NRC kwaliteitskrant? Echt niet!
Ruud Harmsen
http://www.nrc.nl/buitenland/article2254151.ece/VS_en_Zuid-Korea_in_hogere_staat_van_paraatheid
===
In Zuid-Korea zijn 28.500 Amerikaanse troepen gestationeerd, in Japan,
eveneens binnen bereik van Noord-Koreaanse raketten, zijn 50.000 man
gelegerd.
/===
'Troepen' op deze manier gebruikt is een lelijk anglicisme. Ik vind
het volkomen onacceptabel om dit in het Nederlands zo te doen. Kan
echt niet. Zeker niet in een zogenaamde kwaliteitskrant, maar dat is
het NRC allang niet meer.
Proteste-mail verstuurd onder de titel:
"Troepen? Soldaten, militairen, man!"
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
Ruud Harmsen
<realema...@rudhar.com.invalid>: in sci.lang:
Wrong newsgroup, but I won't cancel it this time. Who said sci.lang is
English-only?
Harlan Messinger
> Ze leren het ook nooit.
>
> http://www.nrc.nl/buitenland/article2254151.ece/VS_en_Zuid-Korea_in_hogere_staat_van_paraatheid
> ===
> In Zuid-Korea zijn 28.500 Amerikaanse troepen gestationeerd, in Japan,
> eveneens binnen bereik van Noord-Koreaanse raketten, zijn 50.000 man
> gelegerd.
> /===
>
> 'Troepen' op deze manier gebruikt is een lelijk anglicisme. Ik vind
> het volkomen onacceptabel om dit in het Nederlands zo te doen. Kan
> echt niet. Zeker niet in een zogenaamde kwaliteitskrant, maar dat is
> het NRC allang niet meer.
"Manier" = francicism
"Anglicisme" = francicism
"Acceptabel" = francicism
"Kwaliteit" = francicism or latinism
"Krant" = francicism
For that matter,
"Raketten" = italicism
"Gestationeerd" = francicism or anglicism
Pierre Jelenc
>
> "Krant" = francicism
Is it? I always wondered where it came from. I can't think of a likely
French root.
Pierre
--
Pierre Jelenc
The Gigometer www.gigometer.com
The NYC Beer Guide www.nycbeer.org
Trond Engen
I thought of this anglo-semanticism just yesterday. I'm reading D.H.
Green's "Language and history in the early Germanic world". To narrow
the original semantic base of military terms borrowed from Latin he's
arguing that such loans took place only when no equivalent was available
in Germanic. I think the current influx of American (/NATO) terminology
shows that his assumption is more than dubious. (The assumption doesn't
seem to be important to the broad picture he paints, though.)
--
Trond Engen
Oliver Cromm
> Harlan Messinger <hmessinger...@comcast.net> writes:
>>
>> "Krant" = francicism
>
> Is it? I always wondered where it came from. I can't think of a likely
> French root.
From "courant", according to
Jan De Vries, F. “de” Tollenaere, Maaike Hogenhout-Mulder: Nederlands
etymologisch woordenboek
<http://books.google.ca/books?id=9_X44k9-3j8C>
--
If the aeroplane industry had advanced at the same rate as the computer
industry, today's planes could circumnavigate the world in ten seconds,
be two inches long, and crash twice a day.
Peter Moylan in alt.usage.english
Ekkehard Dengler
I hope you don't mean to imply that people aren't entitled to take exception
to new imports from a foreign language that their language has borrowed
other words or usages from. Imagine hearing "informations" in an NBC news
piece about Germany.
Regards,
Ekkehard
craoi...@gmail.com
> Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> writes:
>
>
>
> > "Krant" = francicism
>
> Is it? I always wondered where it came from. I can't think of a likely
> French root.
"Courant", of course. Cf. English "current affairs". Note also the
loss of the first vowel in "kleur" <- couleur.
craoi...@gmail.com
wrote:
> Thu, 28 May 2009 17:02:48 +0200: Ruud Harmsen
>
>
>
> >Ze leren het ook nooit.
>
> >===
> >In Zuid-Korea zijn 28.500 Amerikaanse troepen gestationeerd, in Japan,
> >eveneens binnen bereik van Noord-Koreaanse raketten, zijn 50.000 man
> >gelegerd.
> >/===
>
> >'Troepen' op deze manier gebruikt is een lelijk anglicisme. Ik vind
> >het volkomen onacceptabel om dit in het Nederlands zo te doen. Kan
> >echt niet. Zeker niet in een zogenaamde kwaliteitskrant, maar dat is
> >het NRC allang niet meer.
>
> >Proteste-mail verstuurd onder de titel:
> >"Troepen? Soldaten, militairen, man!"
>
> Wrong newsgroup, but I won't cancel it this time. Who said sci.lang is
> English-only?
Thank you very much. I attended a course in Dutch almost twenty years
ago, but I never had it in me to pursue it.
Harlan Messinger
I mean to imply that if one take exception, the express reason should
not carry the implication that borrowing is outright improper.
It wasn't clear whether "troepen" is an established or a recent and
spreading usage that Ruud either (a) doesn't happen to like it at all or
(b) thinks that sources above a certain level of discourse should scorn
it, or whether it's a brand new usage, as "informations" would be on an
NBC newscast. Of course, he was intending to write for Dutch speakers
who probably know the answer to that question implicitly, so I'm not
complaining that Ruud left this question open for the rest of us.
wugi
> On May 28, 7:10 pm, r...@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) wrote:
>> Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> writes:
>>
>>
>>
>>> "Krant" = francicism
(and zeker < L. securus)
>> Is it? I always wondered where it came from. I can't think of a
>> likely French root.
>
> "Courant", of course. Cf. English "current affairs". Note also the
> loss of the first vowel in "kleur" <- couleur.
And kantoor < comptoir (leaked into Indonesian and perhaps others...)
fraai < vrai
paaien < payer
end zo on :-)
Harlan Messinger
> craoi...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On May 28, 7:10 pm, r...@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) wrote:
>>> Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Krant" = francicism
>
> (and zeker < L. securus)
Is it? When I scanned Ruud's original message I noted that one and
wondered if it were *cognate with* the Latin; it didn't occur to me that
it might *come from* the Latin. (German has "sicher").
>>> Is it? I always wondered where it came from. I can't think of a
>>> likely French root.
>> "Courant", of course. Cf. English "current affairs". Note also the
>> loss of the first vowel in "kleur" <- couleur.
>
> And kantoor < comptoir (leaked into Indonesian and perhaps others...)
> fraai < vrai
> paaien < payer
> end zo on :-)
Very cute. :-)
Brian M. Scott
<hmessinger...@comcast.net> wrote in
<news:788ctjF...@mid.individual.net> in sci.lang:
> wugi wrote:
>> craoi...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On May 28, 7:10 pm, r...@panix.com (Pierre Jelenc) wrote:
>>>> Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> writes:
>>>>> "Krant" = francicism
>> (and zeker < L. securus)
> Is it? When I scanned Ruud's original message I noted that
> one and wondered if it were *cognate with* the Latin; it
> didn't occur to me that it might *come from* the Latin.
> (German has "sicher").
It's an old borrowing into WGmc: OSax <sikor>, OE <sicor>
(surviving in Scots <sicker>), OHG <sihhur>.
[...]
Brian
Ekkehard Dengler
Or simply a mistake (< "Informationen"). If you had actually heard it used
on the news last night, it would have struck you as ungrammatical, wouldn't
it? I'm not sure you appreciate the effect poor translations from English
tend to have on other languages. For instance, while the current German
government is known as "die Regierung Merkel", the Obama administration is
often referred to as "die Obama-Administration".
Regards,
Ekkehard
Harlan Messinger
I don't understand that. Why would (presumably) native German speakers
who are paid to translate foreign material into their own language,
translate it with words that they know perfectly well don't exist in
their language? It's as though I paid a mechanic to replace the tires on
my car, and he replaced one of them with a bicycle tire.
Trond Engen
> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure you appreciate the effect poor translations from
>> English tend to have on other languages. For instance, while the
>> current German government is known as "die Regierung Merkel", the
>> Obama administration is often referred to as "die
>> Obama-Administration".
>
> I don't understand that. Why would (presumably) native German
> speakers who are paid to translate foreign material into their own
> language, translate it with words that they know perfectly well don't
> exist in their language? It's as though I paid a mechanic to replace
> the tires on my car, and he replaced one of them with a bicycle tire.
The point is that the words exist in the language but in a different,
usually more restricted, sense. The Danish has coined a word
'undersettelse' for the phenomenon. That would be 'Untersetzung' in
German or something like 'penelation' in latinate English. It happens
with grammar, too. Like always -- that's why there's a Standard Average
European.
--
Trond Engen
wugi
> wugi wrote:
>> (and zeker < L. securus)
>
> Is it? When I scanned Ruud's original message I noted that one and
> wondered if it were *cognate with* the Latin; it didn't occur to me
> that it might *come from* the Latin. (German has "sicher").
As Brian said. Is the word-initial accent WGmc, as in many other cases, or
could it tell something about L. securus?
>>>> Is it? I always wondered where it came from. I can't think of a
>>>> likely French root.
>>> "Courant", of course. Cf. English "current affairs". Note also the
>>> loss of the first vowel in "kleur" <- couleur.
>>
>> And kantoor < comptoir (leaked into Indonesian and perhaps others...)
>> fraai < vrai
>> paaien < payer
>> end zo on :-)
>
> Very cute. :-)
What about bolwerk < boulevard
manneken/mandeken < mannequin... ;-)
Visit the new Magritte museum in Brussels:
http://www.magrittemuseum.be/code/en/index4.htm
Fellatio Magrittis: ceci n'est pas une pipe.
guido
http://home.scarlet.be/~pin12499/index.html
wugi
> Visit the new Magritte museum in Brussels:
> http://www.magrittemuseum.be/code/en/index4.htm
This doesn't show much.
A picture of the new museum at the Place Royale/Koningsplein:
http://lapuce.wordpress.com/2008/08/
or google "magritte museum brussel(s)"-pictures...
Ekkehard Dengler
I'm surprised you're surprised; in fact at first I thought you were joking.
Poor translations are not the exception, but the rule, and the more a
language is translated into, the more likely it is to be influenced by the
language or languages of the source texts.
