Bring Back the Big "Pacific vs Coruscic" Naming Debate! And what about the name of the Earth itself too?
mike3
I had another idea: Coruscic is a more BEAUTIFUL name for the ocean.
Especially given the meaning of "glittering". My idea is that
beautiful
things should have beautiful names. Ever since I saw the ocean last
year I couldn't help stop thinking about just how beautiful it was,
and I
realized it deserved well a name as beautiful as Coruscic, but sigh,
500 years of tradition means the dumb names are hard to remove.
"Earth", by the way, is a crap name for our planet. The planet is too
beautiful to be given such a junk name that means nothing but "dirt"
(actually, more technically, the stuff that covers the surface. In
fact,
rock is the major constituent of the planet so if we want a
descriptive
name, it should be something like "Rock" instead. Planet Rock. But
that's even crappier!). Is there ANY word in ANY language used for the
Earth that means something OTHER than (and hopefully more *beautiful*
and *poetic* than) dirt, land, etc.? (Hence my postings to sci.lang as
well.) Because English doesn't seem to be the only language that uses
names that mean those things. Now this seems even more difficult to
unseat. Although if only one could trick the IAU into renaming the
planet...
But they'd probably only do that if 99.999% of the world population
agreed
to the new name, whatever it is. Tradition, tradition...
I've heard of times when the English language itself was more eloquent
than it is now, and it's sad to see how degraded it's become, by the
way...
But I guess it fits in with the continued degradation of the societies
that
speak it.
Craoi...@gmail.com
> In
> fact,
> rock is the major constituent of the planet so if we want a
> descriptive
> name, it should be something like "Rock" instead. Planet Rock.
...and Roll. :)
Robert Lieblich
>
> Yay!!!
>
> I had another idea: Coruscic is a more BEAUTIFUL name for the ocean.
Oh, shut up.
Don Phillipson
news:e572df88-5f59-4839...@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> My idea is that beautiful
> things should have beautiful names.
This is not an original idea. The Roman (Latin) tag for this was
"Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."
> "Earth", by the way, is a crap name for our planet. The planet is too
> beautiful to be given such a junk name that means nothing but "dirt"
This illustrates the problem. Only Americans use the word
Dirt to mean both (1) topsoil, (2) anything that makes something
else unclean. British usage is solely #2. For meaning #1 the
British use only earth, soil, mould, and so on.
Earth = dirt (hence undesirable) is not a universal American value,
cf. Pearl Buck's book title The Good Earth and countless
similar usages. This weakens Mike3's case that some
words are intrinsically pleasing or unpleasing, even to a
monocultural ear.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
> "mike3" <mike4...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:e572df88-5f59-4839...@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>
> > My idea is that beautiful
> > things should have beautiful names.
>
> This is not an original idea. The Roman (Latin) tag for this was
> "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."
Google Books seems to think that's Dr. Johnson's parody of a line from
a tragedy, "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free."
--
Jerry Friedman
Martin Ambuhl
> Yay!!!
>
> I had another idea: Coruscic is a more BEAUTIFUL name for the ocean.
Teasing Daniel is cruel to both him and the newsgroup. Go away.
Daniel al-Autistiqui
wrote:
>Yay!!!
>
"Yay!!!" about what?
>I had another idea: Coruscic is a more BEAUTIFUL name for the ocean.
>Especially given the meaning of "glittering". My idea is that
>beautiful
>things should have beautiful names. Ever since I saw the ocean last
>year I couldn't help stop thinking about just how beautiful it was,
>and I
>realized it deserved well a name as beautiful as Coruscic, but sigh,
>500 years of tradition means the dumb names are hard to remove.
>
OK, here's what the situation is with me right now. I am perhaps
starting to feel more comfortable with the name "Pacific Ocean", and
maybe even the word "oxygen" as well. "Pacific Ocean" is at least
better than the hypothetical name "Rare Ocean". My problem, I
suppose, could be that I often like to discuss etymology with people
(such as my mother, who is coming up here on Sunday), and I don't
really like to enter into the -- unfortunate, to me at least -- fact
that Magellan (or Lavoisier, or whoever it may have been) made a
mistake. Probably the best I'd be able to do is just say that "I
don't know how to explain" Magellan's rationale for naming the ocean
after the concept of peace.
What I also do not understand is why "misnomers" of this sort have
sometimes been taken into other languages using native roots, as when
"Pacific" became the Russian "Tikhij", also meaning "peaceful". Why
"translate" a name like this, as if it were to be taken literally?
It's now essentially just a *label*, an arbitrary stretch of sound.
(This must have been my main objection after I first started seeing
you -- Mike3 -- post numerous messages about "Pacific" and decided I
had to agree that it was a bad name.) An interesting case is one
mentioned on sci.lang by Joe Fineman back in 2001:
# Amusingly, [Lavoisier's] mistake is perpetuated in the name for
oxygen not only
# in English, German, and Russian, but even in modern Hebrew (humtsan,
# from hamets = sour). I assume that that was done well after the
# mistake was discovered.
Although Mr. Fineman didn't know for sure whether the Modern Hebrew
word for "oxygen" did in fact come about long after Lavoisier's belief
that the element was an "acid-producer" was found to be wrong, if it
did then that was an especially bad case of "label translation"; it
would have been about the dumbest thing to do. Obviously the person
who named the element in Hebrew knew what the Greek root "oxy-" meant,
but one would have to wonder if he/she did not also know that the
existing name that made use of that root was a misnomer.
In any case, I'd certainly still have trouble with any potential
misnomers that involve the word "rare", because in my mind, that word
is a very special case. I'd really prefer that the word be always
used correctly, and ideally "rare", no matter what phrase it is part
of, should never mean anything but "rare".
daniel mcgrath
--
Daniel Gerard McGrath, a/k/a "Govende":
for e-mail replace "invalid" with "com"
Developmentally disabled;
has Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder),
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
& periodic bouts of depression.
[This signature is under construction.]
Harlan Messinger
> What I also do not understand is why "misnomers" of this sort have
> sometimes been taken into other languages using native roots, as when
> "Pacific" became the Russian "Tikhij", also meaning "peaceful". Why
> "translate" a name like this, as if it were to be taken literally?
On the contrary, it *is* meant to be taken literally. It isn't like
naming your son Calvin, the origin of which is a word meaning "bald
one", without any expectation that he will necessarily be bald when he
gets older or that when he travels to other countries he will translate
his name into the equivalent of "bald one" in other languages. It isn't
like naming the ocean "Steve" or "Darlene". It's meant to be a
descriptive term, just like "Mediterranean" (German: Mittelmeer =
"middle sea"), "Yellow" (for the Yellow Sea), "North" (for the North
Sea), etc.
> It's now essentially just a *label*, an arbitrary stretch of sound.
Yes, but not one that's divorced from its meaning.
Christopher Ingham
The planet is composed mainly of iron, oxygen, silicon, and
magnesium. A name somehow denoting one or more of these
elements would be more "accurate" than the current name.
And there remains the problem of arriving at a suitably
linguistically pangaean term if the new name is to be used
in common by speakers of all languages -- something like
"Ferroxygenia" (apart from its ungainly appearance) probably
wouldn't go over well among speakers of Mandarin. Perhaps
here we might find a solution within the Magdalenian lexicon.
Seriously.
Christopher ingham
mike3
Giggle.
mike3
The idea though was not to find more "descriptive" names.
I was trying a different approach, sort of a 180 from the demand
of names having to be more descriptive. Just to see. Just for
fun.
And WTH with the Magdalenian thing again?!
mike3
>
> news:e572df88-5f59-4839...@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>
> > My idea is that beautiful
> > things should have beautiful names.
>
> This is not an original idea. The Roman (Latin) tag for this was
> "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."
>
> > "Earth", by the way, is a crap name for our planet. The planet is too
> > beautiful to be given such a junk name that means nothing but "dirt"
>
> This illustrates the problem. Only Americans use the word
> Dirt to mean both (1) topsoil, (2) anything that makes something
> else unclean. British usage is solely #2. For meaning #1 the
> British use only earth, soil, mould, and so on.
>
However it's still not much of a name, more of a description.
mike3
>
> Teasing Daniel is cruel to both him and the newsgroup. Go away.
That is not a tease against someone else, it was an attempt to
argue for a new "justification" for the name change
mike3
And that's what my original objection was, that the meaning of the
name was woefully inappropriate for that mighty body of water on
that special side of the globe.
mike3
wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:54:30 -0700 (PDT), mike3 <mike4...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Yay!!!
>
> "Yay!!!" about what?
>
Just excitement.
> >I had another idea:Coruscicis a more BEAUTIFUL name for the ocean.
> >Especially given the meaning of "glittering". My idea is that
> >beautiful
> >things should have beautiful names. Ever since I saw the ocean last
> >year I couldn't help stop thinking about just how beautiful it was,
> >and I
> >realized it deserved well a name as beautiful asCoruscic, but sigh,
> >500 years of tradition means the dumb names are hard to remove.
>
> OK, here's what the situation is with me right now. I am perhaps
> starting to feel more comfortable with the name "Pacific Ocean", and
> maybe even the word "oxygen" as well.
What I'm curious about however is why you objected to "Coruscic Ocean"
in the first place when I first brought it up, when you were _less_
comfortable with "Pacific Ocean". Why didn't you consider it a good
alternative term and jump on my "bandwagon"?
