raisin secs
cbro...@yahoo.com
such as, "grapes" and "raisins" whereas French only differentiates
between "raisins"
ans "raisims secs." Is there any reason for this?
Matti Lamprhey
We needed special words because of our national motto:
"No secs please -- we're British".
Matti
Harlan Messinger
<cbro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e5f1f0e7.04011...@posting.google.com...
There's no system or tendency to it, and it goes in both directions,
regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of French and
English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where English has "penguin" and
"emperor penguin", except that most people wouldn't make a point of
distinguishing emperor penguins from the others in non-technical speech.
French breaks owls down into two categories, "hibou" and "chouette," where
ordinary English makes no distinction at all.
Tom Hester
<cbro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e5f1f0e7.04011...@posting.google.com...
Ross Howard
<h.mes...@comcast.net> wrought:
It's a similar owl story in Spanish, where they distingiush between
*lechuzas* (barn owls) and *buhos* (all other owls). They also
distinguish between the first and second fig crops (*brevas* and
*higos*). However, as with the OP's raisins, they don't have any
equivalent special word for prunes -- they're just "passed-it plums",
while any wardrobe or cupboard (i.e. a storage space with a door) is
just an *armario*.
Conclusion: different languages are just that -- different.
--
Ross Howard
benlizross
>
> <cbro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:e5f1f0e7.04011...@posting.google.com...
> > I've noticed that English tends to have separate nouns for objects,
> > such as, "grapes" and "raisins" whereas French only differentiates
> > between "raisins"
> > ans "raisims secs." Is there any reason for this?
>
> There's no system or tendency to it, and it goes in both directions,
> regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of French and
> English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where English has "penguin" and
> "emperor penguin", except that most people wouldn't make a point of
> distinguishing emperor penguins from the others in non-technical speech.
I doubt that any two French speakers will agree with this. My 1950s
Petit Larousse says that "pingouin" refers to auks and their kin
(northern birds), and "manchot" is general for penguins. Another
dictionary described the use of "pingouin" to refer to penguins as
"abusif", so I guess some people do use it that way. But I find it hard
to believe that colloquial French would have a special word for one
species of penguin. Where did you get this from?
Ross Clark
Raymond S. Wise
I don't know the answer to your question, but I do have one observation to
make on the subject: English--or at least, American English--now has a
"dried X" version which French does not have: "dried plums," formerly
"prunes." The French for "plum" is "prune" and for "prune" is "pruneau."
This means that English now has the word pair "plum"/"dried plum" which
matches the Esperanto "logical" pair "pruno"/"sekpruno."
In this case, "dried plum" was adopted for marketing purposes: "Prune" had
too many negative connotations, I guess. So far, I don't know anyone who
regularly uses "dried plum" for "prune."
A friend of mine with whom I discussed this pointed out that in Asian
markets here it has long been possible to get "dried plums" imported from
Asia (from China, if I remember correctly). She said that they taste very
different from prunes, and wondered if any attempt is going to be made to
rename them in light of the renaming of American prunes as "dried plums."
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Peter T. Daniels
Is "abusif" a faux ami? I don't see how a bird name could be caconymic.
Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Peter T. Daniels
Nu, who's calling prunes "dried plums"?
Aaron J. Dinkin
> Nu, who's calling prunes "dried plums"?
Sunsweet, for example:
http://www.sunsweet.com/gifts.cfm?price=0%2C5
The page cited seems to use both "prunes" and "dried plums" for plain
prunes, but prunes with another fruit flavor added are called only "dried
plums".
(Aside: I've had their Orange Essence Dried Plums. Very weird. Smell like
oranges and taste like prunes. I liked them a lot, though.)
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
<news:400341...@worldnet.att.net> in
alt.usage.english,sci.lang:
> benlizross wrote:
[...]
>> Another
>> dictionary described the use of "pingouin" to refer to penguins as
>> "abusif", so I guess some people do use it that way.
[...]
> Is "abusif" a faux ami?
Apparently. The (oldish) bilingual that I use glosses it
'irregular, improper, contrary to rule or usage; excessive'.
[...]
Brian
Jim Ward
> There's no system or tendency to it, and it goes in both directions,
> regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of French and
> English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where English has "penguin" and
> "emperor penguin", except that most people wouldn't make a point of
> distinguishing emperor penguins from the others in non-technical speech.
> French breaks owls down into two categories, "hibou" and "chouette," where
> ordinary English makes no distinction at all.
In French, paper clips and trombones are both "trombones". Go figure.
Michael Hamm
in part:
> > > I've noticed that English tends to have separate nouns for objects,
> > > such as, "grapes" and "raisins" whereas French only differentiates
> > > between "raisins" ans "raisims secs."
> > There's no system or tendency to it, and it goes in both directions,
> > regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of French
> > and English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where English has
> > no distinction at all.
>
> It's a similar owl story in Spanish, where they distingiush between
> *lechuzas* (barn owls) and *buhos* (all other owls). They also
> distinguish between the first and second fig crops (*brevas* and
> *higos*). However, as with the OP's raisins, they don't have any
> equivalent special word for prunes -- they're just "passed-it plums",
> while any wardrobe or cupboard (i.e. a storage space with a door) is
> just an *armario*.
Early and late fig crops remind me of early and late rains, which have
different words in Biblical Hebrew (yore and malkosh, resp. Or irresp.
I forget which).
And, of course, there are 3,434,254,367,834 words for 'snow' in Eskimo.
(J/k.)
Michael Hamm Since mid-September of 2003,
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis I've been erasing too much UBE.
msh...@math.wustl.edu Of a reply, then, if you have been cheated,
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ Likely your mail's by mistake been deleted.
Oliver Cromm
Intuitively I do think that English uses separate terms more often where
German prefers compounds, although there are for sure some example to
the contrary between those two languages, too. I suspect the English
preference for short (optimally one-syllable) words as a culprit. That's
just a hypothesis, as I haven't got around to a quantitative analysis.
Oliver C.
benlizross
If they're the ones I'm thinking of, they are salted and spiced as well
-- a totally different experience from prunes, which the American market
at least seems to like sweet and un-dry.
Ross Clark
Harlan Messinger
I couldn't possibly tell you, but I seem to have been wrong. Hmm. And
there's a character on fr.lettres.langue.francaise whose moniker is
"Nestor le pingouin". Now I have to change my mental image of him.
--
Harlan Messinger
Remove the first dot from my e-mail address.
Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel.
Raymond S. Wise
news:btv806$ali55$1...@ID-114100.news.uni-berlin.de...
