Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 July 4

Hi, this probably a stupid question but anyway...years ago my Mum worked with a lady who was a recent immigrant to Australia. This lady did not speak English all that well, but she could speak it well enough to get by (working in the shoe factory where my Mum worked at the time (early 1950s)). Most of the other workers were young girls in their 20s, but this lady was easily the oldest (in her 60s) and often the butt of usually harmless jokes by the youngsters. She took it all in good humour, but when she got angry she would always snap at them, and say "Menni Metsa!" I don't know if that is the correct spelling of course! I have Googled this up and down but could not imagine what it might mean - and what language it might be. The lady was European - she was definitely not Asian, or African (although she could have been from North Africa - at any rate she had white skin and not dark). Does anyone have any idea what this means, or does the old lady have the last laugh and was just using a made up word? BTW when my Mum asked her what it meant she said it was a swear word in "her language" but left it at that 121.44.224.89 (talk) 06:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Based entirely on intuition it sounds vaguely Greek, and like an imperative verb followed by a noun, but I can only read Ancient Greek with a dictionary on hand, and never studied curses. μηδείς (talk) 20:52, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My best guess is that the woman was Italian: "menni" = "me né", and "metsa" = "mezza", the informal imperative of the verb "mezzare", variant of "ammazzare", 'to bludgeon', figuratively 'to frazzle', etc. (From the noun mazza, 'mace', despite the etymology included in the link.) The woman was saying something like, "Don't pester me!" LANTZY^TALK 01:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, you'd say ¡no te metas conmigo! in Spanish. μηδείς (talk) 01:17, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sp. "meter" is cognate with It. "mettere", whereas "mezzare"/"ammazzare" is derived from the noun "mazza", meaning 'mace', cognate with Sp. "maza". The parallel Spanish verb, "mazar", is now nearly obsolete, except in the context of agriculture, where it retains the meaning of 'to churn (butter)'. So if you wanted a literal-minded translation of the OP's Italian phrase (assuming that it is Italian), it would be No me mazas, 'Don't churn me!' LANTZY^TALK 02:06, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Grazie, non parlo italiano. Yeah, I just assumed mezzare meant meter. But of course they should agree in declension. (The Spanish would be ¡no me maces! though, if mazar were the verb.) Is "me né verb imp" the equivalent of Spanish "no me verb subj"? Google seems to indicate one would say "non mi verb inf", and that né means nor. Is this a dialectical variation or colloquial idiom? μηδείς (talk) 02:39, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. I thought Italian ne was like French en and meant "of it". Then me ne mezza would have to mean "Pester me about it!", perhaps meant sarcastically. Angr (talk) 05:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Italian is likely. Plenty of immigrants from there to Australia in the 1950s. HiLo48 (talk) 02:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Lantzy, this has bugged me and my Mum for years! 121.44.224.89 (talk) 04:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If she was just saying "Don't pester me", she must have had an extremely broad definition of swear word. Angr (talk) 05:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that might have been her little joke, since Mum says that when she asked her what "swear word" it actually *was*, she just laughed and changed the subject. She sure kept Mum guessing (for like 60 years!)121.44.224.89 (talk) 08:23, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given the words, "Don't mess with me!" might even be a better translation. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I still find the explanation incomplete, if entirely plausible. The standard "don't X me" in Italian would be "non me X" not "me né X", would it not? Is this supposed to be short for a standard Italian phrase or is it some non-standard dialect? μηδείς (talk) 21:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it's Italian at all, which I somewhat doubt, I think it's probably a dialect from south of Rome. The ne particle is not a negative at all, but a partitive pronoun — it's possible that the verb is not in the imperative at all, but in the first person, as in me ne frego, which means "I don't wish to be rude, but I am somewhat occupied at the moment and cannot spare the time that your fascinating point merits". --Trovatore (talk) 23:20, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After answering someone's question at WP:Reference desk/Humanities about 20th-century referenda to secede from a country, I got involved in converting some data at Schleswig Plebiscites (1920) into a table. But knowing almost no Danish and very little German, I got confused about the correct designation of the Amt or Kreis for places (greater than the central towns themselves) like Flensburg and Tondern which Wikipedia now (at least on the Danish side) translates as municipalities (e.g. Aabenraa Municipality). The article, clearly translated from German, or perhaps Danish, used District instead. It also used "spot" as a translation for "Fleck" for very small places like Augustenborg, which English-language Wikipedia now uniformly calls towns (rather than, say, locality, village or hamlet). Does anyone here know enough Danish, German and English, as well as enough about how Jutland was organized in 1920 (as opposed to today), to help me be more accurate and consistent? (I could cross-post this at the Humanities desk, but it's the linguistic aspect that seems to need more expertise.) —— Shakescene (talk) 06:50, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This "spot/Fleck" probably refers to de:Flecken (Ort) which meant a place that is more than a village and has some privileges but has no full city rights. The German article links to Market town but I see no point in translating it at all, it's a very specialized term. English text should use it in it's original form.

