviously will affect vowels rather than consonants; consonants are generally similar regardless what English dialect or accent one has. However the approximations for vowels are incorrect if they are meant to represent/approximate Standard English (or even Australian/NZ which are similar to Standard English). Using the example of the Korean IPA above. It gives the English approximation to Korean "a" and "a:" sound as bot/box/spa. These words only sound the same in American English.

In standard English, bot and box sound the same or nearly the same, but nothing like spa. And the same can be said for nearly any IPA reference link which gives an "English approximation". This makes it quite confusing for a standard English speaker...example: is that Korean vowel meant to be the sound of bot/box or is it the sound of spa?

So the final question: how did this all come about and has this ever been clarified or acknowledged by the IPA or by IPA reference users such as wikipedia? 203.43.150.40 (talk) 03:04, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

First off, the IPA symbols are what is in the first column. What is not in the first column is not IPA. Second, you have a slightly strange and narrow view of the Anglosphere if you think that any form of English with Cot-caught merger is "non-standard". However, I don't think that's what the chart was intended to refer to; there were actually some technical problems with the table formatting which I couldn't figure out 100%, but I did a quick-and-dirty fix; look at it now... AnonMoos (talk) 05:47, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry AnonMoos if my use of the word Standard confused you. I meant Standard English as in high-level/educated English from England, the origin of the language. Others would know this as Received Pronunciation. To this end, neither the cot-caught merger nor the father-bother merger have occurred in RP English. 203.43.150.40 (talk) 02:37, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm a little confused — which of "cot" or "caught" would correspond to which of "bot", "box", "spa"? I have trouble imagining any of those three pronounced with the "caught" vowel /ɔ/.

I distinguish "cot" from "caught" myself, at least when speaking carefully, but I think I use pretty much the same vowel in "bot", "box", and "spa". Maybe it's one of those /ɒ/versus /ɑ/ versus /a/ things that I never have quite figured out what the distinction is? --Trovatore (talk) 06:14, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I guess it's technically actually "father-bother merger", but that would often be loosely grouped with "cot-caught merger" by many... AnonMoos (talk) 06:24, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Correct. Cot-caught merger has nothing to do with the OP's question. This is father-bother merger that the OP is (unconsciously) asking about. Actually, standard American English doesn't distinguish between the vowel of "bot" and of "spa" and of "bother" and of "father". However, standard British English does distinguish between the same vowel of "bot/bother" and the same vowel of "spa/father". So, Back to the OP's question, the answer is YES: It should have been: "American English Approximations". Please notice, however, that also American English is "standard" and "proper" not less than British English, as opposed to what one can conclude from what the OP has claimed. HOTmag (talk) 08:15, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I would be very confused if I were trying to learn Korean pronunciation. Here in the north of England, it's the vowel in cat and spat, but we would confuse others if we suggested that. Dbfirs 08:22, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

As a Brit, I always find it strange that the American pronunciation of Las Vegas is Los Vegas. Widneymanor (talk) 09:55, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The "Las" in Las Vegas approximates the Spanish pronunciation, which I would say is close to the way a Brit would say "France", for example. As in "ah". I don't recall ever hearing anyone say "Los" Vegas in the Spanish way, as in "oh". Unless you mean to rhyme with "loss", which is possible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

See the "father-bother merger" in the discussion above. The vowel for many English speakers on both sides of the atlantic in "father" and "bother" has merged into the same sound, the difference being that the merger has happened closer to the "ah" end of the spectrum in the UK and the "aw" end of the spectrum in the US, which is why to a british speaker it sounds more like "loss vegas". Americans, of course, don't notice this. --Jayron32 13:15, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

That could be regional. In my part of America, the "fa" of "father" sounds like "fah", not "faw". And the "bo" of "bother" sounds like "bah", not "baw". There's also "water", which in the Midwest is pronounced like "wah", while a typical New Yorker might say it like "waw". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:06, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

That's because they never have [as], [af], [aθ], [aŋ], but rather: [ɔs], [ɔf], [ɔθ], [ɔŋ], (e.g. in loss, cough, froth, song), so Las Vegas is not an exception. So what's strange? BTW, some British accents have something analogous: They never have [æs], [æf], [æθ], but rather: [as], [af], [aθ] (e.g. in last, laugh, path). It seems like you mean they pronounce VEGAS as if it were spelled VAGAS (check: vague). Was that what you meant? HOTmag (talk) 13:28, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Pronouncing "Vegas" as in "vague" likewise approximates Spanish pronunciation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:06, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

No, I'm pretty sure it's the first "a" they're referring to. There's a bit of a spectrum from LASS to LOSS. I prefer the cheeky "Lost Wages", which seems more accurate in other ways. Matt Deres (talk) 17:00, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and that very fitting joke has been around since at least the 1960s when I first heard it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:56, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

• Well, this "discussion" (scare quotes because some editors are inadvertently talking past each other) just goes to show a general knowledge of the IPA is really necessary for meaningful cross-dialect communication. I have heard Americans and Brits pronounce Las Vegas as if the first vowel were anything from [æ] (cat) to [a] (father) to [ɔ] (Gott in Himmel, "caught") or in between. I say [lɔs] for both Loss Angeles and Loss Vegas when speaking my English dialect (NYC or Delaware Valley accent) even though it's not even close to the Spanish /o/ and /a/ respectively.