There's a curious situation with the French words "chameau" and
"dromadaire." If you use the word "chameau" when referring to a dromedary
(an Arabian camel), French people will tend to correct you. "Chameau," they
insist, is the two-humped camel (the Bactrian camel). However, the word
"chameau" is traditionally used in French translations of the Bible when the
camel in question would presumably have been the dromedary, as in Matthew
19:24 (Louis Segond translation): "Je vous le dis encore, il est plus facile
ą un chameau de passer par le trou d'une aiguille qu'ą un riche d'entrer
dans le royaume de Dieu." In the King James (Authorized) Version, "And again
I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Peter T. Daniels
None of which would seem to apply to naming antarctic birds!
Peter T. Daniels
Not a bad marketing idea to come up with a _new_ lexical item for a
_new_ product.
It seems odd that you can taste a taste different from the smell you
smell, since most of "taste" is smell anyway.
Welch's has a new line of blended fruit juices, with commercials with a
very small boy saying he can taste both flavors at once. Can anyone
verify the claim? (The stuff is too expensive -- almost twice the price
of orange juice -- for me to experiment.)
Peter T. Daniels
In English, another brasswind instrument and a snack cracker are both
"bugles." Go figure.
Peter T. Daniels
I'd like to see the lexicon that lists them all!
Richard Steiner has a new monograph on three words in the book of Amos,
having to do with figiculture.
An advance over his two previous monographs, which dealt with one
consonant each.
Peter T. Daniels
Is he abusive?
Donna Richoux
>
> Intuitively I do think that English uses separate terms more often where
> German prefers compounds, although there are for sure some example to
> the contrary between those two languages, too. I suspect the English
> preference for short (optimally one-syllable) words as a culprit. That's
> just a hypothesis, as I haven't got around to a quantitative analysis.
I know only a sprinkling of German, but I've been learning Dutch for
some time. From what I've gathered, *every* time you need to put a noun
in front of a noun to modify it, in Dutch, you make it into a compound.
So what in English would be "horse race" and "raincoat factory" and
"hospital insurance" wind up being the equivalent of "horserace,"
"raincoatfactory," and "hospitalinsurance." (Unless there happened to be
some other, simpler word that meant that phrase, of course.)
Grammatically, you simply can't do otherwise. You just don't find loose
attributive nouns floating around in front other nouns.
I don't think the *feel* of how these noun phrases work is really any
different than English, but the way they are written is. You write them
without a space. And if a word is a bunch of letters between two spaces,
then...
I'll tell you what's odd, though, is that there are other places where I
would expect compounding and the Dutch don't do it. In sentences like
"In the never to be forgotten movie..." Somehow they don't see any need
to tie together phrases like "never-to-be-forgotten."
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Donna Richoux
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
> >
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote
> >
> > > benlizross wrote:
Restoring half the quote:
>>> I doubt that any two French speakers will agree with this. My 1950s
>>> Petit Larousse says that "pingouin" refers to auks and their kin
>>> (northern birds), and "manchot" is general for penguins. Another
>>> dictionary described the use of "pingouin" to refer to penguins as
>>> "abusif", so I guess some people do use it that way.
> > [...]
> >
> > > Is "abusif" a faux ami?
> >
> > Apparently. The (oldish) bilingual that I use glosses it
> > 'irregular, improper, contrary to rule or usage; excessive'.
>
> None of which would seem to apply to naming antarctic birds!
My French-English dictionaries agree that "abusif" can mean
"Grammatically improper" or "contrary to usage, wrong." Somebody, the
1950s Petit Larousse, was trying to say that the Antarctic bird
shouldn't be called a "pingouin" because it wasn't one, in their view of
things. Like benlizross said, they felt that the name "pingouin" should
be reserved for auks.
Does that mean that we English speakers borrowed the word "penguin" from
the French, applying it to (what we know as) penguins instead? Or
perhaps some other language is involved... Apparently we got the name
"penguin" from Welsh, and we used to use it to mean the auk, too.
American Heritage marks that meaning as obsolete, and says:
ETYMOLOGY: Possibly from Welsh pen gwyn, White Head
(name of an island in Newfoundland), great auk :
pen, chief, head + gwynn, white
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
Javi
> "Harlan Messinger" <h.mes...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:btv806$ali55$1...@ID-114100.news.uni-berlin.de...
>>
>> <cbro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:e5f1f0e7.04011...@posting.google.com...
>>> I've noticed that English tends to have separate nouns for objects,
>>> such as, "grapes" and "raisins" whereas French only differentiates
>>> between "raisins"
>>> ans "raisims secs." Is there any reason for this?
>>
>> There's no system or tendency to it, and it goes in both directions,
>> regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of
>> French and English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where
>> English has "penguin" and "emperor penguin", except that most people
>> wouldn't make a point of distinguishing emperor penguins from the
>> others in non-technical speech. French breaks owls down into two
>> categories, "hibou" and "chouette," where ordinary English makes no
>> distinction at all.
>
>
> There's a curious situation with the French words "chameau" and
> "dromadaire." If you use the word "chameau" when referring to a
> dromedary (an Arabian camel), French people will tend to correct you.
> "Chameau," they insist, is the two-humped camel (the Bactrian camel).
Same as in Spanish: "camello" and "dromedario".
> However, the word "chameau" is traditionally used in French
> translations of the Bible when the camel in question would presumably
> have been the dromedary, as in Matthew 19:24 (Louis Segond
> translation): "Je vous le dis encore, il est plus facile à un chameau
> de passer par le trou d'une aiguille qu'à un riche d'entrer dans le
> royaume de Dieu." In the King James (Authorized) Version, "And again
> I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
> needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
No, it was not a camel nor a dromedary. There was a mistake by St.
Hyeronimus in his translation of the Gospels from Greek to Latin. The Greek
word used was "kamilos" (thick rope), but it was understood as "kame:los"
(camel). So, the translation should be:
"And again I say unto you, It is easier for a *rope* to go through the eye
of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
--
Saludos cordiales
Javi
Mood conjugation:
I enjoy a drop
You never say no
He is an alcoholic
(Craig Brown)
Harlan Messinger
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:4003E8...@worldnet.att.net...
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >
> > I couldn't possibly tell you, but I seem to have been wrong. Hmm. And
> > there's a character on fr.lettres.langue.francaise whose moniker is
> > "Nestor le pingouin". Now I have to change my mental image of him.
>
> Is he abusive?
He can be if he feels one has been "abusif" of France or the French
language. His *full* identifier (I previously gave a shortened version) is
"Nestor le pingouin pour la France", so you can imagine his sentiments on
the subject.