About "Amt/Kreis": German Kreise are called district in English. A municipality is something different than an Amt or Kreis. An Amt/Kreis consists of several municipalities. Denmark just happened to merge so many of their former smaller municipalities into fewer bigger ones that the extent of Denmark's modern municipalities is now comparable to an Amt/Kreis. --::Slomox:: >< 11:56, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I am trying to find the correct (or most appropriate) way of writing 'Quarterfinal'. My personal preference is 'Quarter Final' as the phrase seems to be an amalgamation of 'Quarter' & 'Final'. However, all 3 versions in the heading seem to be acceptable.

When I search the phrase on google, 'Quarter-Final' seems to be most popular with 'Quarterfinal' the least used. My query has arisen due to the official Wimbledon Championships website. They use the 'Quarterfinal' version which I do not like.

Therefore, can anyone tell me if all 3 options are correct and which is the most commonly used. Is there a 'proper' way of writing it? If not, which way was the original? This very website uses all 3 by the way!

Thank you.

FingersLily (talk) 14:06, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For American English, both Merriam-Webster and American Heritage prefer quarterfinal. For British English, Collins prefers quarterfinal while Oxford prefers quarter-final. Angr (talk) 14:19, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(e/C) The recommendation of my Oxford Manual of Style (UK usage) is quarter-final, but it adds a note to say that it's one word (quarterfinal) in the US.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:23, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your replies & research - it is much appreciated. I shall stick with 'quarter-final' as I am English! FingersLily (talk) 08:44, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In light of all the discussion & research, can I request that this website agrees to a standard? At the moment, the format differs on various pages & even on the same page in some cases! Can I request that 'quarter-final' and indeed 'semi-final' become the standard? These appear to be the more popular usages & are the preferred format according to Oxford (Dictionary & Manual of Style). FingersLily (talk) 10:41, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can request to your heart's content, but a glance at nearly any article's talk page will demonstrate that such requests often go unheeded. See also the Wikipedia manual of style's discussion on national varieties of English, which tries to balance the internal consistency of an article, national identification with the topic, and even the variety or style of English already found in an article. --- OtherDave (talk) 17:18, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The reference desk is not the place to make such a request, but you could ask at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style or perhaps at WP:WikiProject Sports. I feel obliged to say this as a matter of providing relevant information, but I'd probably be among the first to oppose such a request on the grounds that the Manual of Style is already far too massive, ambitious and bossy as it is. [I'm personally (just as one editor among hundreds) opposed to micromanaging such small details; see WP:Instruction creep. But I certainly don't want to start a debate on the merits here.] —— Shakescene (talk) 05:47, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Shakescene. Apologies for making the request in the wrong place - I was told to bring it up here! As far as the Manual of Style being too bossy, I can fully appreciate what you are saying. I won't bother taking this any further but, just to explain, I was merely trying to get a nice, even standard across this site. It really isn't a big deal, just something I thought would be a good idea. Thanks to everyone for their contributions & suggestions. FingersLily (talk) 08:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, despite my feelings about the Manual of Style, I think it might be worth at least asking the question in a general sort of way at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports. It may well be that some consensus was reached a few years back that other editors just don't know about (perhaps one about following the event's official sites or programmes); or it may be that different sports or different countries or different eras or different playoff formats use different conventions. ¶ It's not necessarily bad for new editors or creators of an article at least to know what style other editors have following, even if they have some reason or preference for following a different one. It often happens that someone who's unsure about such questions will make a guess or blindly copy the nearest source when he or she would have had no objection to guidance about established practice, convention, consensus or understanding. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:32, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What does the picture say? I know カートゥーン means "Cartoon", but I can't figure out the second word. It looks to me something like ワラムド (waramudo?). Thanks. ShoobyD (talk) 14:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To me the second word looks more like クラムド, but I don't know what kuramudo means either. "Clammed"? "Crammed"? "Crumbed"? Angr (talk) 15:24, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely クラムド, and I'm pretty certain it's "crammed". (Context would help.) There's クラムド・ディスク "Crammed Disks" (a CD label) and クラムド・ワールド "Crammed World" (which appears to be a disk in their collection). And this: クラムド　キッチン – I think that's "Crammed Kitchen", from the description of the plot. (Yeah, photo here.) But then there's this: クラムド BRASS ポーチ付 – "Crumbed brass [jewelry] in a pouch"? The texture looks like a crumbed donut, so maybe they do mean "crumbed"? (Better pic here.)

