"patented sea captain"

[Rich Ulrich]

"In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
ship captains."
"Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
by Googling or in Wikip.

Is this a mis-translation of something? - I suspect that the whole
article might be a Bot translation from another edition. (Does Wikip
do that?) The remainder of the article is charmingly off...

"The former fishing village of Camogli, which now lives mainly
from tourism, is known for its colorful houses that line behind
the beach. The colors once helped the fishermen of Camogli, easier
to catch the way back to their port.

"Known until today nationwide, the first division of the local
swimming club water polo RN Camogli to have won after the Second
World War, several Italian championships. A beachfront swimming
pool is one of the most important recent buildings."

It occurs to me that a corrected version of these lines would
not convey more (unless one actually knows the status of the
swimming club), and would be less memorable.

--

Rich Ulrich

[Cheryl]

On 2013-05-24 4:05 PM, Rich Ulrich wrote:
> "In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
> ship captains."
> "Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
> in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
> by Googling or in Wikip.

I suspect they mean what in Canada is called a Master Mariner, but I
don't what that term would translate into in Italian that would come
back to English as 'patented'. I suspect the original was something more
like 'licensed' or 'certified'.

>
> Is this a mis-translation of something? - I suspect that the whole
> article might be a Bot translation from another edition. (Does Wikip
> do that?) The remainder of the article is charmingly off...
>
> "The former fishing village of Camogli, which now lives mainly
> from tourism, is known for its colorful houses that line behind
> the beach. The colors once helped the fishermen of Camogli, easier
> to catch the way back to their port.
>
> "Known until today nationwide, the first division of the local
> swimming club water polo RN Camogli to have won after the Second
> World War, several Italian championships. A beachfront swimming
> pool is one of the most important recent buildings."
>
> It occurs to me that a corrected version of these lines would
> not convey more (unless one actually knows the status of the
> swimming club), and would be less memorable.
>


--

Cheryl

[David Hatunen]

On Fri, 24 May 2013 16:16:52 -0230, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:

>On 2013-05-24 4:05 PM, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>> "In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
>> ship captains."
>> "Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
>> in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
>> by Googling or in Wikip.
>
>I suspect they mean what in Canada is called a Master Mariner, but I
>don't what that term would translate into in Italian that would come
>back to English as 'patented'. I suspect the original was something more
>like 'licensed' or 'certified'.

In English a"patent" is a shrunk form of "letter patent", a sort of
public certification, and could be used to refer to a captain's
licensure.

Merriam-Webster defines "letter patent":

" a writing (as from a sovereign) that confers on a designated person
a grant in a form open for public inspection "

I don't think I've ever acually seen or heard it used that way,
though, save for patents for inventions.

[Leslie Danks]

In German, "Kapitänspatent" is a licence to drive a ship.

--
Les (BrE)
"... be skeptical of government guidelines. The Indians learned not to trust
our government and neither should you." (Fallon & Enig)

[Paul Wolff]

In message <519fc06b$0$15836$91ce...@newsreader04.highway.telekom.at>,
Leslie Danks <leslie...@aon.at> writes

>David Hatunen wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 24 May 2013 16:16:52 -0230, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>On 2013-05-24 4:05 PM, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>>>> "In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
>>>> ship captains."
>>>> "Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
>>>> in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
>>>> by Googling or in Wikip.
>>>
>>>I suspect they mean what in Canada is called a Master Mariner, but I
>>>don't what that term would translate into in Italian that would come
>>>back to English as 'patented'. I suspect the original was something more
>>>like 'licensed' or 'certified'.
>>
>> In English a"patent" is a shrunk form of "letter patent", a sort of
>> public certification, and could be used to refer to a captain's
>> licensure.
>>
>> Merriam-Webster defines "letter patent":
>>
>> " a writing (as from a sovereign) that confers on a designated person
>> a grant in a form open for public inspection "
>>
>> I don't think I've ever acually seen or heard it used that way,
>> though, save for patents for inventions.
>

>In German, "Kapit�nspatent" is a licence to drive a ship.
>
As M-W implies, letters patent are open letters, not done up in an
envelope but displayed, preferably with a dangly seal attached. They are
inclined to say things like "To all whom these presents shall come,
greeting,..." and "Be it known that..." and are addressed to the world
at large. Sea-captains would be glad of such certification, I'm sure.
The seal would swing to signify the vigour of the waves.

Presumably a ship captain is of the same species. Sea-captain I mean,
not seal.

To all whom these presents shall come? It seems so. The English language
is stranger than you think.
--
Paul

[Christian Weisgerber]

Rich Ulrich <rich....@comcast.net> wrote:

> "In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
> ship captains."
> "Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
> in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
> by Googling or in Wikip.

In German, an officer's commission is an _Offizierspatent_, but
that is in the context of the military. I don't know about the
merchant marine.