I'm sure there's a story behind this, and it's probably been discussed at
length in f.l.l.f. (the word "palmipčde" comes up from time to time as an
apparent allusion to a bit of f.l.l.f. lore), but I never followed it.
Des Small
> Oliver Cromm <c1...@er.uqam.ca> wrote:
> >
> > Intuitively I do think that English uses separate terms more often where
> > German prefers compounds, although there are for sure some example to
> > the contrary between those two languages, too. I suspect the English
> > preference for short (optimally one-syllable) words as a culprit. That's
> > just a hypothesis, as I haven't got around to a quantitative analysis.
>
> I know only a sprinkling of German, but I've been learning Dutch for
> some time. From what I've gathered, *every* time you need to put a noun
> in front of a noun to modify it, in Dutch, you make it into a compound.
> So what in English would be "horse race" and "raincoat factory" and
> "hospital insurance" wind up being the equivalent of "horserace,"
> "raincoatfactory," and "hospitalinsurance." (Unless there happened to be
> some other, simpler word that meant that phrase, of course.)
> Grammatically, you simply can't do otherwise. You just don't find loose
> attributive nouns floating around in front other nouns.
>
> I don't think the *feel* of how these noun phrases work is really any
> different than English, but the way they are written is. You write them
> without a space. And if a word is a bunch of letters between two spaces,
> then...
Quite so. English has compoundnounsyndrome just the same as the other
flavours of Germanic, but the orthography is terribly misleading about
it.
Not noticing this is a very important ingredient in pretending that
English got all creoled-up by the Normans, or that "compound" in
"compound noun" is an adjective, though, so don't expect to convince
everyone anytime soon.
[...]
Des
's spellingreformproposals would probably be less popular than most
--
"[T]he structural trend in linguistics which took root with the
International Congresses of the twenties and early thirties [...] had
close and effective connections with phenomenology in its Husserlian
and Hegelian versions." -- Roman Jakobson
R H Draney
>
>No, it was not a camel nor a dromedary. There was a mistake by St.
>Hyeronimus in his translation of the Gospels from Greek to Latin. The Greek
>word used was "kamilos" (thick rope), but it was understood as "kame:los"
>(camel). So, the translation should be:
>
> "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a *rope* to go through the eye
>of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
This is the same sort of thing that led Michelangelo to depict Moses with horns
rather than with a halo....r
John Dean
OED confirms that the term was originally used in English for the Auks:
<< It appears that the name was first given to the Great Auk or Gare-fowl of
the seas of Newfoundland, still called in F. pingouin or pinguin (1600 in
Hatz.-Darm.). But it was soon applied also to the birds now called penguins,
in F. manchots (found by Drake at Magellan's Straits in 1578), which have a
general external resemblance to the northern bird, though, in the opinion of
zoologists, widely removed in structure. In this sense, also, Du. and Ger.
pinguin, Da. and Sw. pingvin, all from English.] >>
OED also has a long item on etymology which I won't reproduce except for the
conclusion:
<< The attribution of the name penguin to ‘the Welsh men’, and its
explanation as Welsh pen gwyn ‘white head’, appears also in Ingram, and
later in Sir Thomas Herbert's Travels—in ed. 1634 as a surmise, in ed. 1638
as an accepted fact. But, besides that the Great Auk had not a white head
(though it had white spots in front of the eyes), there are obvious
historical difficulties, which some would remove in part by supposing the
name to have been originally given by Breton fishermen. Other suggestions
that the name is derived from L. pinguis ‘fat’, or is an alteration of
‘pin-wing’, referring to the rudimentary wings, are merely unsupported
conjectures. >>
There seems to be something of a tradition in English of giving names to
creatures and then applying the name to a different creature. See Turkey /
Guinea Fowl passim.
It seems that 'penguin' was recorded in English earlier than 'pingouin' in
French.
--
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply
André Keshav
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net>
> Is "abusif" a faux ami? I don't see how a bird name could be caconymic.
>
> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
orteil and patate.
André Keshav
"Jim Ward" <tomca...@NyOaShPoAoM.com>
> In French, paper clips and trombones are both "trombones". Go figure.
Because trombones are shaped like paper clips.
Harvey Van Sickle
-snip-
> In French, paper clips and trombones are both "trombones". Go
> figure.
I guess Steve Martin was wrong: the French *don't* have a different
word for everything.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 21 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs)
howard richler
It seems to me that English offers more choices for words than French
does. I believe this is because English has a three-tiered vocabulary
of Anglo-Saxon, French and classical synonyms from Greek and Latin
that affords us at least three choices when we're searching for le mot
juste. Some examples are:
Anglo-Saxon French Greek-Latin
ask question interrogate
big large voluminous
end finish conclude
kingly royal regal
rise mount ascend
fear terror trepidation
Louisa Hennessy
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
Can someone tell me what "go figure" means? I have been trying to work it out
from these two examples, but I can't.
--
Louisa
Essex, England, Europe
Mark B. VanLiere
news:feb755de.04011...@posting.google.com:
> It seems to me that English offers more choices for words than French
> does. I believe this is because English has a three-tiered vocabulary
> of Anglo-Saxon, French and classical synonyms from Greek and Latin
> that affords us at least three choices when we're searching for le mot
> juste. Some examples are:
>
> Anglo-Saxon French Greek-Latin
> ask question interrogate
> big large voluminous
> end finish conclude
> kingly royal regal
> rise mount ascend
> fear terror trepidation
>
But, alas, no good equivalent for "le mot juste".
Other French phrases I find myself using for want of terse English
alternatives:
ca va (both the question and the response)
ce m'est egal (or the roughly equivalent German: machts nichts)
la bas (a bilingual friend suggested "yonder")
Mark
(with apologies for the lack of French diacritical marks)
----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
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Harlan Messinger
"Mark B. VanLiere" <mb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:Xns946F625CC...@38.119.100.146...
> hric...@sympatico.ca (howard richler) wrote in
> news:feb755de.04011...@posting.google.com:
> >
> > It seems to me that English offers more choices for words than French
> > does. I believe this is because English has a three-tiered vocabulary
> > of Anglo-Saxon, French and classical synonyms from Greek and Latin
> > that affords us at least three choices when we're searching for le mot
> > juste. Some examples are:
> >
> > Anglo-Saxon French Greek-Latin
> > ask question interrogate
> > big large voluminous
> > end finish conclude
> > kingly royal regal
> > rise mount ascend
> > fear terror trepidation
> >
>
> But, alas, no good equivalent for "le mot juste".