> "Pacific Ocean" is at least
> better than the hypothetical name "Rare Ocean". My problem, I
> suppose, could be that I often like to discuss etymology with people
> (such as my mother, who is coming up here on Sunday), and I don't
> really like to enter into the -- unfortunate, to me at least -- fact
> that Magellan (or Lavoisier, or whoever it may have been) made a
> mistake. Probably the best I'd be able to do is just say that "I
> don't know how to explain" Magellan's rationale for naming the ocean
> after the concept of peace.
>
Actually, I think the reason was because during his voyage, he
actually
did find it peaceful. Although now we know it can actually be quite
nasty, not on his trip, he found it peaceful, and so he named it what
he did.
R H Draney
>
>"Earth", by the way, is a crap name for our planet. The planet is too
>beautiful to be given such a junk name that means nothing but "dirt"
>(actually, more technically, the stuff that covers the surface. In
>fact,
>rock is the major constituent of the planet so if we want a
>descriptive
>name, it should be something like "Rock" instead. Planet Rock. But
>that's even crappier!).
If you want a name that reflects what most of the bulk of the entire planet is
made of, we're Ironworld....
If instead you want to indicate the principal constituent of the outermost
visible layer, we're Brinea....r
--
What good is being an executive if you never get to execute anyone?
mike3
> mike3 filted:
>
>
>
> >"Earth", by the way, is a crap name for our planet. The planet is too
> >beautiful to be given such a junk name that means nothing but "dirt"
> >(actually, more technically, the stuff that covers the surface. In
> >fact,
> >rock is the major constituent of the planet so if we want a
> >descriptive
> >name, it should be something like "Rock" instead. Planet Rock. But
> >that's even crappier!).
>
> If you want a name that reflects what most of the bulk of the entire planet is
> made of, we're Ironworld....
>
> If instead you want to indicate the principal constituent of the outermost
> visible layer, we're Brinea....r
>
Actually, I was suggesting that it should have something _other_ than
a
descriptive name.
Harlan Messinger
Uh huh. You explained that on your first go-around. What is it you're
expecting to accomplish by bringing it up all over again?
mike3
Just to show that it is indeed a misnomer. But obviously you don't
agree it would be a good thing to change it to something as nice as
"Coruscic".
Harlan Messinger
That's what you were doing last time. I asked you what you expect to
accomplish by bringing it up all over *again*.
Harlan Messinger
Fine. Call it Melissa. Knock yourslf out.
Skitt
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>> mike3 wrote:
Go ahead, change it. I don't mind. Let me know when the change is
complete.
--
Skitt
I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!
mike3
Oh. Well I was curious as to what you thought of my idea that
"Coruscic"
was a more beautiful and pleasing name for that beautiful ocean.
mike3
mike3
<snip>
> Go ahead, change it. I don't mind. Let me know when the change is
> complete.
>
Heh. Like I could just snap my fingers and wipe out 500 years of
tradition...
Mike Lyle
He's hoping to distract our attention from the fact that the Indian
Ocean is only slightly Indian, and should perhaps really be called the
"African Ocean", or the "Australian Ocean" or the "Antarctic Ocean" or
something else entirely. And, of course, from the annoying fact that the
Atlantic is named after a person who never existed. Originally, of
course, only a single Ocean all round the world was recognized: perhaps
it would be better to go back to that.
--
Mike.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Skitt
> "Skitt" wrote:
> <snip>
>> Go ahead, change it. I don't mind. Let me know when the change is
>> complete.
>
> Heh. Like I could just snap my fingers and wipe out 500 years of
> tradition...
Oh.
Well, let it go, then, lest you be thought a kook.
(Too late?)
--
Skitt (AmE)
Harlan Messinger
Never mind.
mike3
So you really don't like the idea.
mike3
wrote:
Actually, none of this at all. It's just that I think "Coruscic" is a
beautiful
name for that beautiful ocean. And "Pacific" was originally intended
to
describe the character of the ocean, which it utterly fails to do.
Hence my
objection to it. The Pacific is not pacific. That was my beef with it.
That's
the whole thing. No more, no less.
I'm curious, who named the Indian Ocean, anyway?
And what do you propose the single ocean (all the oceans together)
be called? Just the ocean, no qualifiers, since there's only one of
it?
Paul J Kriha
news:4fc625c0-f6d6-4324...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Okay, that's better, Awful it is.
pjk
P.S.
Testing, testing...
The Third Rock from the Sun, also known as Awful.
Yes, why not, sounds good.
Paul J Kriha
news:53d72e08-1b81-4c6e...@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
Ferroxygenia? Ah, you mean FOG!
>Seriously.
But of course.
pjk
>Christopher ingham
mike3
<paul.nospam.kr...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> "mike3" <mike4...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
Oh dear... this is pointless...
<signoff>
Oleg Lego
>Yay!!!
>
>I had another idea: Coruscic is a more BEAUTIFUL name for the ocean.
You're back. Pity. Goodbye again.
--
WCdnE
Harlan Messinger
That's the assessment that at least a couple of us have been trying to
convey.
Peter Moylan
> Actually, none of this at all. It's just that I think "Coruscic" is a
> beautiful name for that beautiful ocean.
You have to be joking. It's one of the ugliest words I've come across in
recent times.
> The Pacific is not pacific.
And the Atlantic isn't romantic, and the Black Sea isn't what it's
cracked up to be.
> I'm curious, who named the Indian Ocean, anyway?
Well, you see, Columbus thought that he had reached the West Indies.
> And what do you propose the single ocean (all the oceans together) be
> called? Just the ocean, no qualifiers, since there's only one of it?
When there's only one of something, it doesn't need a name. Call it Fido
if you wish, but it won't come when you call it.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Peter Moylan
> On Mar 28, 11:01 pm, "Paul J Kriha"
> <paul.nospam.kr...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>> "mike3" <mike4...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:4fc625c0-f6d6-4324...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>>> On Mar 28, 4:50 pm, Harlan Messinger
>>>> Fine. Call it Melissa. Knock yourslf out.
>>> That's awful :(
>> Okay, that's better, Awful it is.
>
> Oh dear... this is pointless...
Finally the penny drops. Here, have a tampon.
Harlan Messinger
> On 29/03/08 15:18, mike3 wrote:
>> On Mar 28, 11:01 pm, "Paul J Kriha"
>> <paul.nospam.kr...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>>> "mike3" <mike4...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>> news:4fc625c0-f6d6-4324...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>>>
>>>> On Mar 28, 4:50 pm, Harlan Messinger
>
>>>>> Fine. Call it Melissa. Knock yourslf out.
>>>> That's awful :(
>>> Okay, that's better, Awful it is.
>>
>> Oh dear... this is pointless...
>
> Finally the penny drops. Here, have a tampon.
>
Peter Moylan
Sorry, cross-thread reference. Somewhere in the archives there is a
discussion of flavoured condoms, which will provide the context, but I'm
afraid I wouldn't even know which Subject to look for now.
Harlan Messinger
> On 29/03/08 23:12, Harlan Messinger wrote:
>> Peter Moylan wrote:
>>> On 29/03/08 15:18, mike3 wrote:
>
>>>> Oh dear... this is pointless...
>>>
>>> Finally the penny drops. Here, have a tampon.
>>>
>> ???
>
> Sorry, cross-thread reference. Somewhere in the archives there is a
> discussion of flavoured condoms, which will provide the context, but I'm
> afraid I wouldn't even know which Subject to look for now.
>
@gmail.com André Keshave
"Daniel al-Autistiqui"
...
>An interesting case is one
> mentioned on sci.lang by Joe Fineman back in 2001:
>
> # Amusingly, [Lavoisier's] mistake is perpetuated in the name for
> oxygen not only
> # in English, German, and Russian, but even in modern Hebrew (humtsan,
> # from hamets = sour). I assume that that was done well after the
> # mistake was discovered.
>
> Although Mr. Fineman didn't know for sure whether the Modern Hebrew
> word for "oxygen" did in fact come about long after Lavoisier's belief
> that the element was an "acid-producer" was found to be wrong, if it
> did then that was an especially bad case of "label translation"; it
> would have been about the dumbest thing to do. Obviously the person
> who named the element in Hebrew knew what the Greek root "oxy-" meant,
> but one would have to wonder if he/she did not also know that the
> existing name that made use of that root was a misnomer.
Not necessarily. The name oxygen may have been maintained in another
language merely because it was a widespread name, rather than to invent a
new word, even if it was known by then to be a "misnomer". If the name was
kept deliberately, can it still be considered a misnomer?
> In any case, I'd certainly still have trouble with any potential
> misnomers that involve the word "rare", because in my mind, that word
> is a very special case. I'd really prefer that the word be always
> used correctly, and ideally "rare", no matter what phrase it is part
> of, should never mean anything but "rare".
Are you referring to "rare" as used for meat? As it has a different
etymology from the other "rare", they are homographs and hence two different
words, even if they appear to be the same word. Considering that, can it be
considered a misnomer?
mike3
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> mike3 wrote:
> > On Mar 28, 11:01 pm, "Paul J Kriha"
> > <paul.nospam.kr...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> >> Okay, that's better, Awful it is.
>
> > Oh dear... this is pointless...
>
> That's the assessment that at least a couple of us have been trying to
> convey.
And it doesn't seem to be fun anymore like I wished it would have
been...
sniffle.
Christopher Ingham
as Lewis Carroll characters. The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon
come to mind.