I find all too often that the Phonetic renderings of words are inconsistent between articles and a subject of ownership by the author within certain articles. The British IPA pronunciations tend toward a narrow RP phonetic transcription (with a terrible treatment of long vowels, diphthongs, and arr-colored vowels) that are totally foreign to Americans using a traditional phonemic Americanist IPA standard, while the American "sound-spellings" are just laughable.

Editors who care about such things should (1) learn the IPA, (2) realise that the British dominated IPA transcriptions are far too narrow and often idiosyncratic, and (3) that the version you see depends on the idiolect of the author who has claimed ownership of the article and his familiarity or lack thereof of local or native pronunciations of words spoken by people who don't speak his own dialect. Caveat lector. μηδείς (talk) 15:17, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Mideis. In my unclear (and always subtly trolling) way of discussion, this is what I was asking and the point I was trying to make. In wikipedia there are too many unclear IPA pronunciation references. This comes about because there are editors from a wide range of English speaking backgrounds.

The mistake all people make when trying to convert a verbal pronunciation into writing is that we only think of how we pronounce something...then we incorrectly assume this is how everyone else pronounces English. Hence, for the purposes of explaining a pronunciation, people who edit really need to recognise, learn and importantly denote whether they are pronouncing in RP English or more likely, GA (General American) English when using "English Approximations".

>>Side note: I agree that GA English is much more useful for approximating the pronunciation of foreign words because, as you said correctly, we seldom use long vowels in RP English.<<

The reason for doing all of this is that the general readership will most likely be inexperienced with/not be able to decipher IPA symbols, and so the English approximation is required to guide them to the correct pronunciation. Clarity and correct use of this English approximation is required to make the effort worthwhile. 203.43.150.40 (talk) 02:37, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

You say [lɔs], but that's because you never have [as], [af], [aθ], [aŋ], but rather: [ɔs], [ɔf], [ɔθ], [ɔŋ], (e.g. in boss, cough, froth, song), so Las Vegas is not an exception. BTW, some British accents have something analogous: They never have [æs], [æf], [æθ], but rather: [as], [af], [aθ] (e.g. in last, laugh, path). HOTmag (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

But Brits pronounce Las Vegas and Los Angeles differently (Lass and Loss resp.), whereas to our ears, Americans pronounce them both as Loss. Widneymanor (talk) 17:19, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Correct, but as I've already explained, that's because General American English never has the first vowel of FATHER - before /s/ (nor before /f/,/θ/,/ŋ/ ), so whenever the Brits pronounce the first vowel of FATHER before /s/ - e.g. in PAST or in LAS Vegas - General American speakers must replace that vowel by the vowel of either AT or DOG. In most of the cases - e.g. in the word PAST - General American speakers choose the vowel of AT, but in LAS VEGAS - they don't choose the vowel of AT - because this vowel doesn't exist in Spanish (being the origin of Las Vegas), so General American speakers must choose the vowel of DOG - thus having the pronunciation of LAS Vegas like that of LOS Angeles. HOTmag (talk) 18:06, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Respectfully, I disagree, Widneymanor. I was born and raised in Detroit but have lived in California for over 45 years. Most Californians pronounce "Las" as in Las Vegas as "lahss", and pronounce "Los" as in Los Angeles something like "lawss", only softer. There is definitely a difference in pronunciation. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:02, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Not never. In New England English, the father-bother distinction is preserved. --Jayron32 18:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I meant General American English never has the first vowel of FATHER - before /s/. HOTmag (talk) 18:13, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

No, HOTmag, I think you're wrong here. I speak GA, more or less, and I do use the first vowel of "father" in the Las of Las Vegas, at least when speaking carefully. --Trovatore (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. Do you think you ever have the first vowel of FATHER - before /s/ (or before /f/,/θ/,/ŋ/ ), except for loanwords, e.g. proper nouns borrowed from Spanish (like Las Vegas)? HOTmag (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Took me a while to think of an example, but yes: "fossile", /fas.l/. --Trovatore (talk) 03:50, 11 January 2018 (UTC) Or could be /fɑs.l/ or /fɒs.l/, I guess — as I mentioned, I've never really figured out what the distinction is supposed to be. It's definitely not /fɔs.l/. --Trovatore (talk) 03:56, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Me too, and also: possible, docile, and likewise, so it seems that you're right. BTW, the Brits don't pronounce docile like us but rather like: dough-cile, the last syllable being like that of reconcile. HOTmag (talk) 05:42, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