>
> Other French phrases I find myself using for want of terse English
> alternatives:
>
> ca va (both the question and the response)
That's not terser than "OK?" "OK!"
> ce m'est egal (or the roughly equivalent German: machts nichts)
"I don't care", "Doesn't matter" no wordier.
Donna Richoux
Louisa, I remember asking about this once -- 1997, it was. You can find
the complete thread by going to Google Advanced Group Search and pasting
in the Message ID <1997120214...@p012.hlm.euronet.nl>. I'm told
that some newsreaders treat Message IDs like email addresses, and render
them unreadable. It should be equivalent to:
19971202145852783734 at-sign p012.hlm.euronet.nl
Evan Kirshenbaum
> This is the same sort of thing that led Michelangelo to depict Moses
> with horns rather than with a halo....r
Where do you get a halo from? Ex 34:29/35 talk about the *skin of his
face* "giving off rays/beams (literally 'horns') of light". (Hebrew
"karan")
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The great thing about Microsoft
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |dominating the world is that
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |there's no shortage of support
|opportunities.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Sam Alvis
(650)857-7572
Peter T. Daniels
> OED also has a long item on etymology which I won't reproduce except for the
> conclusion:
>
> << The attribution of the name penguin to ‘the Welsh men’, and its
> explanation as Welsh pen gwyn ‘white head’, appears also in Ingram, and
> later in Sir Thomas Herbert's Travels—in ed. 1634 as a surmise, in ed. 1638
> as an accepted fact. But, besides that the Great Auk had not a white head
> (though it had white spots in front of the eyes), there are obvious
> historical difficulties, which some would remove in part by supposing the
> name to have been originally given by Breton fishermen. Other suggestions
> that the name is derived from L. pinguis ‘fat’, or is an alteration of
> ‘pin-wing’, referring to the rudimentary wings, are merely unsupported
> conjectures. >>
Could one really write "besides that ..." and "had not ..." in 1910 or
so (what's the date of the Penguin fascicle?) for "besides the fact
that" and "did not have"?
Peter T. Daniels
What's that, Canadian or something?
Harlan Messinger
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:400341...@worldnet.att.net...
> benlizross wrote:
> >
> > Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > >
> > > <cbro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > news:e5f1f0e7.04011...@posting.google.com...
> > > > I've noticed that English tends to have separate nouns for objects,
> > > > such as, "grapes" and "raisins" whereas French only differentiates
> > > > between "raisins"
> > > > ans "raisims secs." Is there any reason for this?
> > >
> > > regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of French
and
> > > English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where English has
"penguin" and
> > > "emperor penguin", except that most people wouldn't make a point of
> > > distinguishing emperor penguins from the others in non-technical
speech.
> >
> > Petit Larousse says that "pingouin" refers to auks and their kin
> > (northern birds), and "manchot" is general for penguins. Another
> > dictionary described the use of "pingouin" to refer to penguins as
> > to believe that colloquial French would have a special word for one
> > species of penguin. Where did you get this from?
>
>
> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
"Toe" is "orteil". You may be thinking of Spanish, which I think has "dedo
de pie".
Javi
> André Keshav wrote:
>>
>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net>
>>
>>> Is "abusif" a faux ami? I don't see how a bird name could be
>>> caconymic.
>>>
>>> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
>>
>> orteil and patate.
>
> What's that, Canadian or something?
I don't think so. They both are in my small, and not very good, Cuyas
French-Spanish dictionary. What dictionary are you using? I ask in order to
know which dictionary not to buy.
R H Draney
>
>R H Draney <dado...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>> This is the same sort of thing that led Michelangelo to depict Moses
>> with horns rather than with a halo....r
>
>Where do you get a halo from? Ex 34:29/35 talk about the *skin of his
>face* "giving off rays/beams (literally 'horns') of light". (Hebrew
>"karan")
Since hearing of the "beams of light" reading, I've always understood it as
simply someone else's [1] description of a glory....r
[1] Apparently his own; tradition has it that Moses himself took down the words
of the Pentateuch, which leads to questions about the last few verses of
Deuteronomy describing the circumstances of his death....
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels escribió :
>
> > André Keshav wrote:
> >>
> >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net>
> >>
> >>> Is "abusif" a faux ami? I don't see how a bird name could be
> >>> caconymic.
> >>>
> >>> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
> >>
> >> orteil and patate.
> >
> > What's that, Canadian or something?
>
> I don't think so. They both are in my small, and not very good, Cuyas
> French-Spanish dictionary. What dictionary are you using? I ask in order to
> know which dictionary not to buy.
I didn't look in a dictionary; I learned 40+ years ago "doigt de pied"
and "pomme de terre."
Peter T. Daniels
Nope, I don't know any Spanish. Doigt de pied.
Javi
That's right. In Spanish we do not have different words for "finger" and
"toe": they both are "dedos"; if precission is required, we add "de la mano"
or "del pie".
Ross Howard
wrought:
You make up for it with *oído* and *oreja*, though ( the Q-tippable
and sticky-out bits, respectively, of ears), and you also neatly
distinguish between *pelo* and *vello* (head and body hair).
--
Ross Howard
benlizross
Petit Larousse (1959) :
ORTEIL n.m. (lat. _articulus_, jointure). Doigt du pied, et _spécialem._
le gros doigt, quón appelle aussi _gros orteil_.
PATATE n.f. (esp. _batate_). Plante cultivée en Amérique tropical et en
Chine pour sa racine comestible à tubercules (Familie des
convolvulacées.)// Cette racine. // _Fam._ Pomme de terre.
In other words, for PL patate means in the first instance what we would
call a sweet potato, but is informally used for potato.
Interestingly, a more recent small Eng/Fr dictionary, while giving only
"pomme de terre" as a translation for "potato", translates "patate" as
"spud". They also give "(pommes de terre) frites" for "french fries",
where I seemed to recall hearing only "(patates) frites".
Ross Clark
Harlan Messinger
Never hoid of it. I see that it exists, but I never heard of it. FWIW it
gets 394 AltaVista hits versus almost 11,000 for "orteil".
Harlan Messinger
"Ross Howard" <ggu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:o0k80090ppp633gce...@4ax.com...
French does too, BUT "poil" goes with body hair (and individual hairs in
general), while "cheveux" is for head hair (though for the singular I think
they usually fall back on "poil", even though "cheveu" exists).
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > Javi wrote:
> > >
> > > Peter T. Daniels escribió :
> > >
> > > > André Keshav wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net>
> > > >>
> > > >>> Is "abusif" a faux ami? I don't see how a bird name could be
> > > >>> caconymic.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
> > > >>
> > > >> orteil and patate.