Christopher Ingham
mike3
wrote:
> On 29/03/08 13:41, mike3 wrote:
>
> > Actually, none of this at all. It's just that I think "Coruscic" is a
> > beautiful name for that beautiful ocean.
>
> You have to be joking. It's one of the ugliest words I've come across in
> recent times.
>
How about the alternative, call it the Coruscant?
> > The Pacific is not pacific.
>
> And the Atlantic isn't romantic, and the Black Sea isn't what it's
> cracked up to be.
>
Giggle.
> > I'm curious, who named the Indian Ocean, anyway?
>
> Well, you see, Columbus thought that he had reached the West Indies.
>
Actually, doing a little digging now suggests that the term Indian
Ocean
has been used long, long before Columbus. It appears in the ancient
(150 a.D.) maps by Ptolemy, the ancient Greek/Egyptian geographer
and astronomer.
> > And what do you propose the single ocean (all the oceans together) be
> > called? Just the ocean, no qualifiers, since there's only one of it?
>
> When there's only one of something, it doesn't need a name. Call it Fido
> if you wish, but it won't come when you call it.
>
So then I was right, just "the ocean", just like that.
Paul J Kriha
From planet Awful to planet Melissa:
"Thank gods, finally you too came to that conclusion."
pjk
Paul J Kriha
>On Mar 29, 4:43 am, Peter Moylan <pe...@DIESPAMMERSDIEpmoylan.org>
>wrote:
>> On 29/03/08 13:41, mike3 wrote:
>> > Actually, none of this at all. It's just that I think "Coruscic" is a
>> > beautiful name for that beautiful ocean.
>>
>> You have to be joking. It's one of the ugliest words I've come across in
>> recent times.
>
>How about the alternative, call it the Coruscant?
>
>> > The Pacific is not pacific.
>>
>> And the Atlantic isn't romantic, and the Black Sea isn't what it's
>> cracked up to be.
>
>Giggle.
>
>> > I'm curious, who named the Indian Ocean, anyway?
>>
>> Well, you see, Columbus thought that he had reached the West Indies.
Actually, no, I don't see.
When did exactly Columbus name Indian Ocean?
Was it when he landed on San Salvador in Carribean islands?
Or when he landed on the America's mainland?
pjk
Daniel al-Autistiqui
com> wrote:
>
>"Daniel al-Autistiqui"
>...
>>An interesting case is one
>> mentioned on sci.lang by Joe Fineman back in 2001:
>>
>> # Amusingly, [Lavoisier's] mistake is perpetuated in the name for
>> oxygen not only
>> # in English, German, and Russian, but even in modern Hebrew (humtsan,
>> # from hamets = sour). I assume that that was done well after the
>> # mistake was discovered.
>>
>> Although Mr. Fineman didn't know for sure whether the Modern Hebrew
>> word for "oxygen" did in fact come about long after Lavoisier's belief
>> that the element was an "acid-producer" was found to be wrong, if it
>> did then that was an especially bad case of "label translation"; it
>> would have been about the dumbest thing to do. Obviously the person
>> who named the element in Hebrew knew what the Greek root "oxy-" meant,
>> but one would have to wonder if he/she did not also know that the
>> existing name that made use of that root was a misnomer.
>
>Not necessarily. The name oxygen may have been maintained in another
>language merely because it was a widespread name, rather than to invent a
>new word, even if it was known by then to be a "misnomer". If the name was
>kept deliberately, can it still be considered a misnomer?
>
What I must have been objecting to was that the Modern Hebrew word
"chamtzan" (= oxygen) was formed from the native root "chamatz" (=
sour). Thus, Hebrew does not preserve the Greek root "oxy-" (as I'm
told Arabic does) but rather translates it. Lavoisier coined the
French word "oxygčne" in the mid-1780s: it was presumably in the early
19th century that this was found to be a misnomer. I'm guessing that
the word "chamtzan" in Hebrew was coined considerably later, like
about the 1880s (Eliezer ben Yehudah, by any chance? -- I had been
reading about the history of Hebrew over the weekend). Now, it is one
thing to continue to use the French "oxygčne" or its English cognate
"oxygen" after is found to be an erroneous name, if people feel that
the word is entrenched in the language and too difficult to get rid
of. It is another thing to borrow words like that into some other
language that never had a word for "oxygen" to begin with, and
especially to *translate* the word as if "oxygen" still meant "acid
producer". So, sure, "oxygen" had been used before, and it soon
became a part of the English language. But "chamtzan" was never
previously used in any language. Why would the coiner of the Hebrew
word choose a root meaning "sour or acidic" when he would have been
perfectly aware that that was an inappropriate description? And of
all things, why didn't he call it something like "oksigen" (i.e.,
aleph-vav-koph-samech-yod-gimel-nun)?
I realize that by now "chamtzan" is probably just as entrenched as
"oxygen" and "oxygčne" were when they were found to be misnomers, but
the word still bothers me. (If you think that in practice the word
"chamtzan" should not bother me since I don't speak Hebrew, then you
don't know the whole story.)
daniel mcgrath
--
Daniel Gerard McGrath, a/k/a "Govende":
for e-mail replace "invalid" with "com"
Developmentally disabled;
has Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder),
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
& periodic bouts of depression.
[This signature is under construction.]
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> >> Although Mr. Fineman didn't know for sure whether the Modern Hebrew
> >> word for "oxygen" did in fact come about long after Lavoisier's belief
> >> that the element was an "acid-producer" was found to be wrong, if it
> >> did then that was an especially bad case of "label translation"; it
> >> would have been about the dumbest thing to do. Obviously the person
> >> who named the element in Hebrew knew what the Greek root "oxy-" meant,
> >> but one would have to wonder if he/she did not also know that the
> >> existing name that made use of that root was a misnomer.
>
> >Not necessarily. The name oxygen may have been maintained in another
> >language merely because it was a widespread name, rather than to invent a
> >new word, even if it was known by then to be a "misnomer". If the name was
> >kept deliberately, can it still be considered a misnomer?
>
> What I must have been objecting to was that the Modern Hebrew word
> "chamtzan" (= oxygen) was formed from the native root "chamatz" (=
> sour). Thus, Hebrew does not preserve the Greek root "oxy-" (as I'm
> told Arabic does) but rather translates it.
It's called a "calque." It is an exceedingly common method of taking
new words into a language. Just like all the calques of "Pacific" in
the ocean name.
Adam Funk
> What I must have been objecting to was that the Modern Hebrew word
> "chamtzan" (= oxygen) was formed from the native root "chamatz" (=
> sour). Thus, Hebrew does not preserve the Greek root "oxy-" (as I'm
> told Arabic does) but rather translates it. Lavoisier coined the
> French word "oxygène" in the mid-1780s: it was presumably in the early
> 19th century that this was found to be a misnomer. I'm guessing that
> the word "chamtzan" in Hebrew was coined considerably later, like
> about the 1880s (Eliezer ben Yehudah, by any chance? -- I had been
> reading about the history of Hebrew over the weekend). Now, it is one
> thing to continue to use the French "oxygène" or its English cognate
> "oxygen" after is found to be an erroneous name, if people feel that
> the word is entrenched in the language and too difficult to get rid
> of. It is another thing to borrow words like that into some other
> language that never had a word for "oxygen" to begin with, and
> especially to *translate* the word as if "oxygen" still meant "acid
> producer". So, sure, "oxygen" had been used before, and it soon
> became a part of the English language. But "chamtzan" was never
> previously used in any language. Why would the coiner of the Hebrew
> word choose a root meaning "sour or acidic" when he would have been
> perfectly aware that that was an inappropriate description? And of
> all things, why didn't he call it something like "oksigen" (i.e.,
> aleph-vav-koph-samech-yod-gimel-nun)?
Perhaps under the influence of "Sauerstoff" in German (and possibly
similar "morphological translations" in other languages)?
--
The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so
many of them to choose from. [Grace Murray Hopper]
mike3
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> mike3 wrote:
> > On Mar 28, 4:50 pm, Harlan Messinger
> > <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> That's what you were doing last time. I asked you what you expect to
> >> accomplish by bringing it up all over *again*.
>
> > Oh. Well I was curious as to what you thought of my idea that
> > "Coruscic"
> > was a more beautiful and pleasing name for that beautiful ocean.
>
> Never mind.
So therefore I was coming at it from a new angle, and therefore I'd
like to know what you think.
Which do you consider a more pleasing and beautiful name, Coruscic
or Pacific?
Just one response on that point and this discussion is over.
mike3
not just this idea? I just came here for a little fun, you don't have
to
agree with my proposal I just wanted to have fun, I was getting bored.
I didn't intend to mock or tease anyone (unlike some guy said here who
thought I was just doing this to tease and make fun of Daniel even
though I never inteded such a thing in the slightest by my posting of
this).
I just wanted to have some nice discussions, then you misunderstand
me completely, get ALL bent out of shape, call me an idiot with no
explanation of what exactly I did wrong so I can change it (do you
even
want me to change? I wouldn't mind, I just need to know _what to
change_!),
and so on.
It's really odd considering some of you at least claim not to like
misnomers
then get all furious and enraged when I suggest a change of the name.
I do not understand it.
What I would like to see is that this Discussion would have been
nice and pacific, even if the ocean was not (and even if it was).
If anything should change, it should be your attitude, and your error
in understanding me, and perhaps mine in understanding you if there
is one (so that's why I want to know what I did wrong), far more so
than
something as trivial as what we should call some pond somewhere. For
if
peace is made here, that helps to make it for other things. If we
can't
make peace over issues as trivial as what name to use for that pond,
how can we hope to make it on much more important things, things
that drive whole countries to horrible wars?