Translators are almost invariably underpaid and under constant pressure to
meet unreasonable deadlines. Another problem is that translators are paid
not by the hour, but by the word or page, which effectively rewards sloppy
work:
The more time you spend looking for the right word, the less you earn. Since
you're never going to be paid well, though, no matter how fast you work,
translation is not a very attractive career option. As a result, far more
untalented and/or lazy people go into translation than you would expect.
One convenient way of dealing with translation problems is leaving difficult
bits untranslated. Scientific jargon can be very, very difficult to
translate because new terms are coined every day but can take years to find
their way into any dictionary. Ideally, scientific jargon would be
translated by bilingual scientists, but bilingual scientists are thin on the
ground and tend to have other, more lucrative things to do.
You may also have overlooked the fact that translations aren't necessarily
the work of a professional translator. A lot of translating is done
(sometimes only mentally), by journalists, scientists and other people who
read English-language texts on a daily basis. The more often you read a
particular foreign expression, the less likely you are to think of it as
something to be avoided, which is how things like "die Obama-Administration"
creep into common usage. In today's media landscape, the ability to express
yourself well is no longer a prerequisite for reaching a mass audience and
any expression that has been used a hundred times on national TV will sooner
or later become part of most people's vocabulary.
All this is compounded by what I like to describe as the
emperor's-new-clothes phenomenon. In Germany, you can get away with
peppering your utterances with random bits of English or even
pseudo-English, regardless of whether your audience understands what you're
saying, because English is felt by many to be a more modern or sophisticated
language than German. People are likely to assume that it's their fault if
they don't understand something, but less likely to admit that their English
isn't good enough. In fact, some Germans no longer think of English as a
foreign language, which sadly does not mean that they're anywhere near
proficient in it. If you try to correct them, you'll sometimes get reactions
of the "Das sagen wir [Physiker/B�rsianer/...] aber so" type. To give you an
idea of what I'm talking about: the "German English" for "Center of
Excellence" is "Competence Center" (< "Kompetenzzentrum"), and "Competence
Center" is also used in German to mean "Kompetenzzentrum". Google finds
about half a million instances on German websites.
All this may be hard for you to understand because the USA has no foreign
language community to look up to and English isn't under pressure from any
other language, not even Spanish. Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you
are to be a native speaker of perhaps the only language in the world that
isn't under pressure from English?
I don't think I'm exaggerating and I'm not a fanatical purist either. Nor do
you have to dislike the English language to complain about a "lelijk
anglicisme" in the language you grew up speaking. Incidentally,
"Administration" does exist in German, but it wouldn't normally be used to
mean "Regierung". And yet, judging by Google, "die Obama-Administration" is
three times as frequent as "die Regierung Obama".
Regards,
Ekkehard
Harlan Messinger
I realize that, but in the sense that the translation is into an
incorrect utterance in the target language, not that it isn't *in* the
target language. I'm not surprised to see a native English speaker
mistranslate Spanish "embarazada" as "embarrassed"; I'd be surprised to
see "embrazed".
> and the more a
> language is translated into, the more likely it is to be influenced by the
> language or languages of the source texts.
> Translators are almost invariably underpaid and under constant pressure to
> meet unreasonable deadlines. Another problem is that translators are paid
> not by the hour, but by the word or page, which effectively rewards sloppy
> work:
> The more time you spend looking for the right word, the less you earn.
I understand, but in the original case at hand, I wouldn't expect a
native Dutch speaker to have to *look* for the normal Dutch word for
"troop".
[snip]
> You may also have overlooked the fact that translations aren't necessarily
> the work of a professional translator. A lot of translating is done
> (sometimes only mentally), by journalists, scientists and other people who
> read English-language texts on a daily basis. The more often you read a
> particular foreign expression, the less likely you are to think of it as
> something to be avoided, which is how things like "die Obama-Administration"
> creep into common usage.
I kind of understand that, but it's in contrast to my own impression
from a particular experience of mine. When I lived in Brussels and
attended an English-language high school there (about two-thirds of the
students were from the US), we all almost invariably called "frites" the
local treat that we knew back home as "French fries". I called them
"frites" for three years, whether speaking French OR English. Then we
moved back to the States, and the first time I ordered them in a
restaurant, "frites" came to mind but "French fries" came out of my mouth.
Well, OK: I just thought of a different example that's consistent with
your analysis. French has the word "osé" meaning "daring" (literally),
"audacious", and I managed to absorb it into my English, perhaps by
analogy with the word "risqué", with a similar meaning and which *has*
been incorporated into English. I used it a fair number of times, in
fact, before someone asked me what it meant, and then I discovered that
it isn't used in English.
> In today's media landscape, the ability to express
> yourself well is no longer a prerequisite for reaching a mass audience and
> any expression that has been used a hundred times on national TV will sooner
> or later become part of most people's vocabulary.
>
> All this is compounded by what I like to describe as the
> emperor's-new-clothes phenomenon. In Germany, you can get away with
> peppering your utterances with random bits of English or even
> pseudo-English, regardless of whether your audience understands what you're
> saying, because English is felt by many to be a more modern or sophisticated
> language than German. People are likely to assume that it's their fault if
> they don't understand something, but less likely to admit that their English
> isn't good enough. In fact, some Germans no longer think of English as a
> foreign language, which sadly does not mean that they're anywhere near
> proficient in it. If you try to correct them, you'll sometimes get reactions
> of the "Das sagen wir [Physiker/Börsianer/...] aber so" type. To give you an
> idea of what I'm talking about: the "German English" for "Center of
> Excellence" is "Competence Center" (< "Kompetenzzentrum"), and "Competence
> Center" is also used in German to mean "Kompetenzzentrum". Google finds
> about half a million instances on German websites.
>
> All this may be hard for you to understand because the USA has no foreign
> language community to look up to and English isn't under pressure from any
> other language, not even Spanish. Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you
> are to be a native speaker of perhaps the only language in the world that
> isn't under pressure from English?
:-)
>
> I don't think I'm exaggerating and I'm not a fanatical purist either. Nor do
> you have to dislike the English language to complain about a "lelijk
> anglicisme" in the language you grew up speaking. Incidentally,
> "Administration" does exist in German, but it wouldn't normally be used to
> mean "Regierung".
OK, I didn't realize that.
> And yet, judging by Google, "die Obama-Administration" is
> three times as frequent as "die Regierung Obama".
I've always wondered why we translate "Kanzler" as "Chancellor" rather
than as "President". For that matter, I wonder why we translate "König",
"kong", "koning", "rey", "roi", "król", "מלך", "王", etc., as "king"
while we translate "shah" as "shah" and "tsar" as "tsar".
grammatim
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > I don't understand that. Why would (presumably) native German speakers
> > who are paid to translate foreign material into their own language,
> > translate it with words that they know perfectly well don't exist in
> > their language?
>
> I'm surprised you're surprised; in fact at first I thought you were joking.
> Poor translations are not the exception, but the rule, and the more a
> language is translated into, the more likely it is to be influenced by the
> language or languages of the source texts.
> Translators are almost invariably underpaid and under constant pressure to
> meet unreasonable deadlines. Another problem is that translators are paid
> not by the hour, but by the word or page, which effectively rewards sloppy
> work:
> The more time you spend looking for the right word, the less you earn. Since
> you're never going to be paid well, though, no matter how fast you work,
> translation is not a very attractive career option. As a result, far more
> untalented and/or lazy people go into translation than you would expect.
> One convenient way of dealing with translation problems is leaving difficult
> bits untranslated. Scientific jargon can be very, very difficult to
> translate because new terms are coined every day but can take years to find
> their way into any dictionary. Ideally, scientific jargon would be
> translated by bilingual scientists, but bilingual scientists are thin on the
> ground and tend to have other, more lucrative things to do.
It's unlikely that any particular pheonomenon would be discovered or
described independently by more than one (team of) scientist(s), so
there isn't going to be some extant equivalent in the target language
that the translator might need to know about. Borrowing the neologism
is surely the best way to proceed; calquing its components used to be
done (cf. threads on oxygen) but doesn't make much sense these days.
Even Arabic, which used to coin new words from old roots, is likely
(like Modern Hebrew) to borrow rather than invent. And the "poetic"
Chinese method of finding characters that are semantically as well as
phonetically relevant to borrowed words is used in special cases, not
in all cases.
Ekkehard Dengler
> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>> I'm surprised you're surprised; in fact at first I thought you were
>> joking. Poor translations are not the exception, but the rule,
>
> I realize that, but in the sense that the translation is into an
> incorrect utterance in the target language, not that it isn't *in* the
> target language.
The problem is that incorrect utterances become less incorrect through
repetition and broadcasting. It happens all the time and it happens really
quickly. I recall saying "nicht wirklich" (< "not really" = "no") as a joke
once about ten years ago. I was talking on the phone to another translator
and although we both thought it was hilarious at the time, "nicht wirklich"
has since found its way into common usage.
> I'm not surprised to see a native English speaker
> mistranslate Spanish "embarazada" as "embarrassed"; I'd be surprised
> to see "embrazed".
English-speakers have no reason not to scoff at such usages, because they
don't regard Spanish (or any other language, for that matter) as the
embodiment of sophistication -- rather the contrary, in fact.
>> and the more a
>> language is translated into, the more likely it is to be influenced
>> by the language or languages of the source texts.
>> Translators are almost invariably underpaid and under constant
>> pressure to meet unreasonable deadlines. Another problem is that
>> translators are paid not by the hour, but by the word or page, which
>> effectively rewards sloppy work:
>> The more time you spend looking for the right word, the less you
>> earn.
>
> I understand, but in the original case at hand, I wouldn't expect a
> native Dutch speaker to have to *look* for the normal Dutch word for
> "troop".
As far as I know, "troepen" exists, but means something like "armed forces"
or "military units", not "service personnel", so "28.500 Amerikaanse
troepen" must sound odd. Hence my "informations" analogy.
>> You may also have overlooked the fact that translations aren't
>> necessarily the work of a professional translator. A lot of
>> translating is done (sometimes only mentally), by journalists,
>> scientists and other people who read English-language texts on a
>> daily basis. The more often you read a particular foreign
>> expression, the less likely you are to think of it as something to
>> be avoided, which is how things like "die Obama-Administration"
>> creep into common usage.