> > > >
> > > > What's that, Canadian or something?
> > >
> > > I don't think so. They both are in my small, and not very good, Cuyas
> > > French-Spanish dictionary. What dictionary are you using? I ask in order to
> > > know which dictionary not to buy.
> >
> > I didn't look in a dictionary; I learned 40+ years ago "doigt de pied"
> > and "pomme de terre."
> > --
> > Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
>
> Petit Larousse (1959) :
>
> ORTEIL n.m. (lat. _articulus_, jointure). Doigt du pied, et _spécialem._
> le gros doigt, quón appelle aussi _gros orteil_.
>
> PATATE n.f. (esp. _batate_). Plante cultivée en Amérique tropical et en
> Chine pour sa racine comestible à tubercules (Familie des
> convolvulacées.)// Cette racine. // _Fam._ Pomme de terre.
Gack, they give you consumption! Now _that's_ abusive.
> In other words, for PL patate means in the first instance what we would
> call a sweet potato, but is informally used for potato.
>
> Interestingly, a more recent small Eng/Fr dictionary, while giving only
> "pomme de terre" as a translation for "potato", translates "patate" as
> "spud". They also give "(pommes de terre) frites" for "french fries",
> where I seemed to recall hearing only "(patates) frites".
The Belgian fries places that sprouted all over the Village & East
Village over the last few years call them "pommes frites." (And one of
the dipping sauces offered is "mayonnaise," which has nothing to do with
Hellman's.)
J. J. Lodder
> tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote:
>
> > Oliver Cromm <c1...@er.uqam.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >> Intuitively I do think that English uses separate terms more
> >> often where German prefers compounds, although there are for sure
> >> some example to the contrary between those two languages, too. I
> >> suspect the English preference for short (optimally one-syllable)
> >> words as a culprit. That's just a hypothesis, as I haven't got
> >> around to a quantitative analysis.
> >
> > I know only a sprinkling of German, but I've been learning Dutch
> > for some time. From what I've gathered, *every* time you need to
> > put a noun in front of a noun to modify it, in Dutch, you make it
> > into a compound. So what in English would be "horse race" and
> > "raincoat factory" and "hospital insurance" wind up being the
> > equivalent of "horserace," "raincoatfactory," and
> > "hospitalinsurance."
>
> Oh, I sure count the English ones as compounds, too, I don"t care for
> a few space marks in the middle. I still feel there are more cases
> where English says something unanalyzable like "sandwich" [1] and in
> German it is just "belegtes Brot" (roughly "bread with something laid
> on it"), to quote the first example that comes to mind.
The absence of spaces does make the hyphenation problem
in languages like German and Dutch
far more difficult than it is in English though.
Another consequence is that there is no such thing
as a longest word in Dutch.
Words can in principle have infinite [1] length.
'Opperlands" by Battus gives some examples,
Jan
[1] Infinite in the mathematical sense:
given a number of letters you can invent a word that is longer.
20- or 30 letter words are not uncommon.
They even occur in spell-checking dictionaries.
J. J. Lodder
> Oliver Cromm <c1...@er.uqam.ca> wrote:
> >
> > Intuitively I do think that English uses separate terms more often where
> > German prefers compounds, although there are for sure some example to
> > the contrary between those two languages, too. I suspect the English
> > preference for short (optimally one-syllable) words as a culprit. That's
> > just a hypothesis, as I haven't got around to a quantitative analysis.
>
> I know only a sprinkling of German, but I've been learning Dutch for
> some time. From what I've gathered, *every* time you need to put a noun
> in front of a noun to modify it, in Dutch, you make it into a compound.
> So what in English would be "horse race" and "raincoat factory" and
> "hospital insurance" wind up being the equivalent of "horserace,"
> "raincoatfactory," and "hospitalinsurance." (Unless there happened to be
> some other, simpler word that meant that phrase, of course.)
Now that you put it this way it appears a bit surprising that it
wouldn't be rain coat factory.
> Grammatically, you simply can't do otherwise. You just don't find loose
> attributive nouns floating around in front other nouns.
>
> I don't think the *feel* of how these noun phrases work is really any
> different than English, but the way they are written is. You write them
> without a space. And if a word is a bunch of letters between two spaces,
> then...
Yes, and in some cases the compound word
acquires an additional letter 's' between the parts.
('scheepvaart', but 'scheepsbeschuit')
> I'll tell you what's odd, though, is that there are other places where I
> would expect compounding and the Dutch don't do it. In sentences like
> "In the never to be forgotten movie..." Somehow they don't see any need
> to tie together phrases like "never-to-be-forgotten."
You can use both 'de onvergetelijke film' and
'een film om nooit te vergeten'.
The 'nooit te vergeten film' would be correct,
but cumbersome and unusual.
You could suspect a speaker using the phrase
of not being native.
Best,
Jan
Jerry Friedman
> Raymond S. Wise escribió :
...
> > However, the word "chameau" is traditionally used in French
> > translations of the Bible when the camel in question would presumably
> > have been the dromedary, as in Matthew 19:24 (Louis Segond
> > translation): "Je vous le dis encore, il est plus facile à un chameau
> > de passer par le trou d'une aiguille qu'à un riche d'entrer dans le
> > royaume de Dieu." In the King James (Authorized) Version, "And again
> > I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
> > needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
>
> No, it was not a camel nor a dromedary. There was a mistake by St.
> Hyeronimus
A valiant effort, but he's called "St. Jerome" in English. The only
Hieronymus I know of is Bosch.
> in his translation of the Gospels from Greek to Latin. The Greek
> word used was "kamilos" (thick rope), but it was understood as "kame:los"
> (camel). So, the translation should be:
>
> "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a *rope* to go through the eye
> of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
--
Jerry Friedman
Donna Richoux
> Donna Richoux <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:
>
> > Oliver Cromm <c1...@er.uqam.ca> wrote:
> > >
> > > Intuitively I do think that English uses separate terms more often where
> > > German prefers compounds, although there are for sure some example to
> > > the contrary between those two languages, too. I suspect the English
> > > preference for short (optimally one-syllable) words as a culprit. That's
> > > just a hypothesis, as I haven't got around to a quantitative analysis.
> >
> > I know only a sprinkling of German, but I've been learning Dutch for
> > some time. From what I've gathered, *every* time you need to put a noun
> > in front of a noun to modify it, in Dutch, you make it into a compound.