But s.o. created a cartoon character, クラムド・アーガトラム. Any connection?

W/o context it's hard to tell, but maybe it's 'crammed with cartoons'? — kwami (talk) 19:58, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both of you. "Crammed" makes sense.

It's a part of a KaBlam! ("Where cartoons and comics collide") lost episode title, one about a fictional copycat Japanese TV show named "KaFun!" (see the full snapshot). There's also another episode with the title "Cramming Cartoons Since 1627". ShoobyD (talk) 00:20, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work on the research. For those who don't get the KaFun thing, it's pronounced with a long "ah" sound, and may be easier to understand as "Car-fun!", or "fun with cartoons". It could also be "Car-fan!", or a cartoon fan, but "car-fun" makes more sense to me. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 05:06, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What languages besides those spoken in the Philippines have different words for we and our depending on whether the person you're speaking to is included, like Tagalog's tayo/kami and ating/aming? 76.27.175.80 (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Malay, which isn't spoken in the Philippines (at least not predominantly) but is closely related to Philippine languages. Hawaiian does, and it's more distantly related. I don't know if there are non–Malayo-Polynesian languages that distinguish inclusive and exclusive we. Angr (talk) 15:27, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our article Clusivity says "First person clusivity is a common feature among Australian and Austronesian languages, and is also found in eastern, southern, and southwestern Asia, America, and in some creole languages. Some African languages also make this distinction, such as Fulfulde (Fula). No European language outside the Caucasus makes this distinction grammatically, but some constructions may be semantically inclusive or exclusive." There's also a table with lots of example languages at the end of the article. Angr (talk) 15:28, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Informally, Mandarin Chinese (mainly in Beijing) has a distinction between 咱们 zǎmén (sometimes just 咱) and 我们 wǒmén; the former can only be used inclusively, whereas the latter can be used anywhere. (The former is also less formal.)