>
> I kind of understand that, but it's in contrast to my own impression
> from a particular experience of mine. When I lived in Brussels and
> attended an English-language high school there (about two-thirds of
> the students were from the US), we all almost invariably called
> "frites" the local treat that we knew back home as "French fries". I
> called them "frites" for three years, whether speaking French OR
> English. Then we moved back to the States, and the first time I
> ordered them in a restaurant, "frites" came to mind but "French
> fries" came out of my mouth.
>
> Well, OK: I just thought of a different example that's consistent with
> your analysis. French has the word "os�" meaning "daring" (literally),
> "audacious", and I managed to absorb it into my English, perhaps by
> analogy with the word "risqu�", with a similar meaning and which *has*
> been incorporated into English. I used it a fair number of times, in
> fact, before someone asked me what it meant, and then I discovered
> that it isn't used in English.
I would say that you are more linguistically attuned than most people.
>> All this may be hard for you to understand because the USA has no
>> foreign language community to look up to and English isn't under
>> pressure from any other language, not even Spanish. Has it ever
>> occurred to you how lucky you are to be a native speaker of perhaps
>> the only language in the world that isn't under pressure from
>> English?
>
> :-)
So? Chances are that English as you know it will continue to be spoken as
long as you live. You have every reason to expect American English to
continue to be a language you can feel comfortable with. Things might be
different if you had been born in, say, 14th-century England or 20th-century
Germany.
>> And yet, judging by Google, "die Obama-Administration" is
>> three times as frequent as "die Regierung Obama".
>
> I've always wondered why we translate "Kanzler" as "Chancellor" rather
> than as "President".
I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than "President". The
job description may not be peculiar to Germany, but it has no equivalent in
the USA. And bear in mind that Germany has a "Pr�sident" as well.
For that matter, I wonder why we translate
> "K�nig", "kong", "koning", "rey", "roi", "kr�l", "???", "?",
> etc., as "king"
> while we translate "shah" as "shah" and "tsar" as "tsar".
That's a better question, but I'm afraid I don't know the answer.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Brian M. Scott
<ED...@t-online.de> wrote in
<news:gvro66$3eg$00$1...@news.t-online.com> in sci.lang:
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
[...]
>>> Translators are almost invariably underpaid and under
>>> constant pressure to meet unreasonable deadlines.
>>> Another problem is that translators are paid not by the
>>> hour, but by the word or page, which effectively
>>> rewards sloppy work:
>>> The more time you spend looking for the right word, the
>>> less you earn.
>> I understand, but in the original case at hand, I
>> wouldn't expect a native Dutch speaker to have to *look*
>> for the normal Dutch word for "troop".
> As far as I know, "troepen" exists, but means something
> like "armed forces" or "military units", not "service
> personnel", so "28.500 Amerikaanse troepen" must sound
> odd. Hence my "informations" analogy.
The English word originally had only that sense; its use to
refer to an individual soldier is relatively late. I
suspect that constructions like '1000 American troops'
preceded usages like 'That sorry son of a bitch is the worst
troop in the company'.
>>> And yet, judging by Google, "die Obama-Administration" is
>>> three times as frequent as "die Regierung Obama".
>> I've always wondered why we translate "Kanzler" as
>> "Chancellor" rather than as "President".
> I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than
> "President". The job description may not be peculiar to
> Germany, but it has no equivalent in the USA. And bear in
> mind that Germany has a "Pr�sident" as well.
But still no Pr�sidentin, I see.
>> For that matter, I wonder why we translate "K�nig",
>> "kong", "koning", "rey", "roi", "kr�l", "???", "?",
>> etc., as "king" while we translate "shah" as "shah" and
>> "tsar" as "tsar".
> That's a better question, but I'm afraid I don't know the
> answer.
I suspect that it's partly to do with the fact that a tsar
or shah seems to belong to a different cultural and
historical context from a western European king.
Brian
Trond Engen
There is (or until the mistranslation of 'troops' there was) a tendency
in Norwegian to use 'mannskaper' "crews" in that way, of both military
and -- say -- civil rescue personnel. My feeling was that this came from
the use of the plural in news reports, e.g. 'sette inn ekstramannskaper'
"deploy extra crews" when a crisis was fought on several fronts. There's
a short step to the use of the singular for a single crew member.
>>>> And yet, judging by Google, "die Obama-Administration" is
>>>> three times as frequent as "die Regierung Obama".
>>>
>>> I've always wondered why we translate "Kanzler" as
>>> "Chancellor" rather than as "President".
>>
>> I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than
>> "President". The job description may not be peculiar to
>> Germany, but it has no equivalent in the USA. And bear in
>> mind that Germany has a "Pr�sident" as well.
>
> But still no Pr�sidentin, I see.
>
>>> For that matter, I wonder why we translate "K�nig",
>>> "kong", "koning", "rey", "roi", "kr�l", "???", "?",
>>> etc., as "king" while we translate "shah" as "shah" and
>>> "tsar" as "tsar".
>
>> That's a better question, but I'm afraid I don't know the
>> answer.
>
> I suspect that it's partly to do with the fact that a tsar
> or shah seems to belong to a different cultural and
> historical context from a western European king.
But not too different, either. Both China and Japan have emperors.
--
Trond Engen
Dušan Vukotić
wrote:
> Ze leren het ook nooit.
>
> ===
> In Zuid-Korea zijn 28.500 Amerikaanse troepen gestationeerd, in Japan,
> eveneens binnen bereik van Noord-Koreaanse raketten, zijn 50.000 man
> gelegerd.
> /===
>
> 'Troepen' op deze manier gebruikt is een lelijk anglicisme. Ik vind
> het volkomen onacceptabel om dit in het Nederlands zo te doen. Kan
> echt niet. Zeker niet in een zogenaamde kwaliteitskrant, maar dat is
> het NRC allang niet meer.
>
> Proteste-mail verstuurd onder de titel:
> "Troepen? Soldaten, militairen, man!"
>
> --
> Ruud Harmsen,http://rudhar.com
Maybe it would be interesting to compare Dutch bereik (range, scope,
orbit; Ger. Bereich) with Serb. područje (area, range) and obruč
(hoop, ring). There is another Serbian word - parohija - (equal to
Eng. parish; both from Greek παροικία 'sojourn'; πάροικος 'dwelling
beside or near, neighbouring'), which seems to be related to another
'inherited' Serbian word - boravak (sojourn, residence). Greek κύριος
'chief' and ἄρχειν 'lead' (ἀρχός leader, ruler; κοίρᾰνος 'king')
might be taken as a 'proof' that πάροικος could hardly be a compound
word παρα + οίκος. Greek ἐπαρχία (district) is the same word as the
above-mentioned Serb. po(d)ručje 'district' and obruč (hoop, ring) and
all these words (Greek and Serbian) are clearly related to Latin pars
(Serb. parče piece) etc.
Dutch gebruikt (Ger. gebraucht 'used') appears to be in a close
relation with the verb bring (Du. brengen; cf. Ger. gebracht
'brought'; Serb. prigon-iti > prignati > prineti 'bring')?
DV
Harlan Messinger
Even in English I remember not grasping the use "troop" to refer to
individuals right away. After all, a troop was like a Scout troop, a
*group* of people. So when I'd hear a reference to "10,000 troops" or
the like, I'd think that meant more like a million people.
>>> And yet, judging by Google, "die Obama-Administration" is
>>> three times as frequent as "die Regierung Obama".
>> I've always wondered why we translate "Kanzler" as "Chancellor" rather
>> than as "President".
>
> I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than "President". The
> job description may not be peculiar to Germany, but it has no equivalent in
> the USA. And bear in mind that Germany has a "Pr�sident" as well.
My mistake. I thought the Kanzler was more like a president.
PaulJK
I think the tsars, kaisers, ceasars, and emperors would not take
kindly to being called just ordinary kings. :-)
AFAIK, the cognates tsar(ru), kaiser(ge), kaisar(gk), and caesar(en),
as well as emperor are usually used to refer to a ruler of a politically
larger entity, not just a single kingdom ruled by a king. Germany,
Austria, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, China, Japan were
empires consisting of several (or many) kingdoms. There may have
been kings ruling the individual kingdoms of the empire or the
emperor himself may have also been crowned as the king of
the individual kingdoms.
pjk
Joachim Pense
>> I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than "President". The
>> job description may not be peculiar to Germany, but it has no equivalent
>> in the USA. And bear in mind that Germany has a "Präsident" as well.
>
> My mistake. I thought the Kanzler was more like a president.
>
What do you mean by "like a president"? Apart from the president being the
formal head of state, the political power and role of the German and French
(and the other) presidents are so completely different to make it
meaningless to think of a "generic president".
Joachim
craoi...@gmail.com
>
> >> But still no Präsidentin, I see.
>
> >>>> For that matter, I wonder why we translate "König",
> >>>> "kong", "koning", "rey", "roi", "król", "???", "?",
> >>>> etc., as "king" while we translate "shah" as "shah" and
> >>>> "tsar" as "tsar".
>
> >>> That's a better question, but I'm afraid I don't know the
> >>> answer.
>
> >> I suspect that it's partly to do with the fact that a tsar
> >> or shah seems to belong to a different cultural and
> >> historical context from a western European king.
>
> > But not too different, either. Both China and Japan have emperors.
>
> I think the tsars, kaisers, ceasars, and emperors would not take
> kindly to being called just ordinary kings. :-)
>
> AFAIK, the cognates tsar(ru), kaiser(ge), kaisar(gk), and caesar(en),
> as well as emperor are usually used to refer to a ruler of a politically
> larger entity, not just a single kingdom ruled by a king. Germany,
> Austria, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, China, Japan were
> empires consisting of several (or many) kingdoms. There may have
> been kings ruling the individual kingdoms of the empire or the
> emperor himself may have also been crowned as the king of
> the individual kingdoms.
> pjk
Besides, nowadays there is also the fact that "king" more or more
suggests a constitutional monarch with little real power. It feels
more appropriate to refer to despots with real power with a special
term. "Emperor" won't necessarly do, because nowadays there is only
one emperor, the Emperor of Japan, and he is a constitutional monarch
too.
Ekkehard Dengler
That's what one would expect, but on the whole I haven't found it to be
true. Many terms for new technologies, for instance, do have equivalents in
other languages. Searching for them can be frustrating, though, because it's
hard to tell whether what you're looking for is just difficult to find or
non-existent. Of course you can always spare yourself the bother and get
away with it, which brings us back to the issue of work ethic.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Harlan Messinger
But we refer to kings of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Lesotho, Tonga,
etc.