> > So what in English would be "horse race" and "raincoat factory" and
> > "hospital insurance" wind up being the equivalent of "horserace,"
> > "raincoatfactory," and "hospitalinsurance." (Unless there happened to be
> > some other, simpler word that meant that phrase, of course.)
>
> Now that you put it this way it appears a bit surprising that it
> wouldn't be rain coat factory.
Well, we *do* make *some* compounds, you know. Given enough time.
>
> > I'll tell you what's odd, though, is that there are other places where I
> > would expect compounding and the Dutch don't do it. In sentences like
> > "In the never to be forgotten movie..." Somehow they don't see any need
> > to tie together phrases like "never-to-be-forgotten."
>
> You can use both 'de onvergetelijke film' and
> 'een film om nooit te vergeten'.
> The 'nooit te vergeten film' would be correct,
> but cumbersome and unusual.
> You could suspect a speaker using the phrase
> of not being native.
>
Right. My fault for trying to mimic something close to what I meant when
I couldn't think of a real example. I wasn't sure if
"never-to-be-forgotten" was one of the actual cases I'd seen, but it
conveyed the sense I wanted: a short phrase used as a modifier, usually
in the opening of a sentence.
I don't suppose you can think of a real Dutch example of that sort of
thing? Sorry I can't.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
An American living in the Netherlands
Tom Breton
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:400341...@worldnet.att.net...
>
[...]
> > Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
>
> "Toe" is "orteil". You may be thinking of Spanish, which I think has "dedo
> de pie".
As I learned it, French uses "doigt de pied" and "pomme de terre".
Like Andre, I've also heard "patate" for "sweet potato" from
French-Canadians.
--
Tom Breton at panix.com, username tehom. http://www.panix.com/~tehom
John Dean
> Peter T. Daniels escribió :
>
>> André Keshav wrote:
>>>
>>> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net>
>>>
>>>> Is "abusif" a faux ami? I don't see how a bird name could be
>>>> caconymic.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
>>>
>>> orteil and patate.
>>
>> What's that, Canadian or something?
>
> I don't think so. They both are in my small, and not very good, Cuyas
> French-Spanish dictionary. What dictionary are you using? I ask in
> order to know which dictionary not to buy.
>
'patate' is translated as 'spud'
--
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply
Michael Hamm
wrote, in part:
> there is no such thing as a longest word in Dutch.
> [1] Infinite in the mathematical sense:
> given a number of letters you can invent a word that is longer.
That's not "'infinite' in the mathematical sense". A mathematician would
say "there's no upper bound on the length of Dutch words" or "Dutch words
can be of arbitrarily long length" (different from "of arbitrary length"
which implies also that they can be of one letter).
Michael Hamm Since mid-September of 2003,
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis I've been erasing too much UBE.
msh...@math.wustl.edu Of a reply, then, if you have been cheated,
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ Likely your mail's by mistake been deleted.
Michael Hamm
in part:
> tradition has it that Moses himself took down the words of the
> Pentateuch, which leads to questions about the last few verses of
> Deuteronomy describing the circumstances of his death....
... which are dealt with nicely in the Talmud.
Michael Hamm
wrote, in part:
> Can someone tell me what "go figure" means?
"It's an oddity." (I.e., "Go see if you can figure out why.")
Robert Bannister
> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
Orteil; patate.
--
Rob Bannister
Dik T. Winter
> On 13 Jan 2004, Jim Ward wrote
> > In French, paper clips and trombones are both "trombones". Go
> > figure.
>
> word for everything.
But the English do have different words for every animal that is eatable.
"Pig"/"pork", "calf"/"veal". Apparently, as soon as you eat it it has
to be called something different. ;-) for the unweary.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
Robert Bannister
> André Keshav wrote:
>
>>"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net>
>>>Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
>>
>>orteil and patate.
>
>
> What's that, Canadian or something?
'Orteil' may not be used much, but 'patate' is used by many French people.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
So what you learned is not always true.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> You can use both 'de onvergetelijke film' and
> 'een film om nooit te vergeten'.
> The 'nooit te vergeten film' would be correct,
> but cumbersome and unusual.
> You could suspect a speaker using the phrase
> of not being native.
And, I guess, in German, one could say 'ein nie zu vergessender Film',
but it doesn't seem all that natural.
--
Rob Bannister
Dik T. Winter
> tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote:
...
> > I'll tell you what's odd, though, is that there are other places
> > where I would expect compounding and the Dutch don't do it. In
> > sentences like "In the never to be forgotten movie..." Somehow
> > they don't see any need to tie together phrases like
> > "never-to-be-forgotten."
>
> themselves to compounding nearly as easily as nouns.
Dutch: "onvergetelijk". But indeed, compounding of nouns is common,
other compounding in general indicates a change of meaning, and done
much less than in German. But I think there is a change of meaning
also in German with other compoundings: not every "kleine Bus" is a
"Kleinbus". In Dutch "kleinbus" is not really valid (but I know a
company that uses it). And so is "Großstadt" not only a big city,
there are different connotations.
Robert Bannister
> Nu, who's calling prunes "dried plums"?
A Slav friend of mine, despite being corrected many times, pronounces
'prawns' as 'prunes'. This makes for strange conversations. Recently, he
told me he cooked a kilogram of prunes for Christmas Day lunch.
--
Rob Bannister
Dik T. Winter
...
> [1] Infinite in the mathematical sense:
> given a number of letters you can invent a word that is longer.
> 20- or 30 letter words are not uncommon.
> They even occur in spell-checking dictionaries.
The longest I have in one of my online dictionaries is:
levensverzekeringsmaatschappijen
which is even quite common.
Dik T. Winter
> benlizross wrote:
...
> > Interestingly, a more recent small Eng/Fr dictionary, while giving only
> > "pomme de terre" as a translation for "potato", translates "patate" as
> > "spud". They also give "(pommes de terre) frites" for "french fries",
> > where I seemed to recall hearing only "(patates) frites".
>
> The Belgian fries places that sprouted all over the Village & East
> Village over the last few years call them "pommes frites." (And one of
> the dipping sauces offered is "mayonnaise," which has nothing to do with
> Hellman's.)
Well, as the Belgians are the inventors of the French fries, they may
have something to say about it. But in Belgium they are called "frieten"
of "frites" (depending on where you are). "Pommes frites" are something
different: fried sliced or complete potatoes (sliced meaning sliced in
only one direction, so you get round slices). Frieten are deep-fried.
In France you can in most restaurants not get french fries, unless you
go to a MacDonald's or something similar. But you will see "pommes
frites". I think that you might occasionally see it as "patates frites"
in France. Here in Amsterdam there are a few shops selling "Vlaamse
frieten", but we call it "patat".
