1000 words for camel
Ray
1000 words for camel. This seemed a bit unbelievable, so I googled a
bit and found the only credible datum is that Somalian has 46 words for
camel. But there are claims that Arabic has as many as 5744, so I guess
Cash Cab's claim of 1000 could have been worse. And I believe the
contestant(s) got it right.
According to Google this topic was last discussed on AFU way back in
the last century.
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Ray
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R H Draney
Amazingly, camels have only one word for "Cash Cab"....
R H "and you'd better have a moist towelette handy if they use it" Draney
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Ralph Jones
<vortre...@yaxhoo.com.invalid> wrote:
>An episode of Cash Cab
An amusing program, that. Could well be the best choice for one with
nothing to do but watch the tube at 4 PM...
rj
Alan J Rosenthal
>An episode of Cash Cab that I recently watched claimed that Arabic has
>1000 words for camel. This seemed a bit unbelievable,
Googling around suggests that the usual form of the UL is "40 words for
camel", although one page says "over 160 words for camel". I'm fascinated
by the numerical relationship there.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99oct/9910camels.htm mentions in an
aside that
Speakers of Arabic have many words to express every refinement
of the cameloid condition. _Dhaqun_, for instance, refers to "a
she-camel that relaxes her chin so as to make her lower lip hang
down while going along."
That sounds like an awfully-specific word, doesn't it! But upon reflection
I think that that's just a detailed description of a particular species of
camel; it's not, for example, that there would be yet another word for a
camel which relaxes its chin so as to make its _nose_ hang down, and another
one which _tightens_ its chin so as to make its lower lip rise up, and etc.
But that's the sense one gets from the above paragraph.
How many words does English have for 'dog'? Count up all the subspecies
which people talk about, poodle, dalmation, etc, and you get many hundreds.
But it's stupid to say "English has five hundred words for 'dog'.[1]"
http://lughat.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-has-more-than-40-words-for-camels.html
is a good analysis.
regards,
ajr
Ray
> How many words does English have for 'dog'? Count up all the
> subspecies which people talk about, poodle, dalmation, etc, and
> you get many hundreds. But it's stupid to say "English has five
> hundred words for 'dog'.[1]"
A similar example I ran across was how many words English has for
"car".
Even more ULish, some claim that Arabic has no word meaning just plain
camel; I think I've heard a similar claim about Eskimos and snow.
But one of the pages I found listed the Arabic for camel; as I recall,
it's the source of the English word.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> Even more ULish, some claim that Arabic has no word meaning just plain
> camel; I think I've heard a similar claim about Eskimos and snow.
And how many English words are there for snow?
From <http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/snow>
Main Entry: bewilder
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: confuse
Synonyms: addle, baffle, ball up, befuddle, bemuse, confound, daze,
disconcert, distract, floor*, fluster, mess with one's head, mix up,
muddle, mystify, perplex, puzzle, rattle, snow*, stump, stupefy,
throw, upset
More where that came from but also: powder snow, sleet, slush, snow
blanket, snow crystal, snowbank, snowdrift, snowfall, snowflake.
And flurry, blizzard, sprinkling, dusting, stretching a point hail.
And anything they call it where you are. Oh, piste. And mogul. And
more in that genre, probably. I bet the Eskimos don't have a word for
mogul.
Charles Wm. Dimmick
Charles
Keith F. Lynch
> How many words does English have for 'dog'? Count up all the
> subspecies which people talk about, poodle, dalmation, etc, and you
> get many hundreds. But it's stupid to say "English has five hundred
> words for 'dog'.[1]"
Disney has 101 words for "dalmatian."
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> Alan J Rosenthal <fl...@dgp.toronto.edu> wrote:
>
> > How many words does English have for 'dog'? Count up all the
> > subspecies which people talk about, poodle, dalmation, etc, and you
> > get many hundreds. But it's stupid to say "English has five hundred
> > words for 'dog'.[1]"
>
> Disney has 101 words for "dalmatian."
Um... there's "dalmation", then I'm stuck. :-)
David DeLaney
Start with "Pongo" and "Perdita", and go from there...
Dave "of course, we're not sure how to spell them in the original Canine"
DeLaney
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It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
> Robert Carnegie: <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> >On Nov 25, 3:29�am, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >> Alan J Rosenthal <fl...@dgp.toronto.edu> wrote:
> >> > How many words does English have for 'dog'? �Count up all the
> >> > subspecies which people talk about, poodle, dalmation, etc, and you
> >> > get many hundreds. �But it's stupid to say "English has five hundred
> >> > words for 'dog'.[1]"
> >>
> >> Disney has 101 words for "dalmatian."
> >
> >Um... there's "dalmation", then I'm stuck. :-)
>
> Start with "Pongo" and "Perdita", and go from there...
That poor bi-
Keith F. Lynch
Sorry, I don't speak Disney. But, at a guess, Illyrian, Ragusan,
Istrian, Zagoran, Dinaric, Korculan, Kotorite, Zadararn, Paklenican,
Kornatite, Kastelan, Yugoslav, and Croatian, for starters. :-)