Harlan Messinger
OK, understood. In my simplified taxonomy, heads of government are of
two varieties: the one who's designated by the legislature (e.g., prime
minister or premier) and the one who's voted for directly (or, in the
US, indirectly through the silly institution known as the Electoral
College) by the people (e.g., president). I thought the German kanzler
was in the latter category; now I see I was incorrect.
grammatim
That means that at some point a translator coined the new word in the
target language. If the thing hadn't been imagined, it didn't have a
name!
Ekkehard Dengler
Not necessarily -- scientists coin words, too.
Regards,
Ekkehard
grammatim
The person who discovers/invents/imagines the phenomenon gives it its
name. If the phenomenon has a different name in another language, it's
because someone translated it. Maybe that someone was a scientist --
but what scientist would have the gall to rename someone else's
discovery/invention/intellectual property? one who was trying to steal
credit for it?
Dušan Vukotić
> Even in English I remember not grasping the use "troop" to refer to
> individuals right away. After all, a troop was like a Scout troop, a
> *group* of people. So when I'd hear a reference to "10,000 troops" or
> the like, I'd think that meant more like a million people.
Troop is derived from group (velar to dental sound change). In Slavic
trup (OSlav. троупъ) is a tree trunk as well as human torso. Trup
(torso) is derived from the same basis as trbuh (belly) and grba
(hump, hunch), grbina/grbača (back, rear, spine). It seems that tree
(Serb. drvo; OSlav. дрѣво) is also related to trup and group because
Gr. δόρυ at the same time means stem, beam and tree. In fact, drvo and
trup obtained such names thanks to the round forms of trunks and trees
(cf. trump-et 'a cylindrical musical instrument').
DV
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:8b090150-ead8-4245...@s21g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:
>> grammatim wrote:
One who discovers/invents/imagines it independently. Or --
at least in mathematics -- even one who simply finds another
name more helpful or informative.
Brian
grammatim
> On Sun, 31 May 2009 09:11:11 -0700 (PDT), grammatim
Ok, so when Newton's work on the calculus was translated from Latin
into German, did the translator use Leibniz's term?
Can you provide examples of such simultaneous independently published
discoveriesetc.?
Trond Engen
Nah, the name of the discoverer was brought along. One who wanted to be
understood in the language he translated into? One who wanted a word
that fit into the morpho- and phonology of his language? Until quite
recently both concerns were important, although to a different degree in
different cultures (and perhaps different languages). And anyway, for
scientific discoveries I don't think intellectual property was remotely
relevant, and for the words chosen to describe it even less.
--
Trond Engen
Joachim Pense
Neither the Kanzler nor the Präsident are elected directly.
Joachim
Trond Engen
> Harlan Messinger (in sci.lang):
>
>> Joachim Pense wrote:
>>
>>> Harlan Messinger (in sci.lang):
>>>
>>>>> I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than
>>>>> "President". The job description may not be peculiar to Germany,
>>>>> but it has no equivalent in the USA. And bear in mind that
>>>>> Germany has a "Präsident" as well.
>>>>
>>>> My mistake. I thought the Kanzler was more like a president.
>>>
>>> What do you mean by "like a president"? Apart from the president
>>> being the formal head of state, the political power and role of the
>>> German and French (and the other) presidents are so completely
>>> different to make it meaningless to think of a "generic president".
>>
>> OK, understood. In my simplified taxonomy, heads of government are
>> of two varieties: the one who's designated by the legislature (e.g.,
>> prime minister or premier) and the one who's voted for directly (or,
>> in the US, indirectly through the silly institution known as the
>> Electoral College) by the people (e.g., president). I thought the
>> German kanzler was in the latter category; now I see I was incorrect.
>
> Neither the Kanzler nor the Präsident are elected directly.
While in Israel only the Prime Minister is elected directly. (A recent
reform designed to force some discipline into Knesset, but I think there
are fair doubts on how well it's worked.)
--
Trond Engen
Joachim Pense
What's your definition of "translate" in this context? If I know the foreign
word and coin a different name in my language, would that be
a "translation"? Example: the "Lunar Excursion Module" is
called "Mondfähre" (Moon-Ferry) in German. Is this a translation?
Joachim
Trond Engen
> While in Israel only the Prime Minister is elected directly. (A recent
> reform designed to force some discipline into Knesset, but I think
> there are fair doubts on how well it's worked.)
... but then I began to think: It didn't happen like that in the recent
election. According to Wikipedia Israel had separate elections for Prime
Minister only from 1996 to 2001. The reelection of Sharon in 2003
followed pre-1996 rules.
--
Trond Engen
Trond Engen
> Joachim Pense wrote:
>
>> Harlan Messinger (in sci.lang):
>>
>>>> I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than
>>>> "President". The job description may not be peculiar to Germany,
>>>> but it has no equivalent in the USA. And bear in mind that Germany
>>>> has a "Präsident" as well.
>>>
>>> My mistake. I thought the Kanzler was more like a president.
>>
>> What do you mean by "like a president"? Apart from the president
>> being the formal head of state, the political power and role of the
>> German and French (and the other) presidents are so completely
>> different to make it meaningless to think of a "generic president".
>
> OK, understood. In my simplified taxonomy, heads of government are of
> two varieties: the one who's designated by the legislature (e.g.,
> prime minister or premier) and the one who's voted for directly (or,
> in the US, indirectly through the silly institution known as the
> Electoral College) by the people (e.g., president). I thought the
> German kanzler was in the latter category; now I see I was incorrect.
The difference is not in the electoral process but in the formal
function as head of state. Most European democracies have a head of
state with mainly ceremonial powers. The major exception is France,
where the president rules the foreign policy (almost) alone, a practice
dating back to de Gaulle, and with e.g. president Chirac having prime
ministers coming and going almost at his whim. (He could do that when
his own party had the majority in Parliament.) A minor exception is
Finland with a constitutional practice traditionally similar to that of
France. I haven't been able to find the history of Finnish
constitutional practice (as opposed to constitutional formalities) in a
language readable to me, so this may well be misleading, but I believe
it came about as a cold war accomodation to Stalin's firm trust in the
presidents Paasikivi and Kekkonen. Since Kekkonen's death and the fall
of the Soviet Union there's a consensus in Finnish politics for
limitation of the presidential powers and development of a purer
parliamentary system. Some was written into the constitution of 2000,
but the exact balance of powers between the offices is still to be
found. Or so it seems to me.
--
Trond Engen
PaulJK
That's an interesting point. Later, after the original coinage,
when it is accepted by the speaking community it definitely
becomes a translation of the English term even though it wasn't
originally calqued. At which point then it could be called
a translation? I'd tend to say if there were no other existing
well accepted terms then it is a translation straight away.
Later, it may be proven more or less successful one.
pjk
DKleinecke
Scientists do it constantly.
Oddly enough, being a discoverer/inventor gives one no intellectual
property rights in science. Perhaps a bit of courtesy - but often not
even that.
grammatim
"Mondfaehre" sounds like something SF writers might have been using
for decades, whereas LEM was a NASA coinage. "Ferry" doesn't have the
same meaning _or_ connotations as "excursion module."
grammatim
> On May 31, 9:11 am, grammatim <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 31, 8:46 am, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
>
> > > grammatim wrote:
> > > > On May 31, 6:32 am, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
> > > >> Many terms for new technologies, for instance, do have
> > > >> equivalents in other languages. Searching for them can be
> > > >> frustrating, though, because it's hard to tell whether what you're
> > > >> looking for is just difficult to find or non-existent. Of course you
> > > >> can always spare yourself the bother and get away with it, which
> > > >> brings us back to the issue of work ethic.
>
> > > > That means that at some point a translator coined the new word in the
> > > > target language.
>
> > > Not necessarily -- scientists coin words, too.
>
> > The person who discovers/invents/imagines the phenomenon gives it its
> > name. If the phenomenon has a different name in another language, it's
> > because someone translated it. Maybe that someone was a scientist --
> > but what scientist would have the gall to rename someone else's
> > discovery/invention/intellectual property? one who was trying to steal
> > credit for it?
>
> Scientists do it constantly.
Some examples, please?
> Oddly enough, being a discoverer/inventor gives one no intellectual
> property rights in science. Perhaps a bit of courtesy - but often not
> even that.-
I don't know about "science," but someone who describes a new species
certainly does get to name it whatever they want. It goes through a
fancy process to make sure it really is new, and the proposed Linnaean
name hasn't already been used, and there are probably rules about
obscenity, but you find it, you name it! (Ditto for comets and
asteroids and such.)
Joachim Pense
So - is it a translation or isn't it a translation?
Joachim
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:b6cfe5de-fe23-488f...@e24g2000vbe.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:
> On May 31, 12:44ïŋ―pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Sun, 31 May 2009 09:11:11 -0700 (PDT), grammatim
>> <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in
>> <news:8b090150-ead8-4245...@s21g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>
>> in sci.lang:
[...]
>>> The person who discovers/invents/imagines the phenomenon
>>> gives it its name. If the phenomenon has a different name
>>> in another language, it's because someone translated it.
>>> Maybe that someone was a scientist -- but what scientist
>>> would have the gall to rename someone else's
>>> discovery/invention/intellectual property? one who was
>>> trying to steal credit for it?
>> One who discovers/invents/imagines it independently. ïŋ―Or --
>> at least in mathematics -- even one who simply finds another
>> name more helpful or informative.
Some miscellaneous observations on that last point:
A significant number of mathematical terms in use today were
invented by the 20th century group of mathematicians, mostly
French, who wrote under the name Nicholas Bourbaki; one of
their goals was to improve mathematical terminology.
'Selective ultrafilter' and 'Ramsey ultrafilter' are two
names for the same thing; each is associated with a
particular definition, and it's a (not entirely trivial)
theorem that the definitions are equivalent.
The topological properties now known as compactness and
countable compactness were once known as bicompactness and
compactness, respectively. As I recall, Russian usage
changed much more slowly than English usage.