> Is this a mis-translation of something? - I suspect that the whole
> article might be a Bot translation from another edition. (Does Wikip
> do that?) The remainder of the article is charmingly off...

Occasionally I notice in the English Wikipedia that articles on
subjects that are of limited interest to English speakers, but dear
to other people (e.g. towns to their inhabitants), show telltale
signs of having been written by ESL speakers.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Rich Ulrich]

On Fri, 24 May 2013 21:32:59 +0200, Leslie Danks <leslie...@aon.at>
wrote:

>David Hatunen wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 24 May 2013 16:16:52 -0230, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>On 2013-05-24 4:05 PM, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>>>> "In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
>>>> ship captains."
>>>> "Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
>>>> in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
>>>> by Googling or in Wikip.
>>>
>>>I suspect they mean what in Canada is called a Master Mariner, but I
>>>don't what that term would translate into in Italian that would come
>>>back to English as 'patented'. I suspect the original was something more
>>>like 'licensed' or 'certified'.
>>
>> In English a"patent" is a shrunk form of "letter patent", a sort of
>> public certification, and could be used to refer to a captain's
>> licensure.
>>
>> Merriam-Webster defines "letter patent":
>>
>> " a writing (as from a sovereign) that confers on a designated person
>> a grant in a form open for public inspection "
>>
>> I don't think I've ever acually seen or heard it used that way,
>> though, save for patents for inventions.
>
>In German, "Kapitänspatent" is a licence to drive a ship.

Thanks.

German does seem to be the source, for most, if not all, of
the article. The German edition of Wikip (de.) says
500 patentierte Schiffskapitäne

It also mentions the recently-build swimming pool.

The Italian edition has a rather long article on Camogli.
I don't read Itallian, but I didn't spot "500".

--
Rich Ulrich

[Jerry Friedman]

On May 24, 12:35 pm, Rich Ulrich <rich.ulr...@comcast.net> wrote:
>     "In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
>     ship captains."
> "Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
> in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
> by Googling or in Wikip.
>
> Is this a mis-translation of something?  - I suspect that the whole
> article might be a Bot translation from another edition.  (Does Wikip
> do that?)

Wikip editors aren't supposed to.

"Wikipedia consensus is that *an unedited machine translation, left as
a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing.*" (Emphasis in original.)

> The remainder of the article is charmingly off...
>
>     "The former fishing village of Camogli, which now lives mainly
>     from tourism, is known for its colorful houses that line behind
>     the beach. The colors once helped the fishermen of Camogli, easier
> to catch the way back to their port.

...

It could happen, though.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Rich Ulrich]

The basic text of this one does turn out to be a translation of
the German article.

A frequent contributor includes BOT in his name. So I now suspect
this is a machine translation, supplied by some individual. I did a
Google-translate of several sentences. The results are not entirely
colloquial, but are superior.

"In 1880, the city had (out of a population of 12,000) 500
patented ship captains. The former fishing village of Camogli,
which mainly depends on tourism today is known for its colorful
houses, which are hidden behind the beach. The colors helped once
the fishermen from Camogli to regain its port easier after the
catch."

I'm not sure what it means, that colorful houses are "hidden
behind the beach" (Google-translate) or "line behind the beach"
(Wikip, English). Maybe -- You can't see many of them, except from
the sea?

--
Rich Ulrich

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <1a80q8tvgv61l0eeu...@4ax.com>,

Rich Ulrich <rich....@comcast.net> wrote:
>A frequent contributor includes BOT in his name. So I now suspect
>this is a machine translation, supplied by some individual.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Camogli&offset=&limit=500&action=history

Several bots have edited this article. Had you bothered to read even
the edit summaries, it would have been clear what it is that these
bots were doing.

The change listed as:
17:27, October 4, 2011? 94.162.250.118 (talk)? . . (4,223 bytes)
(+1,433)? . . (dumping german version ... wonder why I didn't test the
itallian version...)

seems to be the one which introduced the phrase "500 patented ship
captains". The IP address is assigned to an Italian wireless carrier.
The lead section was restructured shortly thereafter by
User:Krenakarore, a NNES from Brazil living in Prague, but most of the
problems with the previous text were not fixed in the process.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 24 May 2013 12:23:15 -0700, David Hatunen <hat...@cox.net>
wrote:

That definition may be stretchable to include the letters patent issud
by the monarch to signify Royal Assent to Bills of the UK Parliament.

The Queen does not personally sign each Bill to convert it into an Act.
She personally signs (with her "sign manual") a letter patent
authorising a Bill to become an Act. This is a procedural formality
although the expert Francis Bennion has said:

Nor, under the modern constitutional convention, may the Queen
refuse Assent. {The last time Assent was refused was by Queen Anne
in 1707, in relation to a Scottish militia Bill (Lords' Journals
(1705-1709) p.506).} These facts are to some extent misleading.
One of the strengths of Britain's unwritten constitution is the
reserve power it contains. In a near-revolutionary situation the
occasion might still arise for the withholding of Royal Assent, if
only by way of delaying tactics.