HOTmag, I think you're slightly confused about British accents. Even as an RP speaker, I don't pronounce the "Las" in Las Vegas with the "a" in "father". I've only ever heard it pronounced by British people with the short "a" in (a British pronunciation of) "cat" (on the rare occasions it's said at all - usually the city is just called "Vegas" even over here). Proteus (Talk) 12:44, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

But Spanish people pronounce la casa (the house) differently to la cosa (the thing), so I disagree that the vowel of At doesn’t exist in Spanish.Widneymanor (talk) 18:40, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

That's a non-sequitur. Definitely Spanish casa sounds different from Spanish cosa, but neither one uses the vowel in English "at". --Trovatore (talk) 20:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

• @HOTmag: you are simply wrong. I do not have the cot-caught merger and I could easily pronounce the vowel of Las Vegas with the /a/ or [ɑ] or [ɒ] of "father" (or better, the [a] of Castilian]. But I don't as a lexical issue do so in my primary dialect, where los and las in American place names are both [lɔs] as a given. I also say /hat dɔg/ and /flarɪdɘ arɪndʒɪz/, except when in NY. Please keep in mind that I speak Spanish well enough to be mistaken for a native (on occasion I have been asked whether I am Oaxacan, Dominican, or Venezuelan); both Delaware Valley and NYC English at a native, code-switching level; have had my Russian vowels described as "beautiful"; am fluent in French and rusty in German; and won a Fulbright Scholarship to study Zulu. I do admit I find tonal languages difficult, since I usually have to parrot back a sentence three or four times to get it right.

But I fear most editors who insist on various respellings and phonemic transcriptions are actually monodialectal, as well as totally ignorant of the difference between phonetics and phonemes. I don't intend to repeat myself, so ping me if you (vos) have a question. μηδείς (talk) 03:14, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Did the Flahrida ahringes make anyone else think of Johnny Cash singing Orange Blossom Special? --Trovatore (talk) 04:01, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Correct. I too could very easily pronounce the first vowel of Las vegas like that of: possible, docile, fossil, but I actually pronounce the first vowel of Las vegas like that of Los Angeles. HOTmag (talk) 05:42, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

"To have oneself be ..."?

Do we say "he has himself elected / celebrated / ... by..." or "he has himself be elected / celebrated / ... by..."?--Siebi (talk) 22:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The first one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

TY. And you're sure the second one is wrong?--Siebi (talk) 22:46, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if it's technically "wrong" but it's rather awkward phraseology. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:03, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

He has himself elected.

He has himself be elected.

He has his son chosen.

He has his son be chosen.

I think both will work. But I prefer the first one over the second one, simply because the second one is too wordy. SSS (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that myself/yourself/himself, etc. does yeoman's work in the English language, serving as a reflexive, an intensifier, and various other duties. And one, thus, must remain vigilant not the confuse the roles that it plays.

As an intensive pronoun, it would behoove one to place it immediately after the proper noun/personal pronoun, e.g. "He himself has been elected." and not at the end of clause e.g. "He has been elected himself." for doing so creates stilted (and often confusing) sentences.

e.g.

Wrong->

1st person	You play hockey? I used to play myself.
2nd person	You used to play yourself?
1st person	No, I used to play hockey myself.
2nd person	You used to play hockey by yourself?
1st person	No, I used to play hockey, on a team, myself.
2nd person	You used to play hockey, on a team, against yourself?
1st person	No, I used to play hockey, on a team, against other teams, myself.
2nd person	Oh, I see.

Right->

1st person	You play hockey? I myself used to play.
2nd person	Wow, small world!

When not used as an intensifier, however, but as a reflexive, however, the rules are very different. In a direct-object reflexive, "he has himself elected" (active voice) and "he has himself be elected" (passive voice) are both perfectly correct, only differing in writing style. But in an indirect-object reflexive one must carefully analyze the grammar to see whether said reflexive acts as an adverb—in which case he would use "myself," "yourself," etc.—or as an adjective—in which case he would actually use an objective personal pronoun such as "me," "you," "him," etc.

e.g.

He gave the money to himself. (adverb)

We have the party with ourselves. (adverb)

But->

We must teach the children about the world around them. (adjective)

She kept staring at the four walls surrounding her. (adjective)

Also, even in adverbial phrases, the reflexive pronoun only applies if it matches in person, number, and gender with the subject pronoun.

e.g.

I put it behind myself

But->

I put it behind us.

Pine (talk) 09:46, 13 January 2018 (UTC)