English <antiderivative> translates German <Stammfunktion>
and vice versa, but the two words are clearly not in any way
derived from each other. (I *have* encountered a kind of
German counterpart to <antiderivative>, but it's apparently
home-grown, based on the concept and not on the English
word. There is a set of neologisms derived from <Ableitung>
'derivative', <Ableiten> 'differentiation', <ableiten> 'to
differentiate' by (incorrect) application of the familiar
<auf/ab> opposition: <Aufleitung> 'antiderivative',
<Aufleiten> 'integration', <aufleiten>. The author of one
recent textbook says: 'Deshalb sprechen manche Leute auch
vom _Aufleiten_ im Gegensatz zum _Ableiten_ und verursachen
mir dadurch immer wieder Magenbeschwerden'.)
The technique of proof known in English as <mathematical
induction> is known by a direct translation in just about
every other language, but in French it's <raisonnement par
rïŋ―currence>; I don't know why, but it's obviously not
because they couldn't have used a direct translation, and
indeed Poincarïŋ― called it the <principe d'induction>.
(Unsurprisingly, Icelandic is another maverick: 'proof by
induction' is <sïŋ―nnun meïŋ― ïŋ―repun> or <ïŋ―repasïŋ―nnun>; I
suspect that <ïŋ―repun> 'induction' is derived from ON <ïŋ―rep>
'a ledge'.)
> Ok, so when Newton's work on the calculus was translated
> from Latin into German, did the translator use Leibniz's
> term?
Leibniz's terminology *was* Latin: <calculus differentialis>
and <calculus summatorius>, the latter changed in 1696 to
<calculus integralis>, apparently at the suggestion of the
Bernoulli brothers. We still speak of differential and
integral calculus, *not* the method of fluxions and the
method of fluents. Leibniz published first and had better
notation and a more usable approach; as a result, Newton's
terminology and notation were never much used outside of
Great Britain, and even there they mostly went out of use in
the 19th century. (The notation is still sometimes seen in
physics and engineering contexts.)
> Can you provide examples of such simultaneous
> independently published discoveriesetc.?
Off the top of my head: in 1937 Eduard ïŋ―ech and Marshall
Stone independently established the main properties of what
is now called the ïŋ―ech-Stone (or, especially in the U.S.,
Stone-ïŋ―ech) compactification. (The name, of course, came
later.)
Brian
Aidan Kehoe
Ar an triochad� l� de m� Bealtaine, scr�obh gram...@verizon.net:
> Even Arabic, which used to coin new words from old roots, is likely
> (like Modern Hebrew) to borrow rather than invent. And the "poetic"
> Chinese method of finding characters that are semantically as well as
> phonetically relevant to borrowed words is used in special cases, not
> in all cases.
For me, it was the oddest thing to find out that the German and Latin words
for potassium, whence also the chemical symbol, are from Arabic, while the
*Arabic* is from French or English.
--
�D�nde estar� ahora mi sobrino Yoghurtu Nghe, que tuvo que huir
precipitadamente de la aldea por culpa de la escasez de rinocerontes?
Joachim Pense
>
> The technique of proof known in English as <mathematical
> induction> is known by a direct translation in just about
> every other language,
In German, the term is "vollständige Induktion" ('complete induction'). I am
not aware of people saying "mathematische Induktion".
Joachim
grammatim
If it's the German word that's always used for the English phrase,
then it's a translation. But it's not the name for the same thing,
it's the extension of a preexisting name to a new case.
Like "robin" in US English, or "Jerusalem artichoke" (not that I've
ever seen a Jerusalem artichoke).
Joachim Pense
"Mondfähre" _might_ have been in SF usage, but I doubt it has, and it
certainly was not in common use (SF in general was a niche thing). It's
just a typical German ad-hoc-compound that stuck. Also in
use: "Mondlandefähre".
Joachim
craoi...@gmail.com
Incidentally, "Raumfähre" is the word given in several dictionaries as
the German for "space shuttle":
In Finnish, the term "space shuttle" has been translated word for
word, as "avaruussukkula". The English verb "to shuttle", referring to
commuter traffic etc., has given rise to the Finnish verb
"sukkuloida". Finnish is rather fond of English loan-translations,
while English borrowings tend to be perceived as either slang or
technical jargon.
grammatim
The English word is from weaving terminology -- something that goes
back and forth all day. Finnish, obviously, should have calqued it to
whatever the word for a weaver's shuttle is!
Ekkehard Dengler
> On May 31, 8:46 am, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
>> grammatim wrote:
>>> On May 31, 6:32 am, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
>>>> Many terms for new technologies, for instance, do have
>>>> equivalents in other languages. Searching for them can be
>>>> frustrating, though, because it's hard to tell whether what you're
>>>> looking for is just difficult to find or non-existent. Of course
>>>> you can always spare yourself the bother and get away with it,
>>>> which brings us back to the issue of work ethic.
>>
>>> That means that at some point a translator coined the new word in
>>> the target language.
>>
>> Not necessarily -- scientists coin words, too.
>
> The person who discovers/invents/imagines the phenomenon gives it its
> name.
Not necessarily. Marketable inventions may be named by PR people, for
instance. Besides, not a lot of discoveries are made by individuals
nowadays.
> If the phenomenon has a different name in another language, it's
> because someone translated it. Maybe that someone was a scientist --
Okay then, but I think most people would agree that the term "translator"
isn't usually taken to mean "a person who has translated a word".
> but what scientist would have the gall to rename someone else's
> discovery/invention/intellectual property? one who was trying to steal
> credit for it?
You can probably guess why it's convenient for Germans to have a German term
for a new process rather than, say, a Korean one. It is in the nature of
people to prefer a term in their own language. That's basically what
translation is all about. The English for "Antiblockiersystem", a German
invention, is "anti-lock braking system", for instance.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Ekkehard Dengler
> grammatim:
>> The person who discovers/invents/imagines the phenomenon gives it its
>> name. If the phenomenon has a different name in another language,
>> it's because someone translated it. Maybe that someone was a
>> scientist -- but what scientist would have the gall to rename someone
>> else's discovery/invention/intellectual property? one who was trying
>> to steal credit for it?
>
> Nah, the name of the discoverer was brought along. One who wanted to
> be understood in the language he translated into? One who wanted a
> word that fit into the morpho- and phonology of his language? Until
> quite recently both concerns were important, although to a different
> degree in different cultures (and perhaps different languages). And
> anyway, for scientific discoveries I don't think intellectual
> property was remotely relevant, and for the words chosen to describe
> it even less.
Exactly.
Regards,
Ekkehard
John Atkinson
> [...]
>
> While in Israel only the Prime Minister is elected directly. (A recent
> reform designed to force some discipline into Knesset, but I think
> there are fair doubts on how well it's worked.)
In English, we usually say "the Knesset". Are you (and/or Norwegians
generally) unconsciously taking the -et on the end to be the Norwegian
definite article perhaps?
"Knessetet" would no doubt sound a bit peculiar, ISTM.
J.
Helmut Richter
> You can probably guess why it's convenient for Germans to have a German term
> for a new process rather than, say, a Korean one.
Than Korean, yes, but not necessarily than English.
> It is in the nature of
> people to prefer a term in their own language.
Or English, if they are Germans. Germans (and AFAIK Japanese as well) like
to *invent* -- not only take over -- English terms for things they
consider modern, be it a handy, a beamer, a hometrainer, a showmaster
(more examples cf.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Scheinanglizismen).
I do not think that is caused by commercial advertising, rather it looks
as if the sales promoters are only taking up a trend that is there anyway.
The process is not new: this is the way Greek and Latin words have been
invented for centuries: telescopes, automobiles, chronometers.
--
Helmut Richter
Trond Engen
> Trond Engen wrote:
>
>> [...]
>>
>> While in Israel only the Prime Minister is elected directly. (A
>> recent reform designed to force some discipline into Knesset, but I
>> think there are fair doubts on how well it's worked.)
>
> In English, we usually say "the Knesset". Are you (and/or
> Norwegians generally) unconsciously taking the -et on the end to be
> the Norwegian definite article perhaps?
Yes we are. It's not unusual to hear it pronounced /knes:e/, to rhyme
with 'esset' "the ace" and the toponym 'Nesset'. But unconsciously... I
wondered if the name takes the definite article in English, and then I
thought: If not, it would be fun if someone noticed.
> "Knessetet" would no doubt sound a bit peculiar, ISTM.
We traditionally use definite articles with parliament names. I can't
think of any other exceptions. Often the names involve words that are
already established, though, either parliament, taking the neuter, or
the element -dag taking the masculine.
--
Trond Engen
Brian M. Scott
<sn...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote in
<news:h009de$oat$03$1...@news.t-online.com> in sci.lang:
> Brian M. Scott (in sci.lang):
>> The technique of proof known in English as <mathematical
>> induction> is known by a direct translation in just about
>> every other language,
> In German, the term is "vollst�ndige Induktion" ('complete
> induction'). [...]
I know. I was actually referring to the use of the word
<induction> and included <mathematical> to make it clear
that I wasn't talking about induction as opposed to
deduction. (Though now that I think about it, I believe
that German is a little unusual here: most of the other
languages in which I've seen the term do in fact use a
direct translation of the two-word phrase.)
Brian
Joachim Pense
But neologistic compounding based on Greek/Latin is standard in scientific
nomenclature, while Scheinanglizismen are considered to be accidents.
Joachim
grammatim
> grammatim wrote:
> > On May 31, 8:46 am, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
> >> grammatim wrote:
> >>> On May 31, 6:32 am, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
> >>>> Many terms for new technologies, for instance, do have
> >>>> equivalents in other languages. Searching for them can be
> >>>> frustrating, though, because it's hard to tell whether what you're
> >>>> looking for is just difficult to find or non-existent. Of course
> >>>> you can always spare yourself the bother and get away with it,
> >>>> which brings us back to the issue of work ethic.
>
> >>> That means that at some point a translator coined the new word in
> >>> the target language.
>
> >> Not necessarily -- scientists coin words, too.
>
> > The person who discovers/invents/imagines the phenomenon gives it its
> > name.
>
> Not necessarily. Marketable inventions may be named by PR people, for
> instance. Besides, not a lot of discoveries are made by individuals
> nowadays.
Which has nothing to do with how equivalents in other languages get
assigned.
> > If the phenomenon has a different name in another language, it's
> > because someone translated it. Maybe that someone was a scientist --
>
> Okay then, but I think most people would agree that the term "translator"
> isn't usually taken to mean "a person who has translated a word".
>
> > but what scientist would have the gall to rename someone else's
> > discovery/invention/intellectual property? one who was trying to steal
> > credit for it?