I don't speak Spanish, but I believe in at least some dialects (including those spoken in the Philippines) there is a difference between exclusive nosotros and some other inclusive pronoun. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:30, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm concerned, Spanish does not have anything even remotely similar to that. --Belchman (talk) 20:00, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I know it's not in standard Spanish. I can't put my finger on which dialects were supposed to have it, although I think I remember reading it was somewhere in the Philippines--perhaps arising through contact with Filipino and Tok Pisin. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:50, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You might be thinking of Chavacano language, which is a Spanish-based creole found in the Philippines, and according to the article has a distinction between inclusive and exclusive we in some varieties.-Estrellador* (talk) 10:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tok Pisin and Bislama both have yumi and mipela - a useful distinction that could do with importing into English. There is the third case though: the political we which means you - as in ″we must all make sacrifices...″. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's also known as the "medical we", as in "How are we feeling this morning?". I suppose the royal we, which means "I", is by definition exclusive. Angr (talk) 15:55, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I read some interesting speculation that the Germanic we nominative form of the 1st person plural is actually parallel to the vos of Latin and that it indicates an inclusive we in the substrate of Germanic, using the you pl form to indicate inclusive we. μηδείς (talk) 18:00, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Not heard that. I wonder how they square it with Sanskrit (1pl "vayam", 2pl "yuyam", 1du "avam"). --ColinFine (talk) 23:24, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The yuyam form is not cognate with the vayam form, presumably, so no inherent contradiction. I am really suffering, having lost most of the comparative linguistics pdf's I've downloaded over the past few years. Will see if I can find the source--but in any case I don't think they expanded on the speculation--and I remember being sceptical of other comments. Could it have been Ivanov and Gamkrelidze? μηδείς (talk) 23:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is Gamkrelidze and Ivanov p 254 who argue on internal and typological grounds that the Proto-Indo-European language had inclusive *wei (>vos) and exclusive *mes (<me pl.)with *wei being generalized to either unmarked 1st or 2nd plural when the distinction was lost. μηδείς (talk) 01:06, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Johanna Nichols, who overrepresents the New World in her calculations, gives 21% of language phyla in the Old World which have an inclusive/exclusive distinction and a 43% (overestimated) distinction worldwide. See [1] disregarding the overly positive reviews. μηδείς (talk) 04:21, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lojban has three different we: “mi'o” and “ma'a” include you, whereas “mi'a” excludes you. – b_jonas 12:15, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So what's the difference between mi'o and ma'a? (Or am I going to be sorry I asked?) Angr (talk) 12:43, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to "Lojban For Beginners — velcli befi la lojban. bei loi co'a cilre" by Robin Turner and Nick Nicholas, p. 82, there are four distinct lojban pro-sumti for "we":

• mi'o — you and I (but no-one else)
• mi'a — I and another/others (not you)
• ma'a — you and I and another/others
• mi — already given as meaning "I", but "Lojban makes no distinction between singular and plural; so if several people are speaking all together, mi (which refers to the one or more speakers) is perfectly correct for we. In practice, you'll usually get mi used like that when one person is presuming to speak (or more often, to write) on behalf of others."

--Theurgist (talk) 09:05, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The zebra ate grass.

Grass was eaten (by the zebra).

The zebra fell victim to the lion.

The zebra fell victim.

Victim was fallen (by the zebra).

The last attempted passive transformation above doesn't work because "victim" is not the object of a transitive verb, "fell". Rather, "fall" is being used here as a copulative verb. Maybe that particular verb is not among those that immediately come to mind among those used as copulative verbs in English. Additionally, we have:

• get, as in "The situation is getting better."
• become
• be
• remain
• stay
• continue
• turn (as in "He will turn 21 next week.", "He turned traitor.")
• make (as in "The Pope made him a cardinal." "He could make captain this year." (OK, in the first example, it's a transitive verb with both an object and a complement; but in the second is a copula.))
• keep (as in "Keep calm.")
• wax (as in "He waxed enthusiastic.")

Has someone compiled a list of verbs that are sometimes used copulatively in English, with examples of each such use? Michael Hardy (talk) 20:55, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of a list, but Eva Berlage wrote a paper about them last year (Berlage, Eva (2010). "The lexicalisation of predicative complements in English". Transactions of the Philological Society. 108 (1): 53–67. Retrieved 2011/07/04. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)) She concentrated on "take prisoner", "fall victim" and "play truant". Some of the references in her paper may have lists of verbs. --ColinFine (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Colin Fine. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The verb to fell has a simple passive transformation.

The lion felled the zebra

The zebra was felled by the lion

The compound verb to fall victim has no simple passive transformation unless you count

The zebra was victimised by the lion

Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:44, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(posting anonymously, I'm a regular refdesk contributor but don't want my current employer to know about this yet) -- I'm about to submit a job application in English, and as I'm not a native speaker and have never written a job application in English, I would really appreciate if someone could proof read my cover letter and CV - I'm not sure I got all the necessary lingo and phrases correct even after checking a couple example cover letters via Google (on the plus side, the recipients also aren't native speakers of English, but still - I wouldn't want my application to fail because of some stupid grammar/phrasing mistakes). If someone is interested/willing to help me, I'd prefer to send you my application via email (as I obviously don't want to post it here). Thanks in advance - this would be an immense help. -- 78.53.228.112 (talk) 22:38, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give it a go. I do this sort of thing as part of my job anyway. Email me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 23:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]