Harlan Messinger
>In article <Xns946F9DC3...@194.168.222.40> Harvey Van Sickle <harve...@ntlworld.com> writes:
> > On 13 Jan 2004, Jim Ward wrote
> > > In French, paper clips and trombones are both "trombones". Go
> > > figure.
> >
> > I guess Steve Martin was wrong: the French *don't* have a different
> > word for everything.
>
>But the English do have different words for every animal that is eatable.
>"Pig"/"pork", "calf"/"veal". Apparently, as soon as you eat it it has
>to be called something different. ;-) for the unweary.
Not every animal, or even most: chicken/chicken, duck/duck, fish/fish,
shrimp/shrimp, etc.
--
Harlan Messinger
Remove the first dot from my e-mail address.
Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel.
Javi
> R H Draney <dado...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>> This is the same sort of thing that led Michelangelo to depict Moses
>> with horns rather than with a halo....r
>
> Where do you get a halo from? Ex 34:29/35 talk about the *skin of his
> face* "giving off rays/beams (literally 'horns') of light". (Hebrew
> "karan")
It seems that that has been discussed long ago; for instance, in Sir Thomas
Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica V:ix (pp. 286-288)(1646; 6th ed., 1672):
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo59.html
"The ground of this absurdity, was surely a mistake of the Hebrew Text, in
the History of Moses, when he descended from the mount; upon the affinity of
Kæren and Karan, that is, an horn, and to shine, which is one quality of
horn"
Footnote:
"Exod. 34.29, 35. [The Hebrew word Nrq is a Qal verb form (i.e., "Perfect"
state) and occurs as such only in this passage. It cannot be (properly)
translated by the English "with horns"; Ælfric translates the Latin cornuta
as "gehyrned", "behorned". The Septuagint has dedo/castai; Aquila, as Ross
says, has keratw&dhj h[n. That Jerome did not mean anything that we would
call "horns" is usually demonstrated by a passage from his Commentary on
Ezechial: "denique post quadraginta dies, vultum Moysi vulgus ignobile
caliganttibus oculis non videbat, quia 'glorificata erat,' sive, ut in
hebraico continetur, 'cornuta', facies Moysi". See Mellinkoff, pp. 77-87,
for a discussion of the horns from the perspective of translators and
commentators. Süring (page 428) points out the improbability of Moses' being
ignorant of horns, which, as she also remarks, are said to come not from the
forehead, but from the face."]
ObAUE: I see that Browne writes "an horn". Is the H in horn mute in some
dialects?
Tom Breton
> Raymond S. Wise wrote:
>
[...]
> > In this case, "dried plum" was adopted for marketing purposes: "Prune" had
> > too many negative connotations, I guess. So far, I don't know anyone who
> > regularly uses "dried plum" for "prune."
[...]
> Nu, who's calling prunes "dried plums"?
Supermarkets everywhere.
Jim Ward
> Not every animal, or even most: chicken/chicken, duck/duck, fish/fish,
> shrimp/shrimp, etc.
Unless my belly has been lying to me, there are several different kinds
of fish (canned, pecan encrusted) and duck (Peking, shot by neighbor).
But only one kind of chicken and shrimp (different sizes).
Raymond S. Wise
> Aaron J. Dinkin wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:54:36 GMT, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Nu, who's calling prunes "dried plums"?
> >
> >
> > http://www.sunsweet.com/gifts.cfm?price=0%2C5
> >
> > The page cited seems to use both "prunes" and "dried plums" for plain
> > prunes, but prunes with another fruit flavor added are called only "dried
> > plums".
> >
> > (Aside: I've had their Orange Essence Dried Plums. Very weird. Smell like
> > oranges and taste like prunes. I liked them a lot, though.)
>
> Not a bad marketing idea to come up with a _new_ lexical item for a
> _new_ product.
[...]
The name change was undertaken primarily to reverse the decline which
had been occurring in the sale of prunes, and it appears to have
successfully done so. It was necessary for growers to petition the
Food and Drug Administration to approve the change.
According to the article at
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/prune_plums020101.html
"Prune juice will still be prune juice, however. Dried fruit juice
would be a contradiction in terms, the industry was told by the Food
and Drug Administration."
And, "By agreement with the FDA, the term 'pitted prunes' will
continue to appear on packages in small letters for the next two
years."
That page mentions that the renaming is aimed at the US market only.
Exported prunes will continue to be labeled "prunes."
See also
http://www.cnn.com/2000/FOOD/news/09/13/prunes.reut/
where it says: "'People have told us that dried plums evoke a more
positive "fresh fruit goodness" image. They've said they're more
likely to eat dried plums than prunes,' said Richard Peterson,
executive director of the California Prune Board. But he had no plans
to rename his group the California Dried Plum Board."
Both Web pages mention the renaming of the "Chinese gooseberry" as the
"kiwifruit."
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Raymond S. Wise
> Raymond S. Wise escribió :
>
> > news:btv806$ali55$1...@ID-114100.news.uni-berlin.de...
> >>
> >> <cbro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >> news:e5f1f0e7.04011...@posting.google.com...
> >>> I've noticed that English tends to have separate nouns for objects,
> >>> such as, "grapes" and "raisins" whereas French only differentiates
> >>> between "raisins"
> >>> ans "raisims secs." Is there any reason for this?
> >>
> >> There's no system or tendency to it, and it goes in both directions,
> >> regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of
> >> French and English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where
> >> English has "penguin" and "emperor penguin", except that most people
> >> wouldn't make a point of distinguishing emperor penguins from the
> >> categories, "hibou" and "chouette," where ordinary English makes no
> >> distinction at all.
> >
> >
> > There's a curious situation with the French words "chameau" and
> > "dromadaire." If you use the word "chameau" when referring to a
> > dromedary (an Arabian camel), French people will tend to correct you.
> > "Chameau," they insist, is the two-humped camel (the Bactrian camel).
>
> Same as in Spanish: "camello" and "dromedario".
>
> > However, the word "chameau" is traditionally used in French
> > translations of the Bible when the camel in question would presumably
> > have been the dromedary, as in Matthew 19:24 (Louis Segond
> > translation): "Je vous le dis encore, il est plus facile à un chameau
> > de passer par le trou d'une aiguille qu'à un riche d'entrer dans le
> > royaume de Dieu." In the King James (Authorized) Version, "And again
> > I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
> > needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
>
> No, it was not a camel nor a dromedary. There was a mistake by St.