>
> You can probably guess why it's convenient for Germans to have a German term
> for a new process rather than, say, a Korean one. It is in the nature of
> people to prefer a term in their own language. That's basically what
> translation is all about. The English for "Antiblockiersystem", a German
> invention, is "anti-lock braking system", for instance.
You continue to miss the point.
There was not a pre-existing term in English for "ABS" that someone
decided would make a good equivalent for the German term. Someone
_translated_ it, not someone searched for an existing equivalent.
Ekkehard Dengler
No, you keep changing the subject. I've wasted enough time on this now.
Regards,
Ekkehard
Ekkehard Dengler
> On Mon, 1 Jun 2009, Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>
>> You can probably guess why it's convenient for Germans to have a
>> German term for a new process rather than, say, a Korean one.
>
> Than Korean, yes, but not necessarily than English.
>
>> It is in the nature of
>> people to prefer a term in their own language.
>
> Or English, if they are Germans.
It's true that Germans are unlikely to be critical of anything that looks
remotely like English (see my replies to Harlan -- www.caribicislands.de is
a good example, by the way), but I'm not sure how natural this fixation on
(pseudo-)English really is.
Regards,
Ekkehard
grammatim
No. Go look at what I was responding to.
Ekkehard Dengler
"grammatim" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:32efdd5e-e46b-4148...@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
I've already answered your question. So has Trond, by the way.
Regards,
Ekkehard
grammatim
> "grammatim" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in message
Eh? The question was Harlan's.
wugi
> In English, we usually say "the Knesset". Are you (and/or Norwegians
> generally) unconsciously taking the -et on the end to be the Norwegian
> definite article perhaps?
>
> "Knessetet" would no doubt sound a bit peculiar, ISTM.
Knesseten would have been less forbidding ;-)
(D. de Knesset, not het)
craoi...@gmail.com
"Sukkula" is precisely that - a weaver's shuttle. In fact, I would not
be surprised if the Finnish word turned out to be ultimately related
to the English one, noting the abundance of very old Germanic
loanwords in Finnish.
Oliver Cromm
But not forever. AFAIK, if someone finds that your species should be
reclassified, you lose the complete name. Even where changing the
eponymous part is not necessary, it may be done anyway, in favor of a
more systematic naming convention.
| In less than a decade, the Eastern Rat Snake — one of the most
| commonly encountered species in the eastern U.S., and one of the most
| popular pet snake species — has had its Latin scientific name changed
| or reorganized four times. The Corn Snake — the most popular pet
| snake in the world — has, in the space of twelve years, been split
| into three species and had its genus changed three times. How many
| times do we have to change the labels on our cages?
<http://www.mcwetboy.com/mcwetlog/2009/01/the_trouble_with_rat_snake_taxonomy.php>
Similar things go on in other sciences, as notions are shifted and
reorganized. Scientific concepts are in constant flux, after all. So
even if the name for "your" exact concept may not change, the concept
itself may be replaced by a slightly different one with a new name. And
in natural sciences, similar terms can't coexist as long as in the
humanities.
> (Ditto for comets and asteroids and such.)
It's a stretch to count comets or asteroids as scientific discoveries.
Maybe conventions really differ by field. In Mathematics, many terms are
eponymous, but it would be indecent to suggest to name something after
yourself. On the other hand, mathematicians use names like "Pythagorean
theorem" in very generalized ways, which Pythagoras himself wouldn't
immediately recognize.
--
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Robert R. Coveyou
Oliver Cromm
> OK, understood. In my simplified taxonomy, heads of government are of
> two varieties: the one who's designated by the legislature (e.g., prime
> minister or premier) and the one who's voted for directly (or, in the
> US, indirectly through the silly institution known as the Electoral
> College) by the people (e.g., president). I thought the German kanzler
> was in the latter category; now I see I was incorrect.
For practical purposes, I think it's best to take the core meaning of
"president" to be that of a head of state, because almost every
president is that. Besides that, he may or may not have political
functions and powers.
I can't see that the method of election has a strong correlation with
the title.
I think of the US president as a president and prime minister rolled in
one, similar to a "President and CEO" of a company.
--
*Multitasking* /v./ Screwing up several things at once
John Atkinson
> On Jun 1, 4:42 pm, grammatim <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Jun 1, 9:03 am, craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Jun 1, 5:54 am, grammatim <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>> On May 31, 6:23 pm, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
[...]
>>>>> What's your definition of "translate" in this context? If I know
>>>>> the foreign word and coin a different name in my language, would
>>>>> that be
>>>>> a "translation"? Example: the "Lunar Excursion Module" is
>>>>> called "Mondf�hre" (Moon-Ferry) in German. Is this a translation?
>>
>>>> "Mondfaehre" sounds like something SF writers might have been using
>>>> for decades, whereas LEM was a NASA coinage. "Ferry" doesn't have
>>>> the same meaning _or_ connotations as "excursion module."
>>
>>> Incidentally, "Raumf�hre" is the word given in several dictionaries
>>> as the German for "space shuttle":
>>
>>> In Finnish, the term "space shuttle" has been translated word for
>>> word, as "avaruussukkula". The English verb "to shuttle", referring
>>> to commuter traffic etc., has given rise to the Finnish verb
>>> "sukkuloida". Finnish is rather fond of English loan-translations,
>>> while English borrowings tend to be perceived as either slang or
>>> technical jargon.-
>>
>> The English word is from weaving terminology -- something that goes
>> back and forth all day. Finnish, obviously, should have calqued it to
>> whatever the word for a weaver's shuttle is!
>
> "Sukkula" is precisely that - a weaver's shuttle. In fact, I would not
> be surprised if the Finnish word turned out to be ultimately related
> to the English one, noting the abundance of very old Germanic
> loanwords in Finnish.
I understand that <shuttle> comes from OE <scytel>, from Germanic *skut-,
shoot. The OE word <scytel> meams "dart, arrow, missile"; I don't know if
it was also used for the weaver's shuttle in OE, although I see that the
Norwegian word for "shuttle" is <skyttel>, so it probably did. German, on
the other hand, doesn't seem to have it -- it uses <Schiffchen>, "little
ship", for the weaver's shuttle -- so it's perhaps doubtful if it's an old
Germanic loanword in Finnish.
Perhaps more likely a borrowing from Old Norse, or a later Scandinavian
language?
John.
grammatim
> loanwords in Finnish.-
Don't you mean Serbian?
Is sukkula also used for a bus or train that goes back and forth on a
very short route with no or very few stops between the terminals?
("Shuttle" has had that meaning for at least a century -- in the NYC
subway -- and maybe before that.)
grammatim
> * grammatim <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > (Ditto for comets and asteroids and such.)
>
> It's a stretch to count comets or asteroids as scientific discoveries.
It seems that most comets are discovered by the dedicated amateurs who
spend their nights sweeping the skies for them.
Wasn't one of the brighter ones a few years ago the fifth one some guy
had found in that one year, so it bore his name ...5?
The asteroids are pretty much all taken by now, but their discoverers
got to name them. Likewise the planets' moons.
Dušan Vukotić
> On Jun 1, 5:59 pm, craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jun 1, 4:42 pm, grammatim <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Jun 1, 9:03 am, craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > Incidentally, "Raumfähre" is the word given in several dictionaries as
> > > > the German for "space shuttle":
>
> > > > In Finnish, the term "space shuttle" has been translated word for
> > > > word, as "avaruussukkula". The English verb "to shuttle", referring to
> > > > commuter traffic etc., has given rise to the Finnish verb
> > > > "sukkuloida". Finnish is rather fond of English loan-translations,
> > > > while English borrowings tend to be perceived as either slang or
> > > > technical jargon.-
>
> > > The English word is from weaving terminology -- something that goes
> > > back and forth all day. Finnish, obviously, should have calqued it to
> > > whatever the word for a weaver's shuttle is!
>
> > "Sukkula" is precisely that - a weaver's shuttle. In fact, I would not
> > be surprised if the Finnish word turned out to be ultimately related
> > to the English one, noting the abundance of very old Germanic
> > loanwords in Finnish.-
>
> Don't you mean Serbian?
Spiteful again!
Serb. okidati, okinuti "to fire the arm", "to pull the trigger",
"shoot", okidač "trigger"; skidati, skinuti "take off", "to rifle",
"to topple by shooting"; OSlav. искыдати [iskydati] 'throw out'
DV
Ekkehard Dengler
The following question was yours:
"Maybe that someone was a scientist -- but what scientist would have the
gall to rename someone else's discovery/invention/intellectual property? one
who was trying to steal credit for it?"
I should have known better than to answer. Please don't ask me anything
else, because I won't reply again.
Regards,
Ekkehard
craoi...@gmail.com
I think that there is no established general term for that, at least
none which I had noted - it might even be that the concept is not very
usual here, outside airports. (And an airport shuttle bus would simply
be called the airport bus, "lentokenttäbussi", or something similar.)
If I encountered "sukkula" in that sense, I would not be surprised,
though.
grammatim
> grammatim wrote:
> > On Jun 1, 2:39 pm, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
> >> "grammatim" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote in message
>
> >>news:32efdd5e-e46b-4148...@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
> >> On Jun 1, 12:43 pm, "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
>
> >>> grammatim wrote:
> >>>>> You continue to miss the point.
> >>>> No, you keep changing the subject. I've wasted enough time on this
> >>>> now.
> >>> No. Go look at what I was responding to.
>
> >> I've already answered your question. So has Trond, by the way.
>
> > Eh? The question was Harlan's.
>
> The following question was yours:
>
> "Maybe that someone was a scientist -- but what scientist would have the
> gall to rename someone else's discovery/invention/intellectual property? one
> who was trying to steal credit for it?"
>
> I should have known better than to answer. Please don't ask me anything
> else, because I won't reply again.
Do you not understand the difference between _renaming someone else's
discovery_ and _independently coming up with a name for a simultaneous
discovery_?
Are you not willing to call someone who translates something a
translator, even if that isn't their profession?
António Marques
> * Harlan Messinger<hmessinger...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> OK, understood. In my simplified taxonomy, heads of government are of
>> two varieties: the one who's designated by the legislature (e.g., prime
>> minister or premier) and the one who's voted for directly (or, in the
>> US, indirectly through the silly institution known as the Electoral
>> College) by the people (e.g., president). I thought the German kanzler
>> was in the latter category; now I see I was incorrect.