Royal Assent is given to Bills in batches. On a given date all Bills
that have been passed through all their parliamentary stages become Acts
based on the letter patent giving the Royal Assent.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Mike L]

Note that "letters patent" is plural, following the Latin. The Roman
idea was that a document or an epistle was made up of alphabetical
characters. (Rather admirably, formal reports back to Quaker groups
are still called "epistles".)

--
Mike.

[Rich Ulrich]

On Sat, 25 May 2013 04:44:32 +0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:

>In article <1a80q8tvgv61l0eeu...@4ax.com>,
>Rich Ulrich <rich....@comcast.net> wrote:
>>A frequent contributor includes BOT in his name. So I now suspect
>>this is a machine translation, supplied by some individual.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Camogli&offset=&limit=500&action=history
>
>Several bots have edited this article. Had you bothered to read even
>the edit summaries, it would have been clear what it is that these
>bots were doing.

... just when I was feeling good about my initiative in digging
out the bit that I did dig out.

I few years ago, I managed to find source and discussion on a
couple of articles. It even seemed possible, then, to drop in some
comment like, "Why don't you improve this by using the Google
translation?" Lately, I only see a naked history of changes.

I look for useful-seeming tabs to click on, click, and get routed away
from the present article -- going to various HELP pages for how to
contribute to Wikip, or description of Wikip layout, or whatnot.
My interest hasn't lasted the 5 (or whatever) minutes necessary
to find those edit summaries the first time.

>
>The change listed as:
> 17:27, October 4, 2011? 94.162.250.118 (talk)? . . (4,223 bytes)
> (+1,433)? . . (dumping german version ... wonder why I didn't test the
> itallian version...)
>
>seems to be the one which introduced the phrase "500 patented ship
>captains". The IP address is assigned to an Italian wireless carrier.
>The lead section was restructured shortly thereafter by
>User:Krenakarore, a NNES from Brazil living in Prague, but most of the
>problems with the previous text were not fixed in the process.
>
>-GAWollman

--

Rich Ulrich

[Tom P]

On 05/24/2013 11:27 PM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> Rich Ulrich <rich....@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> "In 1880 the city had (in a population of 12,000) 500 patented
>> ship captains."
>> "Patented sea captain" seemed almost intelligible from the context
>> in this Wikip entry for Camogli, Italy, but I don't find it elsewhere
>> by Googling or in Wikip.
>
> In German, an officer's commission is an _Offizierspatent_, but
> that is in the context of the military. I don't know about the
> merchant marine.
>

In German, "Patent" in a maritime context is the certificate held by a
licensed mariner- see
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bef�higungszeugnis

I would hazard a guess that there is a similar term in Italian.
Unfortunately, Wiki lacks adequate cross-language references for
maritime terminology.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2013-05-25 12:39:40 +0200, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"

Didn't the Governor-General of Australia (acting, of course, in the
name of the Queen of Australia) refuse assent within living memory? I
seem to recall the Government being a bit peeved about it.


--
athel

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

There was the "Kerfuffle of 1975" in which the G-G dismissed the Prime
Minister, Gough Whitlam, and appointed the leader of the Opposition,
Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker PM.

The G-G was acting within the powers given to him by the constitution.
Whether his action was necessary or appropriate is presumably still a
matter of debate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis

[Robert Bannister]

The Governor-General has slightly more power than the Queen.

--
Robert Bannister

[Snidely]

Rich Ulrich explained on 5/26/2013 :

> I few years ago, I managed to find source and discussion on a
> couple of articles. It even seemed possible, then, to drop in some
> comment like, "Why don't you improve this by using the Google
> translation?" Lately, I only see a naked history of changes.

Doesn't your view of Wikipedia articles have at least 2 tabs? One
labelled "Article" and one labelled "Talk"? These are both on the left
side of the main area of the page for me, and "Read", "Edit", and "View
History" are on the right.

/dps

--
Who, me? And what lacuna?

[Rich Ulrich]

On Thu, 30 May 2013 22:55:27 -0700, Snidely <snide...@gmail.com>
wrote:

- thanks for the nudge.

Okay. For this article on Camogli, Italy, there was nothing at all
previously written under Talk. I see now that I did find the
actual Talk page, and there simply was nothing there. I wasn't
expecting that.

Under Talk, there was clickable thing for Feedback. That shows
one statement, dated last September, which wonders about
the bad translation. I did not find out how to leave my own
comment in Feedback, despite browsing the Feedback Help page.


I did, just now, edit the Talk page. (My old registration was
still active.) I recommended that Google gives a better translation,
and mentioned that the German "patented" means "licensed" .

Maybe I will go back and try to put in the changes, if no one
acts on that in the next few months.

--
Rich Ulrich