Go and call the ocean whatever you want, but please, understand where
I was coming from. Thank you.
@gmail.com André Keshave
"Daniel al-Autistiqui"
....
>Why would the coiner of the Hebrew
> word choose a root meaning "sour or acidic" when he would have been
> perfectly aware that that was an inappropriate description? And of
> all things, why didn't he call it something like "oksigen" (i.e.,
> aleph-vav-koph-samech-yod-gimel-nun)?
As to your first question, maintaining a "misnomer" in a case like this
could just be a "default" solution rather than a deliberate choice. What
would the alternative be? What new word could one coin from scratch for
"oxygen"?
Peter T. Daniels
> I'm wondering: why all this extreme hatred and hostiliy against ME,
> not just this idea? I just came here for a little fun, you don't have
> to
> agree with my proposal I just wanted to have fun, I was getting bored.
> I didn't intend to mock or tease anyone (unlike some guy said here who
> thought I was just doing this to tease and make fun of Daniel even
> though I never inteded such a thing in the slightest by my posting of
> this).
>
> I just wanted to have some nice discussions, then you misunderstand
> me completely, get ALL bent out of shape, call me an idiot with no
> explanation of what exactly I did wrong so I can change it (do you
> even
> want me to change? I wouldn't mind, I just need to know _what to
> change_!),
> and so on.
>
> It's really odd considering some of you at least claim not to like
> misnomers
> then get all furious and enraged when I suggest a change of the name.
> I do not understand it.
Have you ever herad of King Canute?
António Marques
> On Mar 28, 11:43 am, Harlan Messinger
>>> sometimes been taken into other languages using native roots, as when
>>> "Pacific" became the Russian "Tikhij", also meaning "peaceful". Why
>>> "translate" a name like this, as if it were to be taken literally?
>> On the contrary, it *is* meant to be taken literally. It isn't like
>> naming your son Calvin, the origin of which is a word meaning "bald
>> one", without any expectation that he will necessarily be bald when he
>> gets older or that when he travels to other countries he will translate
>> his name into the equivalent of "bald one" in other languages. It isn't
>> like naming the ocean "Steve" or "Darlene". It's meant to be a
>> descriptive term, just like "Mediterranean" (German: Mittelmeer =
>> "middle sea"), "Yellow" (for the Yellow Sea), "North" (for the North
>> Sea), etc.
>>
>>> It's now essentially just a *label*, an arbitrary stretch of sound.
>> Yes, but not one that's divorced from its meaning.
>
> And that's what my original objection was, that the meaning of the
> name was woefully inappropriate for that mighty body of water on
> that special side of the globe.
Well, over here at least, political parties don't live up to their
chosen names anything at all. That's certainly an annoyance, since many,
many people go with the label. You name yourself 'socialist' and zapft -
joe doe suddenly believes you're the one who cares about social justice.
Even after you screw it all up. It's only fair that joe doe gets what he
deserves, but unfortunately the rest of us are affected too.
Whereas 'pacific' or 'oxygen' are mostly harmless.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
António Marques
> (...) I just wanted to have fun, I was getting bored.
Whenever you get bored, go out(doors|side).
Craoi...@gmail.com
>
>
> It's called a "calque." It is an exceedingly common method of taking
> new words into a language. Just like all the calques of "Pacific" in
> the ocean name.
In this particular case, at least Finnish (happi "oxygen", happo
"acid", hapan "sour"), Swedish (syre "oxygen", syra "acid", sur
"sour"), Icelandic (súrefni "oxygen", sýra "acid", súr "sour"), and
German (Sauerstoff "oxygen", Säure "acid", sauer "sour") resort to
calquing.
The Polish word "tlen" is based on the Polish verb for "to smoulder",
though.
Mike Lyle
> I'm wondering: why all this extreme hatred and hostiliy against ME,
You're taking yourself too seriously. And exaggerating the group's
response, too.
--
Mike.
Daniel al-Autistiqui
Yes, I know what calques are. Initially, the whole linguistic process
of calquing seemed ridiculous to me, and sometimes it still does. I
have never quite been able to understand why so many words taken from
other languages have been translated into native roots. Calques are
really nothing but puns. In my opinion, if a word in a donor language
has lost its literal meaning, there is no sense in "translating" its
roots to form the word in the borrower language. Instead, the word
should just be borrowed as it is. That's why I argued for "oksigen"
(aleph-vav-koph-samech-yod-gimel-nun) in place of Modern Hebrew
"chamtzan", and "Pacificheskij" in place of Russian "Tikhij" -- though
of course "chamtzan" and "Tikhij" are probably now just as entrenched
in their respective languages as English "oxygen" and "Pacific" are.
How about English "rare" as used in reference to meat? Would you
expect this term one day to be taken into, say, German, even if the
Germans didn't already have a word for this concept? By which I mean
that you would be hearing them ordering a "seltenes Steak".
CDB
> I'm wondering: why
> all this extreme hatred and
> hostiliy [v.] ME,
[cri de ku continues]
Cheer up. They find you a bit annoying, is all. If they really hated
you, you wouldn't get any replies. Try asking for advice on how to
cook Coruscic salmon.
Daniel al-Autistiqui
<hmessinger...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Daniel al-Autistiqui wrote:
>> What I also do not understand is why "misnomers" of this sort have
>> sometimes been taken into other languages using native roots, as when
>> "Pacific" became the Russian "Tikhij", also meaning "peaceful". Why
>> "translate" a name like this, as if it were to be taken literally?
>
>On the contrary, it *is* meant to be taken literally. It isn't like
>naming your son Calvin, the origin of which is a word meaning "bald
>one", without any expectation that he will necessarily be bald when he
>gets older or that when he travels to other countries he will translate
>his name into the equivalent of "bald one" in other languages. It isn't
>like naming the ocean "Steve" or "Darlene". It's meant to be a
>descriptive term, just like "Mediterranean" (German: Mittelmeer =
>"middle sea"), "Yellow" (for the Yellow Sea), "North" (for the North
>Sea), etc.
>
I'd have to disagree there. The word "Pacific" in reference to the
ocean is no more a description than a given name like "Calvin" is.
This is shown by the fact that we still call the ocean the "Pacific",
even though we now know about the ocean a lot better than Magellan did
when he first saw it. If it were a description rather than a name, we
would have changed it.
My mother used to refer to one of the bedrooms in my house on Long
Island as "the spare [bed]room", meaning that no one regularly slept
in that room. But when I was 14 and my parents adopted my sister
Darcie from Vietnam, she took that bedroom and it became "Darcie's
room". The change in the terminology suggests that to my mother,
"spare" was a description and not a name.
>> It's now essentially just a *label*, an arbitrary stretch of sound.
>
>Yes, but not one that's divorced from its meaning.
"Pacific [Ocean]", I'd say, *is* divorced from its literal meaning,
and as such it seems silly to coin a name in a new language by using a
translation or "calque" of the original Latin, as Russian and a number
of other languages have done.
mike3
wrote:
> mike3 wrote:
> > I'm wondering: why all this extreme hatred and hostiliy against ME,
> > not just this idea? [...]
>
> You're taking yourself too seriously. And exaggerating the group's
> response, too.
>
I am exaggerating it? I saw all the responses saying "you're stupid"
and similar. Perhaps though the most disturbing was someone's
suggestion here that I was teasing "Daniel" with my Coruscic
thing, but that was not the intention: the intention was not to tease
anyone with that.
I'm serious to a degree about the Coruscic thing, but this time
it was supposed to be a bit lighter. I actually DO like the new
name, though.
I just wanted to hear what you thought of the name itself, regardless
of whether or not you were going to use it. That's all.
mike3
> mike3 wrote:
> > I'm wondering: why
> > all this extreme hatred and
> > hostiliy [v.] ME,
>
> [cri de ku continues]
>
> Cheer up. They find you a bit annoying, is all. If they really hated
> you, you wouldn't get any replies.
OK.
> Try asking for advice on how to
> cook Coruscic salmon.
<giggle>
Nathan Sanders
Daniel al-Autistiqui <gove...@hotmail.invalid> wrote:
Of course, whether you find it ridiculous or not is irrelevant to how
language works. Calquing exists and is very common.
I don't see much point in continually bemoaning your unease with the
facts, because the facts aren't going to go away to satisfy your
idiosyncratic peeves. Pointing it out once or twice, just to note how
crazy language can be sometimes, sure, why not. But at a certain
point, you just have to accept that languages are going to continue to
calque, and many of those calques aren't going to be literal
descriptions, whether you like it or not.
"Pacific Ocean" is no more anomalous or illogical in the vast world of
language than "brainwashing" is, or "flea market", or "black market",
or German "Fernsehen" (< television), or French "gratte-ciel" (<
skyscraper), etc.
> In my opinion, if a word in a donor language
> has lost its literal meaning, there is no sense in "translating" its
> roots to form the word in the borrower language.
And yet, despite there being "no sense" to illogical calquing, it
happens anyway, over and over and over again, in language after
language, decade after decade, culture after culture. The facts are
what they are, and it's not very productive to focus your energy on
complaining about their existence.
> How about English "rare" as used in reference to meat? Would you
> expect this term one day to be taken into, say, German, even if the
> Germans didn't already have a word for this concept? By which I mean
> that you would be hearing them ordering a "seltenes Steak".