>
> For practical purposes, I think it's best to take the core meaning of
> "president" to be that of a head of state, because almost every
> president is that. Besides that, he may or may not have political
> functions and powers.
NB the head of the executive in Spain is called 'President of the
Government' and the portuguese head of the executive from 1933 to 1974
was called 'President of the Council [of Ministers]'. Nowadays, the
portuguese one is called 'Prime-Minister', but the office is still the
'Presidency of the Council of Ministers'.
So, Salazar and Marcello were presidents, not prime-ministers,
coexisting with a 'President of the Republic' who was in fact the head
of state.
--
António Marques
António Marques
> * grammatim<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> I don't know about "science," but someone who describes a new species
>> certainly does get to name it whatever they want. It goes through a
>> fancy process to make sure it really is new, and the proposed Linnaean
>> name hasn't already been used, and there are probably rules about
>> obscenity, but you find it, you name it!
>
> But not forever. AFAIK, if someone finds that your species should be
> reclassified, you lose the complete name. Even where changing the
> eponymous part is not necessary, it may be done anyway, in favor of a
> more systematic naming convention.
No. There are clear rules and even though there's no police, people
adhere to them. Names may change quite often, but always for some good
reason (the species should belong to s different genus, the species
isn't really new but a synonym, a different species had claim to the
same name but had been overlooked, the name is grammatically too much
inconsistent...), and emphatically not to be more systematic or precise
or the like.
Of course, rules are subject to change, but the principle of keeping any
name as long as it's formally valid is as well entrenched as could be.
--
António Marques
Emungo
> On Sat, 30 May 2009 18:51:19 +0200, Ekkehard Dengler
> <ED...@t-online.de> wrote in
> <news:gvro66$3eg$00$1...@news.t-online.com> in sci.lang:
>
> > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>> Translators are almost invariably underpaid and under
> >>> constant pressure to meet unreasonable deadlines.
> >>> Another problem is that translators are paid not by the
> >>> hour, but by the word or page, which effectively
> >>> rewards sloppy work:
> >>> The more time you spend looking for the right word, the
> >>> less you earn.
> >> I understand, but in the original case at hand, I
> >> wouldn't expect a native Dutch speaker to have to *look*
> >> for the normal Dutch word for "troop".
> > As far as I know, "troepen" exists, but means something
> > like "armed forces" or "military units", not "service
> > personnel", so "28.500 Amerikaanse troepen" must sound
> > odd. Hence my "informations" analogy.
>
> The English word originally had only that sense; its use to
> refer to an individual soldier is relatively late. I
> suspect that constructions like '1000 American troops'
> preceded usages like 'That sorry son of a bitch is the worst
> troop in the company'.
>
> >>> And yet, judging by Google, "die Obama-Administration" is
> >>> three times as frequent as "die Regierung Obama".
> >> I've always wondered why we translate "Kanzler" as
> >> "Chancellor" rather than as "President".
> > I suppose "Prime Minister" would be less misleading than
> > "President". The job description may not be peculiar to
> > Germany, but it has no equivalent in the USA. And bear in
> > mind that Germany has a "Präsident" as well.
>
> But still no Präsidentin, I see.
>
> >> For that matter, I wonder why we translate "König",
> >> "kong", "koning", "rey", "roi", "król", "???", "?",
> >> etc., as "king" while we translate "shah" as "shah" and
> >> "tsar" as "tsar".
> > That's a better question, but I'm afraid I don't know the
> > answer.
>
> I suspect that it's partly to do with the fact that a tsar
> or shah seems to belong to a different cultural and
> historical context from a western European king.
>
> Brian
But in early modern and even 19th century English texts I think you'll
quite often find shah rendered king or emperor and tsar rendered
emperor, just as kaiser was. Then, the other way around, Mikado was
often used for the emperor of Japan.
As Selden discussed at length in the various editions of Titles of
Honour, the equivalences between these emperor-like things (and the
neat idea of subsidiarity that was worked out by medieval theorists as
the distinction between kingdoms and empires - hence Henry VIII's
definition of England as an empire, i.e. not subsidiary to anyone)
were pretty loose. Greeks in the Roman empire had autokrator for
imperator and the transliterations Kaisar and Augoustos but still
often used basileus for the emperor.
Emungo
>
> - Show quoted text -
It strikes me the Mikado ('heavenly emperor' according to wikipedia)
case is rather like 'Pharaoh' for the ruler of Egypt ('great house',
IIRC, no?).
The suggestion that exoticism may lend foreign terms glamour, meaning
they get used and misused in English, often in preference to
acceptable translations, actually does mean that there is a sort of
parallel in English to what Ekkehard is complaining about in German.
Cf "a panini", etc etc. Contextually, non-english languages may exert
a fascination even if the overall dynamic is decidedly the other way
around. Vorsprung durch Technik, as the ads used to say.
(Question: I wonder if English-language prestige could ever result in
English-speakers' re-use of a foreign term feeding back into the
foreign language in question, e.g. Italians starting to treat panini
as singular. I realise this example is impossible to entertain
seriously, but there may be better ones.)
You certainly do _not_ have to 'dislike English', as Ekkehard puts it,
to share a lot of his sentiments; as an English speaker I really would
love to help Italians realise that they do not need to pepper their
discourse with more or less wonky English usages or anglicisms to add
value to what they are saying or writing. It's language change like
any other, of course, but the dynamic that brings it about is rather
depressing. And if one can accept, for instance, that "footing" just
is the Italian for "jogging", it doesn't mean that there aren't other
less established or nonce usages that can be meaningfully described as
not just pretentious but erroneous.
Emungo
> It strikes me the Mikado ('heavenly emperor' according to wikipedia)
> case is rather like 'Pharaoh' for the ruler of Egypt ('great house',
> IIRC, no?).
>
I see I got that completely wrong about mikado; it's a gate, and the
parallel with pharaoh is actually closer than I thought.
Brian M. Scott
<john...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:BF0Vl.15416$y61....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang:
> craoi...@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
>> "Sukkula" is precisely that - a weaver's shuttle. In
>> fact, I would not be surprised if the Finnish word
>> turned out to be ultimately related to the English one,
>> noting the abundance of very old Germanic loanwords in
>> Finnish.
> I understand that <shuttle> comes from OE <scytel>, from
> Germanic *skut-, shoot. The OE word <scytel> meams
> "dart, arrow, missile"; I don't know if it was also
> used for the weaver's shuttle in OE, although I see that
> the Norwegian word for "shuttle" is <skyttel>, so it
> probably did.
No such use seems to have been recorded: the various OE
dictionaries that I can check have only 'dart, arrow; tongue
of a balance' and, as an alternative spelling of <scyttel>,
'bolt, bar'. The earliest citation for 'weaver's shuttle'
in both the OED and the MED is from 1338: Item, pro weblomes
emptis, xx s..Item, pro iiij shittles pro eodem opere ij s.
vj d.
> German, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have it -- it
> uses <Schiffchen>, "little ship", for the weaver's
> shuttle -- so it's perhaps doubtful if it's an old
> Germanic loanword in Finnish.
> Perhaps more likely a borrowing from Old Norse, or a later
> Scandinavian language?
ON <skutill> is 'a missile, esp. a harpoon'. (There's also
another <skutill> borrowed from Latin <scutella>, but it's
clearly irrelevant.)
Brian
John Atkinson
> On Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:05:05 GMT, John Atkinson:
>> craoi...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> "Sukkula" is precisely that - a weaver's shuttle. In
>>> fact, I would not be surprised if the Finnish word
>>> turned out to be ultimately related to the English one,
>>> noting the abundance of very old Germanic loanwords in
>>> Finnish.
>
>> I understand that <shuttle> comes from OE <scytel>, from
>> Germanic *skut-, shoot. The OE word <scytel> meams
>> "dart, arrow, missile"; I don't know if it was also
>> used for the weaver's shuttle in OE, although I see that
>> the Norwegian word for "shuttle" is <skyttel>, so it
>> probably did.
>
> No such use seems to have been recorded: the various OE
> dictionaries that I can check have only 'dart, arrow; tongue
> of a balance' and, as an alternative spelling of <scyttel>,
> 'bolt, bar'. The earliest citation for 'weaver's shuttle'
> in both the OED and the MED is from 1338: Item, pro weblomes
> emptis, xx s..Item, pro iiij shittles pro eodem opere ij s.
> vj d.
Hmm. "Shittle" is what you'd expect in ME (and NE) from OE scytel. I
wonder how it got turned into "shuttle", with <u>. Influence of weavers who
migrated from across the channel? Or just a different dialect?
>
>> German, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have it -- it
>> uses <Schiffchen>, "little ship", for the weaver's
>> shuttle -- so it's perhaps doubtful if it's an old
>> Germanic loanword in Finnish.
>
>> Perhaps more likely a borrowing from Old Norse, or a later
>> Scandinavian language?
>
> ON <skutill> is 'a missile, esp. a harpoon'. (There's also
> another <skutill> borrowed from Latin <scutella>, but it's
> clearly irrelevant.)
Perhaps the coincidence that both the Norwegian and English words gained the
same new meaning, probably around the same time, is due to the influence of
Dutch/Low German during the middle ages. In modern Dutch a weaver's shuttle
is either <spoel> -- cognate with English "spool" -- or <schuitje>, which
like shuttle is a diminutive from "shoot".
John.
Brian M. Scott
<john...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:PodVl.15553$y61....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> On Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:05:05 GMT, John Atkinson:
>>> craoi...@gmail.com wrote:
>> [...]
>>>> "Sukkula" is precisely that - a weaver's shuttle. In
>>>> fact, I would not be surprised if the Finnish word
>>>> turned out to be ultimately related to the English one,
>>>> noting the abundance of very old Germanic loanwords in
>>>> Finnish.
>>> I understand that <shuttle> comes from OE <scytel>, from
>>> Germanic *skut-, shoot. The OE word <scytel> meams
>>> "dart, arrow, missile"; I don't know if it was also
>>> used for the weaver's shuttle in OE, although I see that
>>> the Norwegian word for "shuttle" is <skyttel>, so it
>>> probably did.