I wouldn't "expect" it because language change is nearly always
unpredictable, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, because
calquing happens. Of course, your example isn't actually a true
calque, because "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" do not have the same
meaning. This is instead an attempted calque gone wrong through
mistranslation, so I would be mildly (but not very) surprised to see
it (I wouldn't be surprised at all by something like "untergar Steak").
Nathan
Brian M. Scott
<nathan...@aol.com> wrote in
<news:nathansanders-847...@host-92-0-209-64.as43234.net>
in alt.usage.english,sci.lang:
[...]
> Of course, your example isn't actually a true calque,
> because "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" do not have the
> same meaning. [...]
The latter is clearly a case of steak every other day.
Brian
Paul J Kriha
news:nathansanders-847...@host-92-0-209-64.as43234.net...
There is one especially good reason for many languages (though not English)
to calque newly borrowed words, especially when they originate from
different language families or subfamilies. The heavily inflected languages
often find it difficult to fit foreign words (and foreign sounding words) into
their morphological paradigms. A word may get borrowed and be used
for a while, but once it gets used outside the narrow confines of the science
it needs to be modified to fit the native morphology system. If it cannot be
easily modified, it gets calqued. Calquing, in one stroke fixes problems
with native inflections as well as problems related to pronunciation for
ordinary non-expert people.
For example, "oxygen" is calqued into Czech as "kyslík" (kyselina=acid),
"hydrogen" as "vodík" (voda=water), while "helium" which doesn't
contain any non-native letters is borrowed as "helium". To a native
Czech speaker it is quite obvious that "kyslík" and "vodík" are masc
nouns and "helium" is a neuter; and he knows intuitively how to decline
them.
The people who coined the word "kyslík" probably couldn't care
less whether "oxygen" was a misnomer or not. "Oxygen" was
the gass's name in the language of origin and they were calquing
that. In the science especially, sooner or later a large proportion
of technical terms become misnomers. What is calqued is
the existing *name* and not what it may or may not be thought to
mean now or have meant in the past.
In Europe, English is one of only few languages, that is relatively
uninflected and is able to accommodate large numbers of weird
hotch-potch collection of words from unrelated subfamilies.
Apart from all that, there is another factor affecting the numbers
of made up calques and that is the language nationalism. Some
languages display distinctive dislike even abhorrence towards
foreign borrowings. They may go out of their way to create
unnecessary calques. There are examples of unsuccessful calques,
that is caques that failed to get accepted by the wide speaking and
writing population. There have been also cases when some calques
were considered improper and brand new native terms were forced
on the population, eg, calques for television, telephone, etc., and
unsucessful native novoterms for piano, handkerchief, etc.
pjk
Joachim Pense
>
>> How about English "rare" as used in reference to meat? Would you
>> expect this term one day to be taken into, say, German, even if the
>> Germans didn't already have a word for this concept? By which I mean
>> that you would be hearing them ordering a "seltenes Steak".
>
> I wouldn't "expect" it because language change is nearly always
> unpredictable, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, because
> calquing happens. Of course, your example isn't actually a true
> calque, because "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" do not have the same
> meaning. This is instead an attempted calque gone wrong through
> mistranslation, so I would be mildly (but not very) surprised to see
> it (I wouldn't be surprised at all by something like "untergar Steak").
>
We call it "blutig" or "englisch". Sometimes "leicht angebraten".
Joachim
Paul J Kriha
news:f81e7328-0df3-4d5c...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
I hope you are not implying that mike3 is like king Canute? :-)
You'd be doing injustice to the old king. AFAIR, he was a very
able ruler and THE intelligent one amongst his knights.
His beach experiment was to teach them a useful lesson:
"Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings."
pjk
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:f81e7328-0df3-4d5c...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
I'm "implying" that mike3 ought to learn the lesson taught by Canute.
Adam Funk
>> Of course, your example isn't actually a true calque,
>> because "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" do not have the
>> same meaning. [...]
>
> The latter is clearly a case of steak every other day.
"One man's meat is another man's poison."
--
Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix.
I don't think that this is a coincidence. [anonymous]
Richard Maurer
did lay the background for a chuckle.
In one of the Superman video incarnations (I think that
it was _Lois and Clark_, but maybe it was a movie),
Clark offers to go get some late night Chinese takeout.
When he comes back, Lois says "that was quick", and
Clark covers by saying "I took a shortcut".
In between, an unlabelled map appeared and a thick line
grew from about New York to about Beijing. But the line
went east to west, nowhere near the Arctic, so his
shortcut was actually a longcut.
I was surprised to learn that Metropolis and Smallville
have moved around quite a bit since the 1930s.
-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter T. Daniels
> On 2008-04-01, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> >> Of course, your example isn't actually a true calque,
> >> because "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" do not have the
> >> same meaning. [...]
>
> > The latter is clearly a case of steak every other day.
>
> "One man's meat is another man's poison."
One man's Mede is another man's Persian.
(Dorothy Parker, allegedly)
Peter T. Daniels
> On a related note, the discussion of "across the Pacific"
> did lay the background for a chuckle.
>
> In one of the Superman video incarnations (I think that
> it was _Lois and Clark_, but maybe it was a movie),
> Clark offers to go get some late night Chinese takeout.
> When he comes back, Lois says "that was quick", and
> Clark covers by saying "I took a shortcut".
> In between, an unlabelled map appeared and a thick line
> grew from about New York to about Beijing. But the line
> went east to west, nowhere near the Arctic, so his
> shortcut was actually a longcut.
>
> I was surprised to learn that Metropolis and Smallville
> have moved around quite a bit since the 1930s.
A few days ago there was an interview on WNYC of a NY City Councilman
who wants to make "Gotham City" the "official nickname" of New York
City -- in order to capitalize on the upcoming publicity for the next
Batman movie (sheesh).
One of the authors of the excellent history of NYC called *Gotham*
explained that it's been a less-than-complimentary nickname since
Washington Irving, who adapted it from a proverbial English town of
fools, or wise fools depending on who was telling the legend; and a
comics historian noted that Gotham City represented the dark side of
1940s New York, while Metropolis represented the great, optimistic
side.
Smallville, though, seems to me (who have not kept up with any of the
recent instantiations of the myth -- not since the first Christopher
Reeve movie and *Lois and Clark*; my comics-reading period exactly
coincided with 12c comic books) always to have been in Kansas.
Adam Funk
> One of the authors of the excellent history of NYC called *Gotham*
> explained that it's been a less-than-complimentary nickname since
> Washington Irving, who adapted it from a proverbial English town of
> fools, or wise fools depending on who was telling the legend;
Here's the version of the story that I've heard: the villagers wanted
to discourage a royal visit (by King John, I think) because they would
then have to pay extra taxes to maintain a "King's highway", so they
acted crazy because at that time madness was considered contagious.
It's real village in Nottinghamshire. (I haven't been there and I
don't know how true or apocryphal the story is.)
> comics historian noted that Gotham City represented the dark side of
> 1940s New York, while Metropolis represented the great, optimistic
> side.
Tell that to Fritz Lang!
--
Usenet is a cesspool, a dung heap. [Patrick A. Townson]
Adam Funk
Ha! Good one.
--
Do you know what they do to book thieves up at Santa Rita?
http://www.shigabooks.com/indeces/bookhunter.html
Daniel al-Autistiqui
<paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>> > >It's called a "calque." It is an exceedingly common method of taking
>> > >new words into a language. Just like all the calques of "Pacific" in
>> > >the ocean name.
>> >
>> > Yes, I know what calques are. Initially, the whole linguistic process
>> > of calquing seemed ridiculous to me, and sometimes it still does.
>>
>> Of course, whether you find it ridiculous or not is irrelevant to how
>> language works. Calquing exists and is very common.
>
>There is one especially good reason for many languages (though not English)
>to calque newly borrowed words, especially when they originate from
>different language families or subfamilies. The heavily inflected languages
>often find it difficult to fit foreign words (and foreign sounding words) into
>their morphological paradigms. A word may get borrowed and be used
>for a while, but once it gets used outside the narrow confines of the science
>it needs to be modified to fit the native morphology system. If it cannot be
>easily modified, it gets calqued. Calquing, in one stroke fixes problems
>with native inflections as well as problems related to pronunciation for
>ordinary non-expert people.
>
I would think that *any* foreign word -- with as much effort as is
needed -- can be modified as is required into a language that intends
to borrow the word.
>For example, "oxygen" is calqued into Czech as "kyslík" (kyselina=acid),
>"hydrogen" as "vodík" (voda=water), while "helium" which doesn't
>contain any non-native letters is borrowed as "helium". To a native
>Czech speaker it is quite obvious that "kyslík" and "vodík" are masc
>nouns and "helium" is a neuter; and he knows intuitively how to decline
>them.
>
Well, what would be your explanation of why in Czech the word "helium"
was just borrowed straight, but "hydrogen" and "oxygen" were
*calqued*? (I know almost nothing about the Czech language, so there
may be something I'm missing here that should in fact be obvious.)
>The people who coined the word "kyslík" probably couldn't care
>less whether "oxygen" was a misnomer or not. "Oxygen" was
>the gass's name in the language of origin and they were calquing
>that. In the science especially, sooner or later a large proportion
>of technical terms become misnomers. What is calqued is
>the existing *name* and not what it may or may not be thought to
>mean now or have meant in the past.
>
If I were to invent a name for "oxygen" in a new language, I would not
even think about using a derivative of the word for "acid". In the
21st century we simply do not think of "oxygen" as meaning "acid
producer". The English word "oxygen" is rather just an arbitrary
stretch of three syllables that names the chemical element in
question. "What is calqued is the existing name"? Sorry, but *names*
of this sort are meaningless and as such cannot be calqued. Most
so-called calques are actually *puns*. They may be appropriate in
humorous use, but in a serious field of knowledge like chemistry or
geography, they do not work.
If in some language they decided, on the model of English, to describe
lightly cooked ("rare") meat by using a term whose original meaning
was "unusual or hard to find", would that be a clearer case of
something that was a pun rather than a calque?
Daniel al-Autistiqui
>> >It's called a "calque." It is an exceedingly common method of taking
>> >new words into a language. Just like all the calques of "Pacific" in
>> >the ocean name.
>>
>> Yes, I know what calques are. Initially, the whole linguistic process
>> of calquing seemed ridiculous to me, and sometimes it still does.
>
>Of course, whether you find it ridiculous or not is irrelevant to how
>language works. Calquing exists and is very common.
>
I know. I have never been able to understand the rationale behind the
process, though.
>I don't see much point in continually bemoaning your unease with the
>facts, because the facts aren't going to go away to satisfy your
>idiosyncratic peeves. Pointing it out once or twice, just to note how
>crazy language can be sometimes, sure, why not. But at a certain
>point, you just have to accept that languages are going to continue to
>calque, and many of those calques aren't going to be literal
>descriptions, whether you like it or not.
>
Can you give me an example of a calque that came about relatively
recently?
>"Pacific Ocean" is no more anomalous or illogical in the vast world of
>language than "brainwashing" is, or "flea market", or "black market",
>or German "Fernsehen" (< television), or French "gratte-ciel" (<
>skyscraper), etc.
>
Right. Why do people do that? To calque something that is known to
be a misnomer is especially bad.
Here are two questions that it would be nice to know the answer to:
1) When was Lavoisier's term "oxygčne" (or its English cognate)
discovered to be a misnomer?
2) When were the various calques of this Greek-derived word
introduced, in particular the Hebrew "chamtzan"?
>> In my opinion, if a word in a donor language
>> has lost its literal meaning, there is no sense in "translating" its
>> roots to form the word in the borrower language.
>
>And yet, despite there being "no sense" to illogical calquing, it
>happens anyway, over and over and over again, in language after
>language, decade after decade, culture after culture. The facts are
>what they are, and it's not very productive to focus your energy on
>complaining about their existence.
>
I hope to become famous someday. Maybe when I do I'll be able to help
put an end to the tradition of calquing.
>> How about English "rare" as used in reference to meat? Would you
>> expect this term one day to be taken into, say, German, even if the
>> Germans didn't already have a word for this concept? By which I mean
>> that you would be hearing them ordering a "seltenes Steak".
>
>I wouldn't "expect" it because language change is nearly always
>unpredictable, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, because
>calquing happens. Of course, your example isn't actually a true
>calque, because "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" do not have the same
>meaning. This is instead an attempted calque gone wrong through
>mistranslation, so I would be mildly (but not very) surprised to see
>it (I wouldn't be surprised at all by something like "untergar Steak").
Why do "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" not have the same meaning?
What do you mean about "an attempted calque gone wrong through
mistranslation"?
Nathan Sanders
Daniel al-Autistiqui <gove...@hotmail.invalid> wrote:
> On Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:00:33 -0400, Nathan Sanders
> <nathan...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >> >It's called a "calque." It is an exceedingly common method of taking
> >> >new words into a language. Just like all the calques of "Pacific" in
> >> >the ocean name.
> >>
> >> Yes, I know what calques are. Initially, the whole linguistic process
> >> of calquing seemed ridiculous to me, and sometimes it still does.
> >
> >Of course, whether you find it ridiculous or not is irrelevant to how
> >language works. Calquing exists and is very common.
>
> I know. I have never been able to understand the rationale behind the
> process, though.
You assume that there is a rationale. Why?
> >I don't see much point in continually bemoaning your unease with the
> >facts, because the facts aren't going to go away to satisfy your
> >idiosyncratic peeves. Pointing it out once or twice, just to note how
> >crazy language can be sometimes, sure, why not. But at a certain
> >point, you just have to accept that languages are going to continue to
> >calque, and many of those calques aren't going to be literal
> >descriptions, whether you like it or not.
>
> Can you give me an example of a calque that came about relatively
> recently?
I don't know of any off the top of my head. I don't really find
sporadic language change all that interesting. I believe though
French "courriel" is a blend of "courrier electronique", which is a
calque of English "electronic mail".
Is that recent enough?
> >"Pacific Ocean" is no more anomalous or illogical in the vast world of
> >language than "brainwashing" is, or "flea market", or "black market",
> >or German "Fernsehen" (< television), or French "gratte-ciel" (<
> >skyscraper), etc.
>
> Right. Why do people do that? To calque something that is known to
> be a misnomer is especially bad.
You assume that the general population (a) knows that it's a misnomer,
and (b) cares.
Why do you assume either, let alone both?
> >And yet, despite there being "no sense" to illogical calquing, it
> >happens anyway, over and over and over again, in language after
> >language, decade after decade, culture after culture. The facts are
> >what they are, and it's not very productive to focus your energy on
> >complaining about their existence.
>
> I hope to become famous someday. Maybe when I do I'll be able to help
> put an end to the tradition of calquing.
You assume that being famous would give you the power to change the
underlying nature of human language. Why?
> >> How about English "rare" as used in reference to meat? Would you
> >> expect this term one day to be taken into, say, German, even if the
> >> Germans didn't already have a word for this concept? By which I mean
> >> that you would be hearing them ordering a "seltenes Steak".
> >
> >I wouldn't "expect" it because language change is nearly always
> >unpredictable, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, because
> >calquing happens. Of course, your example isn't actually a true
> >calque, because "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" do not have the same
> >meaning. This is instead an attempted calque gone wrong through
> >mistranslation, so I would be mildly (but not very) surprised to see
> >it (I wouldn't be surprised at all by something like "untergar Steak").
>
> Why do "rare steak" and "seltenes Steak" not have the same meaning?
If they did, then the following two sentences would be logically
equivalent:
The most common steak is rare steak.
The most common steak is uncommon steak.
And yet, these sentences are not logically equivalent, because one can
be true when the other is false. Ergo, "rare steak" does not mean the
same thing as "uncommon steak"/"seltenes Steak".
Also note:
You got a kobe steak? That's a very rare steak!
Yes it is, and mine is cooked medium-well.
Interesting. I ordered the very common sirloin, but mine is rare.
One is well-done and uncommon while the other is under-done and
common, and yet, both completely different steaks can be described as
"rare".
> What do you mean about "an attempted calque gone wrong through
> mistranslation"?
I mean exactly what I said. It's not a real calque, because the
translation is wrong (which we know because the truth values of
"undercooked" and "uncommon" aren't identical). It would be like the
French translating "a tied game" as "un jeu cravaté". It's just
silly, and shows a complete lack of understanding of what the words
mean (note of course that etymology is not meaning).
Nathan
R H Draney
>
>One of the authors of the excellent history of NYC called *Gotham*
>explained that it's been a less-than-complimentary nickname since
>Washington Irving, who adapted it from a proverbial English town of
>fools, or wise fools depending on who was telling the legend; and a
>comics historian noted that Gotham City represented the dark side of
>1940s New York, while Metropolis represented the great, optimistic
>side.
During the "Crisis on Infinite Earths", one dimension-hopping character who had
earlier visited our own reality found himself in the "wrong" universe, noting
that there was a New York where there ought to have been the twin cities of
Gotham and Metropolis....
>Smallville, though, seems to me (who have not kept up with any of the
>recent instantiations of the myth -- not since the first Christopher
>Reeve movie and *Lois and Clark*; my comics-reading period exactly
>coincided with 12c comic books) always to have been in Kansas.
Same here, but only six days ago, a casual reference in the latest episode of
the TV series "Smallville" suggested that it's an outlying suburb of the city of
Metropolis....r
--
What good is being an executive if you never get to execute anyone?
Nathan Sanders
Daniel al-Autistiqui <gove...@hotmail.invalid> wrote:
> Most
> so-called calques are actually *puns*. They may be appropriate in
> humorous use, but in a serious field of knowledge like chemistry or
> geography, they do not work.
Why do you think scientists are above puns? Perhaps you haven't yet
come across the various humorous taxonomic names given to plants and
animals (e.g., the _Draculoides bramstokeri_ spider, which drinks the
fluids of its victims), names given to planetary objects (read up on
the naming history of the dwarf planet Eris and its satellite
Dysnomia), etc.
Scientists can (try to) be funny, too.
Nathan
Leslie Danks
[...]
> Scientists can (try to) be funny, too.
And even medical persons: look up "Steinlaus" in the 255th (e.g.) edition of
the very very serious "Pschyrembel Klinisches Wörterbuch" (or search for it
in the Wikipedia article at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry>
if you've mislaid your copy of Pschyrembel).
--
Les
Fred Springer
> I hope to become famous someday. Maybe when I do I'll be able to help
> put an end to the tradition of calquing.
There is a household product on sale in Germany called Kalk Frei. I
wonder if that would help?
My wife (who is German) and I refer to descaling the coffee machine as
"dekalking" it. Have I created a new calque in posting this?