>> No such use seems to have been recorded: the various OE
>> dictionaries that I can check have only 'dart, arrow; tongue
>> of a balance' and, as an alternative spelling of <scyttel>,
>> 'bolt, bar'. The earliest citation for 'weaver's shuttle'
>> in both the OED and the MED is from 1338: Item, pro weblomes
>> emptis, xx s..Item, pro iiij shittles pro eodem opere ij s.
>> vj d.
> Hmm. "Shittle" is what you'd expect in ME (and NE) from
> OE scytel.
MED uses the headword <shitel>, with variants <shetel(le)>,
<shutel(le)>, and <sho:til>; the earliest <u> spelling that
I can find is the byname <Shutelmaker> 1380; the OED has
<schutylle> 1483 and <shotil> ~1400. There's no commentary
on the vowel. However, <shut> is from OE <scyttan>, and the
OED says:
The normal representation of OE. <scyttan> would be
<shit>; down to the 16th c. this was the prevailing form,
though the Kentish <shette> (used by Chaucer and Gower)
was also very common. The mod. form appears to have
been originally West Midland.
The chronologies are similar; <u> spellings of <shut> seem
to be more common at a somewhat earlier date, but that may
be because the word is more common, period.
[...]
Brian
Tapani Salminen
> craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote:
> > "Sukkula" is precisely that - a weaver's shuttle. In fact, I would not
> > be surprised if the Finnish word turned out to be ultimately related
> > to the English one, noting the abundance of very old Germanic
> > loanwords in Finnish.
>
> I understand that <shuttle> comes from OE <scytel>, from Germanic *skut-,
> shoot. The OE word <scytel> meams "dart, arrow, missile"; I don't know if
> it was also used for the weaver's shuttle in OE, although I see that the
> Norwegian word for "shuttle" is <skyttel>, so it probably did. German, on
> the other hand, doesn't seem to have it -- it uses <Schiffchen>, "little
> ship", for the weaver's shuttle -- so it's perhaps doubtful if it's an old
> Germanic loanword in Finnish.
>
> Perhaps more likely a borrowing from Old Norse, or a later Scandinavian
> language?
Finnish etymological dictionaries offer a possible (Old) Russian
origin for the word sukkula, with reference to Russian skal'já (<
*sUkalIja) and Ukrainian sukálo (< *sUkalo; both some devices
apparently related to weaving). The match is both semantically and
phonetically slightly inexact, but the distribution of the Finnic word
(Eastern Finnish, Ingrian, Karelian, Olonetsian, Lude and Veps) would
be typical of Old Russian borrowings. No other origin has been
suggested.
Tapani Salminen
Oliver Cromm
> It strikes me the Mikado ('heavenly emperor' according to wikipedia)
> case is rather like 'Pharaoh' for the ruler of Egypt ('great house',
> IIRC, no?).
>
> The suggestion that exoticism may lend foreign terms glamour, meaning
> they get used and misused in English, often in preference to
> acceptable translations, actually does mean that there is a sort of
> parallel in English to what Ekkehard is complaining about in German.
> Cf "a panini", etc etc.
There was a nice example of that in a recent comic strip from "Stone
Soup", I cite from memory:
- Mom, what's for lunch?
- Beurre d'arachide et confiture aux fraises sur pain blanc.
- Huh?
- Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (To herself:) Food always sounds
better in French.
The difference probably is that the spheres, like food, where this
applies, where many in the English-speaking world feel that other
cultures are superior, are much more limited.
--
Pentiums melt in your PC, not in your hand.
Oliver Cromm
Oh, I didn't want to say that they don't adhere to their own rules, just
that the rules include many cases that lead to a different end result
from "you discover it, you name it."
As well, while I welcome a correction of my limited insight, your
emphatic distinction between my "when reclassified" and your "belongs to
a different genus", or my "more systematic naming convention" and your
"grammatically too inconsistent" is somewhat too subtle for me.
Specifically, what I meant was that when "your" snake "Aslangus
marquesii" is found to rather belong to the genus "Beslangus", it may
not end up as "Beslangus marquesii", but "Beslangus rotbauchi", to
complement the pre-existing "Beslangus gruenbauchi" - if I'm not
mistaken.
--
The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose
from; furthermore, if you do not like any of them, you can just
wait for next year's model.
Andrew Tanenbaum, _Computer Networks_ (1981), p. 168.
Oliver Cromm
> There was a nice example of that in a recent comic strip from "Stone
> Soup",
Sorry, it seems to have been "Ben". I've seen both numerous times, but
the names are such that they don't stick at all with me.
--
'Ah yes, we got that keyboard from Small Gods when they threw out their
organ. Unfortunately for complex theological reasons they would only
give us the white keys, so we can only program in C'.
Colin Fine in sci.lang
John Atkinson
No. Something like this might happen only if the name "B. marquesii" is
already taken by a third species. Lack of "complementation" or
inappropriate description is not a reason to disallow or change a name.
Thus no one proposed renaming Macropus giganteus (the grey kangaroo) when
the considerably larger red kangaroo was discovered.
The most obvious case of grammatical inconsistency is when the ending of the
species name has to be changed to agree in gender with the new genus. Thus
we have Alectron oleifolius syn Heterodendrum oleifolium. When the species
name is a genitive (-i or -ae, say), there is no change, of course. But
minor grammatical discrepencies, due usually to the discoverer's ignorance
of Latin, are not grounds for change of a species name, whether or not the
genus is changed.
A moderate amount of obscenity or silliness is OK. Linneus started this
with the fungus he called Phallus impudicus (it's in the family Phallaceae)
and the earwig he called Labia minor. And Montypythonoides riversleighensis
wasn't renamed Morelia riversleighensis because someone thought it was
silly, but because they decided it should be reassigned to the already-named
genus Morelia.
John.
John Atkinson
Was there any variety of OE where the I-umlaut /u / > /y / didn't take place
(the precursor of West Midland, say)?
Or do we have to accept that it was reversed -- /u / > /y / > /u / (> /V
/) -- in shuttle etc?
Or that modern <shuttle> doesn't actually come from OE <scytel>, but was
(re-)derived from "shoot" in ME times? (In early ME "shoot" was usually
<scete>, from OE <sc�otan>, but this was later replaced in the standard
language by <scote>, from OE <sce�tan>, as I understand it.)
John.
craoi...@gmail.com
That makes sense. There is at least one other Slavic loanword in the
field of weaving - "värttinä", which means "distaff", Ru. veretenó.
Dušan Vukotić
Slavic sukati (twist, spin, weave), sukno (cloth; O.Slav. соукно),
Serb. suknja (skirt);
O.Slav. врѣтено vreteno; from vrteti (turn, spin); cf. Lat. verto
(turn around)
DV
Dušan Vukotić
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
> > On Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:34:39 GMT, John Atkinson
> > <news:PodVl.15553$y61....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
> > sci.lang:
>
> >> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> >>> On Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:05:05 GMT, John Atkinson:
>
> language by <scote>, from OE <sceótan>, as I understand it.)
>
> John.
To me it seems more logical to assume that shuttle is derived from
German Schachtel (box, case); Ital. scatola; Serb. škatula; probably
metathesized Medieval Lat. castula (box, case; Lat. capsa; cf. Serb.
kuća 'house', kutija 'box'; Sp. kaja; Germ. kasto*)
DV
Adam Funk
> There was a nice example of that in a recent comic strip from "Stone
> Soup", I cite from memory:
>
> - Mom, what's for lunch?
> - Beurre d'arachide et confiture aux fraises sur pain blanc.
> - Huh?
> - Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (To herself:) Food always sounds
> better in French.
>
> The difference probably is that the spheres, like food, where this
> applies, where many in the English-speaking world feel that other
> cultures are superior, are much more limited.
Yup, the "Mean Sod's guide" in Kingsley Amis _On Drink_ has such menu
entries as "petits pains et beurre" and "spaghetti poco bolognese".
--
Nam Sibbyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla
pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: beable beable beable; respondebat
illa: doidy doidy doidy. [plorkwort]
António Marques
It's not a matter of classification (how taxa relate to each other) but
of naming (what you call them). My objection to the way you put it is
that one may get the idea that every so often someone decides to take a
look at some taxa and 'reclassify' the lot. No, what happens is that
someone takes a look at them, may decide that on new relationships among
them, but when it comes to settle on new names, those won't be new but
the old ones, with strict adherence to the rules of precedence (of
course, newly split taxa will have to have really new names).
> or my "more systematic naming convention" and your
> "grammatically too inconsistent" is somewhat too subtle for me.
Grammatical inconsistence is something like the often seen *_Quercus
rubrum_ with the neutral ending where the feminine is called for. John
explained it quite well.
> Specifically, what I meant was that when "your" snake "Aslangus
> marquesii" is found to rather belong to the genus "Beslangus", it may
> not end up as "Beslangus marquesii", but "Beslangus rotbauchi", to
> complement the pre-existing "Beslangus gruenbauchi" - if I'm not
> mistaken.
And this is the point where you are mistaken. The only way it will end
up as _B. rotbauchi_ is if there's already a _B. rotbauchi_ that _A.
marquesii_ is found to be a synonym of *and* _B. rotbauchi_ was
described earlier than _A. marquesii_. Because if _A. marquesii_ was
described earlier, then both _A. marquesii_ and _B. rotbauchi_ will
become _B. marquesii_, belly colour notwithstanding.
Of course, whenever renaming results in a name that can't be used, other
solutions are available. For instance, _Erythraea centaurium_ was
reassigned to the genus _Centaurium_, but since *_Centaurium centaurium_
would be botanically invalid, another solution had to be found, and it
ended up _Centaurium erythraea_. Or, as John says, the new name could
collide with an existing valid one. Finding the 'correct' name to use in
such cases is not trivial, there are a lot of provisions to follow.
http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/ contains an interesting collection of
names. My favourite remains the _Technosaurus_.
--
António Marques
PaulJK
[...]
> Of course, whenever renaming results in a name that can't be used, other
> solutions are available. For instance, _Erythraea centaurium_ was
> reassigned to the genus _Centaurium_, but since *_Centaurium centaurium_
> would be botanically invalid, another solution had to be found, and it
> ended up _Centaurium erythraea_. Or, as John says, the new name could
> collide with an existing valid one. Finding the 'correct' name to use in
> such cases is not trivial, there are a lot of provisions to follow.
>
> http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/ contains an interesting collection of
> names. My favourite remains the _Technosaurus_.
O yes, good name.
It's the one built out of Lego Technic blocks, isn't it? :-)
pjk