Leslie Danks
Did you take a calqueuelated or an uncalqueuelated risk?
--
Les
Peter T. Daniels
> On 2008-04-02, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > One of the authors of the excellent history of NYC called *Gotham*
> > explained that it's been a less-than-complimentary nickname since
> > Washington Irving, who adapted it from a proverbial English town of
> > fools, or wise fools depending on who was telling the legend;
>
> Here's the version of the story that I've heard: the villagers wanted
> to discourage a royal visit (by King John, I think) because they would
> then have to pay extra taxes to maintain a "King's highway", so they
> acted crazy because at that time madness was considered contagious.
>
> It's real village in Nottinghamshire. (I haven't been there and I
> don't know how true or apocryphal the story is.)
And an Englishwoman called in to say it's pronounced differently.
> > comics historian noted that Gotham City represented the dark side of
> > 1940s New York, while Metropolis represented the great, optimistic
> > side.
>
> Tell that to Fritz Lang!
Rather earlier than Superman.
Peter T. Daniels
I turned off *Smallville* halfway into the first episode and had no
urge to ever try it again.
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:774bfad9-0ed3-4ce4...@m71g2000hse.googlegroups.com>
in alt.usage.english,sci.lang:
> On Apr 2, 11:55 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>> On 2008-04-02, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> One of the authors of the excellent history of NYC
>>> called *Gotham* explained that it's been a
>>> less-than-complimentary nickname since Washington
>>> Irving, who adapted it from a proverbial English town
>>> of fools, or wise fools depending on who was telling
>>> the legend;
[...]
>> It's real village in Nottinghamshire. [...]
> And an Englishwoman called in to say it's pronounced
> differently.
The traditional pronunciation is apparently ['gout@m]. This
makes sense: it's OE /ga:taha:m/ 'goats' farm or village',
and the first element apparently developed like OE /ga:t/ 'a
goat'.
[...]
Brian
Paul J Kriha
news:83h7v39b31me4ej2l...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 2 Apr 2008 17:22:22 +1200, "Paul J Kriha"
> <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>
> >> > >It's called a "calque." It is an exceedingly common method of taking
> >> > >new words into a language. Just like all the calques of "Pacific" in
> >> > >the ocean name.
> >> >
> >> > Yes, I know what calques are. Initially, the whole linguistic process
> >> > of calquing seemed ridiculous to me, and sometimes it still does.
> >>
> >> Of course, whether you find it ridiculous or not is irrelevant to how
> >> language works. Calquing exists and is very common.
> >
> >There is one especially good reason for many languages (though not English)
> >to calque newly borrowed words, especially when they originate from
> >different language families or subfamilies. The heavily inflected languages
> >often find it difficult to fit foreign words (and foreign sounding words) into
> >their morphological paradigms. A word may get borrowed and be used
> >for a while, but once it gets used outside the narrow confines of the science
> >it needs to be modified to fit the native morphology system. If it cannot be
> >easily modified, it gets calqued. Calquing, in one stroke fixes problems
> >with native inflections as well as problems related to pronunciation for
> >ordinary non-expert people.
>
> I would think that *any* foreign word -- with as much effort as is
> needed --
It doesn't matter what a single person thinks, what matters
is, what hundreds of thousands of speakers of a particular
language consider sensible and easy to do over a long length
of time.
> can be modified as is required into a language that intends
> to borrow the word.
A heavily modified word soon stops being a borrowing.
Some languages go out of their way to preserve spelling of
foreign words and even their original declension systems.
Eg. words borrowed from Greek or Latin.
Later, when a word gets thoroughly domesticated, it either
is calqued of modified beyond recognition.
> >For example, "oxygen" is calqued into Czech as "kyslík" (kyselina=acid),
> >"hydrogen" as "vodík" (voda=water), while "helium" which doesn't
> >contain any non-native letters is borrowed as "helium". To a native
> >Czech speaker it is quite obvious that "kyslík" and "vodík" are masc
> >nouns and "helium" is a neuter; and he knows intuitively how to decline
> >them.
>
> Well, what would be your explanation of why in Czech the word "helium"
> was just borrowed straight, but "hydrogen" and "oxygen" were
> *calqued*? (I know almost nothing about the Czech language, so there
> may be something I'm missing here that should in fact be obvious.)
Yes you are missing something that is quite obvious.
The things happen the way they do. Somebody invents a word.
Most of the time that word dies an early death but some of them
do survive. People keep on using those of them they find easy
to use and remember, or the ones they are forced to use.
The group of Czech scientists who first spoke of, and wrote articles
about "helium" decided to keep calling it "helium" (root heli-), rather
than calquing it up as something like "sluncík" (slunce=sun) :-)
Presumably, an earlier group of scientists who first spoke of, and
wrote articles about "hydrogen" happened to call it "vodík" and
somebody else who first spoke about "oxygen" decided to call it
"kyslík". Who knows if by then they still thought that "helium" existed
only in the Sun's corona or "oxygen" made acids. They just made
the names up, and voila, people run with them.
When the Czech linguists of 1800s tried to convince people to use
the word "brnkos^lapka" instead of "piano", everybody thumbed
their noses at them even though they accepted hundreds of other
words that made good sense to _them_.
> >The people who coined the word "kyslík" probably couldn't care
> >less whether "oxygen" was a misnomer or not. "Oxygen" was
> >the gass's name in the language of origin and they were calquing
> >that. In the science especially, sooner or later a large proportion
> >of technical terms become misnomers. What is calqued is
> >the existing *name* and not what it may or may not be thought to
> >mean now or have meant in the past.
> >
> If I were to invent a name for "oxygen" in a new language, I would not
> even think about using a derivative of the word for "acid". In the
> 21st century we simply do not think of "oxygen" as meaning "acid
> producer". The English word "oxygen" is rather just an arbitrary
> stretch of three syllables that names the chemical element in
> question. "What is calqued is the existing name"? Sorry, but *names*
> of this sort are meaningless and as such cannot be calqued. Most
> so-called calques are actually *puns*. They may be appropriate in
> humorous use, but in a serious field of knowledge like chemistry or
> geography, they do not work.
>
> If in some language they decided, on the model of English, to describe
> lightly cooked ("rare") meat by using a term whose original meaning
> was "unusual or hard to find", would that be a clearer case of
> something that was a pun rather than a calque?
Well, if it were conceived as pun then it would be a pun.
If somebody conceived it as a calque, it would be a totally
wrong calque and people would be justified in calling him an idiot.
pjk
Paul J Kriha
>On Apr 2, 2:04 am, "Paul J Kriha" <paul.nospam.kr...@paradise.net.nz>
>wrote:
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
Good, I was hoping correctly. :-)
pjk
Peter Moylan
> I don't know of any off the top of my head. I don't really find
> sporadic language change all that interesting. I believe though
> French "courriel" is a blend of "courrier electronique", which is a
> calque of English "electronic mail".
A happy choice, because it then permitted the invention of the word
"pourriel" for spam. One of the better recently-invented words, in my
opinion.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
CDB
[and the mujahideen khalq, what of them?]
> My wife (who is German) and I refer to descaling the coffee machine
> as "dekalking" it. Have I created a new calque in posting this?
If you become fanatics on the subject, you may face accusations of
dekalkomania.
Daniel al-Autistiqui
<paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>>
>> Well, what would be your explanation of why in Czech the word "helium"
>> was just borrowed straight, but "hydrogen" and "oxygen" were
>> *calqued*? (I know almost nothing about the Czech language, so there
>> may be something I'm missing here that should in fact be obvious.)
>
>Yes you are missing something that is quite obvious.
>
>The things happen the way they do. Somebody invents a word.
>Most of the time that word dies an early death but some of them
>do survive. People keep on using those of them they find easy
>to use and remember, or the ones they are forced to use.
>
>The group of Czech scientists who first spoke of, and wrote articles
>about "helium" decided to keep calling it "helium" (root heli-), rather
>than calquing it up as something like "sluncík" (slunce=sun) :-)
>Presumably, an earlier group of scientists who first spoke of, and
>wrote articles about "hydrogen" happened to call it "vodík" and
>somebody else who first spoke about "oxygen" decided to call it
>"kyslík". Who knows if by then they still thought that "helium" existed
>only in the Sun's corona or "oxygen" made acids. They just made
>the names up, and voila, people run with them.
>
>When the Czech linguists of 1800s tried to convince people to use
>the word "brnkos^lapka" instead of "piano", everybody thumbed
>their noses at them even though they accepted hundreds of other
>words that made good sense to _them_.
>
>
You are making it sound like calquing is a spontaneous process. I
wouldn't have thought so, considering that you need to go to the
trouble of looking in a bilingual dictionary to get the translation.
Calques always have coiners. If you're going to continue arguing with
me about this, at least please tell me: would *you* ever want to
attempt to coin a word by making a calque on a term in another
language -- and particularly if you were aware that the existing term
was a misnomer? I certainly wouldn't.
>> If in some language they decided, on the model of English, to describe
>> lightly cooked ("rare") meat by using a term whose original meaning
>> was "unusual or hard to find", would that be a clearer case of
>> something that was a pun rather than a calque?
>
>Well, if it were conceived as pun then it would be a pun.
>If somebody conceived it as a calque, it would be a totally
>wrong calque and people would be justified in calling him an idiot.
>
Nevertheless, if people started using it enough it *would* become the
established word in the language in question for lightly cooked meat,
as you hint above with all those Czech words. I guess what I want to
know is whether you'd agree with me that calques that are accurate but
were misnomers in the first place are "mistakes" in the same sense
that calques that are totally wrong (like the "rare" example that I
gave) would more clearly be. In other words, whether people would
also be justified in calling the coiner of "kyslík" an idiot (assuming
that he was aware that "oxygen" or "oxygène" or whatever was already a
misnomer).
Calquing may be a linguistic tradition, but that doesn't make it
right. There are also plenty of people who use the word "ain't" in
place of the English contractions "isn't", "aren't", etc. -- and yes,
sometimes it does become fixed as part of, e.g., song titles. But
that doesn't make it right.
Nathan Sanders
Daniel al-Autistiqui <gove...@hotmail.invalid> wrote:
> Calquing may be a linguistic tradition, but that doesn't make it
> right.
"Right" in what way? Morally? Legally? Socially?
The fact is, calquing exists, so it is "right" in the sense that it is
a part of the way the world works.
> There are also plenty of people who use the word "ain't" in
> place of the English contractions "isn't", "aren't", etc. -- and yes,
> sometimes it does become fixed as part of, e.g., song titles. But
> that doesn't make it right.
It is most certainly "right" for those dialects that have it! It
obviously isn't "right" for those dialects that do not have it.
But the issue of its "right"ness is not an absolute.
Nathan
Daniel al-Autistiqui
<nathan...@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <83h7v39b31me4ej2l...@4ax.com>,
> Daniel al-Autistiqui <gove...@hotmail.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Most
>> so-called calques are actually *puns*. They may be appropriate in
>> humorous use, but in a serious field of knowledge like chemistry or
>> geography, they do not work.
>
>Why do you think scientists are above puns?
Because I was always of the understanding that puns are not
appropriate in all circumstances. Science to me certainly seems like
a serious field of study.
OK, I confess to occasionally running into humorous terminology in the
sciences. Well, perhaps someday many calques will be reclassified by
linguists as puns.
Trond Engen
> On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 20:07:13 +1200, "Paul J Kriha"
> <paul.nos...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>
> You are making it sound like calquing is a spontaneous process. I
> wouldn't have thought so, considering that you need to go to the
> trouble of looking in a bilingual dictionary to get the translation.
> Calques always have coiners. If you're going to continue arguing
> with me about this, at least please tell me: would *you* ever want to
> attempt to coin a word by making a calque on a term in another
> language -- and particularly if you were aware that the existing term
> was a misnomer? I certainly wouldn't.
Calquing happens for two reasons that I can see:
One, as mentioned, is the need for a word that fits the grammatical or
phonological structure of the language. In a language where the function
of the word is dependent on its ability to be fitted into a pattern of
different grammatical forms, it may be preferable for speakers to coin a
new term rather than to try and fit the outlandish word into the
pattern. Be that because it's too much effort or because they're afraid
to sound odd.
The other is the need for a self-explanatory and transparent word. When
you have something new to tell about, rather than using a foreign term
and being asked what it means, you take a shortcut and coin an
understandable word immediately. The easiest way to do so is by simple
calquing. But there are others.
Nowadays, with the omnipresence of English, English words are hardly
oblique anywhere and the social risk of sounding above your peers by
using them is diminished (around here, anyway). The social risk is
rather the opposite way -- as soon as someone has taken to use an
English word for something familiar, there's a risk of being seen as
backward by using the old name. Thus, there's hardly an English word
that's calqued into anything. But I still feel the need to find a simple
explanatory term when I run into something new and unknown. E.g. I've
heard (and used) both 'lųsminne' "free/loose/detachable memory" and
'minneplugg' "memory plug" before 'USB-plugg' became standard for the
data storage device.
> Calquing may be a linguistic tradition, but that doesn't make it
> right. There are also plenty of people who use the word "ain't" in
> place of the English contractions "isn't", "aren't", etc. -- and yes,
> sometimes it does become fixed as part of, e.g., song titles. But
> that doesn't make it right.
Yes, it does. Or rather -- there is no 'right' and 'wrong', just a
'common'. And a 'rare'.
--
Trond Engen
- misantroponomic
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Unless, of course, you are already familiar with the language in
question!
The people who named and calqued hydrogen and oxygen were certainly
very familiar with Classical Greek.
> Calques always have coiners. If you're going to continue arguing with
> me about this, at least please tell me: would *you* ever want to
> attempt to coin a word by making a calque on a term in another
> language -- and particularly if you were aware that the existing term
> was a misnomer? I certainly wouldn't.
Let us know how you assign a name to the next imported item you come
across whose name you can't pronounce.
> Calquing may be a linguistic tradition, but that doesn't make it
> right. There are also plenty of people who use the word "ain't" in
> place of the English contractions "isn't", "aren't", etc. -- and yes,
> sometimes it does become fixed as part of, e.g., song titles. But
> that doesn't make it right.
Of course it does.
Peter T. Daniels
> Nowadays, with the omnipresence of English, English words are hardly
> oblique anywhere and the social risk of sounding above your peers by
> using them is diminished (around here, anyway). The social risk is
> rather the opposite way -- as soon as someone has taken to use an
> English word for something familiar, there's a risk of being seen as
> backward by using the old name. Thus, there's hardly an English word
> that's calqued into anything. But I still feel the need to find a simple
> explanatory term when I run into something new and unknown. E.g. I've
> heard (and used) both 'løsminne' "free/loose/detachable memory" and
> 'minneplugg' "memory plug" before 'USB-plugg' became standard for the
> data storage device.
I guess that would be a "flash drive."
Fred Springer
> In article <qp0av3hg6falau2kt...@4ax.com>,
> Daniel al-Autistiqui <gove...@hotmail.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Calquing may be a linguistic tradition, but that doesn't make it
>> right.
>
> "Right" in what way? Morally? Legally? Socially?
>
> The fact is, calquing exists, so it is "right" in the sense that it is
> a part of the way the world works.
Daniel's use of "right" in this context is a bit obscure. There are two
main uses of the word: to describe an action that is in accordance with
morality (what you call morally/legally/socially); and to describe a
statement that is in accordance with the facts.
Neither usage fits the context here, so it seems to me that Daniel is
invoking another sense of rightness altogether, perhaps the idea that in
a language there are only certain permitted usages, and that other
usages are therefore "wrong".
If that's right (ie in accordance with the facts) then one has to ask:
who grants permission? The answer to that is: "No one, actually; we
decide what is permissible by listening to native speakers and making
generalisations from what we hear". If a native speaker would never
express himself in a particular way, then that form of expression is
clearly wrong. If all native speakers would express themselves in a
particular way, then that form of expression is clearly right.
The difficulty lies in between those two extremes, and most particularly
when individual widespread usages appear to offend against the
generalisations we have made about the language. In such a case we may
be able to resolve the difficulty by defining more precisely the
circumstances in which the offending usage appears; right pond/left
pond, formal/informal, for example.
By these criteria most calques, whether misnomers or not, are clearly
right. As is "ain't", when qualified by certain geographic/social
limitations -- in this case, lower class informal usage in the USA,
extreme upper and extreme lower class informal usage in the UK.
Nathan Sanders
Peter Moylan <pe...@DIESPAMMERSDIEpmoylan.org> wrote:
> On 03/04/08 05:41, Nathan Sanders wrote:
>
> > I don't know of any off the top of my head. I don't really find
> > sporadic language change all that interesting. I believe though
> > French "courriel" is a blend of "courrier electronique", which is a
> > calque of English "electronic mail".
>
> A happy choice, because it then permitted the invention of the word
> "pourriel" for spam. One of the better recently-invented words, in my
> opinion.
Nice! I hadn't heard that term before.
Nathan
Nathan Sanders
<14b78e20-97f0-461e...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
In my experience, "USB stick" or "memory stick" (and increasingly
rarely it seems, "jump drive") are much more commonly used to refer to
the device in question (assuming I'm correctly interpreting what Trond
is talking about). "Flash drive" tends to be used to refer to any
flash devices, which may or may not be portable and may or may not
involve USB connections.
Nathan
R H Draney
>
>In article
><14b78e20-97f0-461e...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 3, 1:46 pm, Trond Engen <trond...@engen.priv.no> wrote:
>>
>> > Nowadays, with the omnipresence of English, English words are hardly
>> > oblique anywhere and the social risk of sounding above your peers by
>> > using them is diminished (around here, anyway). The social risk is
>> > rather the opposite way -- as soon as someone has taken to use an
>> > English word for something familiar, there's a risk of being seen as
>> > backward by using the old name. Thus, there's hardly an English word
>> > that's calqued into anything. But I still feel the need to find a simple
>> > explanatory term when I run into something new and unknown. E.g. I've
>> > 'minneplugg' "memory plug" before 'USB-plugg' became standard for the
>> > data storage device.
>>
>> I guess that would be a "flash drive."
>
>In my experience, "USB stick" or "memory stick" (and increasingly
>rarely it seems, "jump drive") are much more commonly used to refer to
>the device in question (assuming I'm correctly interpreting what Trond
>is talking about). "Flash drive" tends to be used to refer to any
>flash devices, which may or may not be portable and may or may not
>involve USB connections.
Are you people by any chance talking about "thumb drives"?...r
Nathan Sanders
I know that some people use that term, but no one in my usual circle
uses it in front of me, that I've noticed (I've only seen it used
online, by non-acquaintances).
Nathan