> word used was "kamilos" (thick rope), but it was understood as "kame:los"
> (camel). So, the translation should be:
>
> "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a *rope* to go through the eye
> of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
That explanation is doubtful. The following is from "The Bible: A
History of Composition and Interpretation" by Dr. Thomas L. Long:
From
http://www.tncc.vccs.edu/faculty/longt/REL200/intro-comp-interp.htm
"In addition, scholars comparing different manuscripts can detect
instances where a scribe has omitted or erroneously added letters or
words or phrases. For example, some biblical scholars (as early as the
ancient patristic Christian interpreters) have suggested that Jesus'
proverb that it was easier for a camel (Greek: _kamelos_) to pass
through the needle's eye than for a rich man to enter heaven, might
have resulted from a scribal error for the Greek word _kamilos,_ which
means 'rope.' (Later form criticism has rejected this assertion,
contending that the hyperbole of a camel trying to pass through a
needle's eye is quite consistent with Jewish proverbs.)"
I once met a couple here in Minneapolis who had been translating the
Bible into the language of a people living on an island in the South
Pacific. The couple also believed that Jesus did not use the word
"camel," but was instead talking of something that was difficult but
not impossible. So, they said, they translated the passage in question
with "as difficult as a pregnant woman walking downhill"!
André Keshav
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net>
> > Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
>
"dedo
> de pie".
"Doigt de pied" is commonly used as well.
J. J. Lodder
> In article <40046D...@worldnet.att.net> "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> > benlizross wrote:
> ...
> > > Interestingly, a more recent small Eng/Fr dictionary, while giving only
> > > "pomme de terre" as a translation for "potato", translates "patate" as
> > > "spud". They also give "(pommes de terre) frites" for "french fries",
> > > where I seemed to recall hearing only "(patates) frites".
> >
> > The Belgian fries places that sprouted all over the Village & East
> > Village over the last few years call them "pommes frites." (And one of
> > the dipping sauces offered is "mayonnaise," which has nothing to do with
> > Hellman's.)
>
> Well, as the Belgians are the inventors of the French fries, they may
> have something to say about it. But in Belgium they are called "frieten"
> of "frites" (depending on where you are). "Pommes frites" are something
> different: fried sliced or complete potatoes (sliced meaning sliced in
> only one direction, so you get round slices). Frieten are deep-fried.
> In France you can in most restaurants not get french fries, unless you
> go to a MacDonald's or something similar. But you will see "pommes
> frites". I think that you might occasionally see it as "patates frites"
> in France. Here in Amsterdam there are a few shops selling "Vlaamse
> frieten", but we call it "patat".
The 'Vlaamse Frieten' seems to be a rapidly expanding chain.
In a few years every little town will have one.
They may even push out McDonalds,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
> In article <1g7itlm.sb...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>
jjlxa2 1...@xs4all.nl writes:
> ...
> > [1] Infinite in the mathematical sense:
> > given a number of letters you can invent a word that is longer.
> > 20- or 30 letter words are not uncommon.
> > They even occur in spell-checking dictionaries.
>
> The longest I have in one of my online dictionaries is:
> levensverzekeringsmaatschappijen
> which is even quite common.
Grepping an easily accessible source
(the Dutch spelling dictionary that came with Excalibur,
which comes with many TeX implementations for Mac)
finds lots of 25 letter words, a handful of 30 letter ones,
and indeed the longest at 32, 'levensverzekeringsmaatschappijen'.
(life insurance companies)
The dictionary seems to have beeen obtained by sampling real usage.
Jan
J. J. Lodder
> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:04:44 +0100, J. J. Lodder <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl>
> wrote, in part:
> > there is no such thing as a longest word in Dutch.
> > Words can in principle have infinite [1] length. <snip>
> > [1] Infinite in the mathematical sense:
> > given a number of letters you can invent a word that is longer.
>
> That's not "'infinite' in the mathematical sense". A mathematician would
> say "there's no upper bound on the length of Dutch words" or "Dutch words
> can be of arbitrarily long length" (different from "of arbitrary length"
> which implies also that they can be of one letter).
Not for mathematicians among themselves,
but it is about what you can expect
when a mathematician tries to explain
the (Aristotelian) difference
between an actual and a potential infinite
to a layman.
And indeed, unlike French or English,
Dutch sadly lacks one-letter words,
which make a pi-rhyme in Dutch very difficult.
Jan
--
"Que j'aime a faire ......"
Yves Euld?de
But Brits have no word for "jouïr".
Dik T. Winter
> Dik T. Winter <Dik.W...@cwi.nl> wrote:
> > Here in Amsterdam there are a few shops selling "Vlaamse
> > frieten", but we call it "patat".
>
> The 'Vlaamse Frieten' seems to be a rapidly expanding chain.
Except that they are not a chain as far as I know.
Louisa Hennessy
louisah...@aol.com (Louisa Hennessy) writes:
>In article <4003E7...@worldnet.att.net>, "Peter T. Daniels"
><gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
>>Jim Ward wrote:
>>>
>>> In alt.usage.english Harlan Messinger <h.mes...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> > There's no system or tendency to it, and it goes in both directions,
>>> > regardless of the pair of languages. In the particular case of French
>and
>>> > English, French has "pingouin" and "manchot" where English has "penguin"
>>and
>>> > "emperor penguin", except that most people wouldn't make a point of
>>> > distinguishing emperor penguins from the others in non-technical speech.
>>> > French breaks owls down into two categories, "hibou" and "chouette,"
>>where
>>> > ordinary English makes no distinction at all.
>>>
>>> In French, paper clips and trombones are both "trombones". Go figure.
>>
>>In English, another brasswind instrument and a snack cracker are both
>>"bugles." Go figure.
>
>Can someone tell me what "go figure" means? I have been trying to work it out
>from these two examples, but I can't.
Sorry, I know it's bad form to answer one's own posting, but this is a genuine
question. I have often wondered exactly what "go figure" means, and would be
grateful if someone could let me know.
--
Louisa
Essex, England, Europe
Ross Howard
wrought:
> I have often wondered exactly what "go figure" means, and would be
>grateful if someone could let me know.
It exactly means "dot-matrix design composed of Chinese board-game
pieces".
(A clue: your closest Essex cognate is probably "Funny old world,
innit".)
--
Ross Howard
Peter T. Daniels
But prunes aren't the same thing as the dried plums mentioned previously
in this thread.
> Both Web pages mention the renaming of the "Chinese gooseberry" as the
> "kiwifruit."
Had anyone ever tried to import and widely market Chinese gooseberries?
I'd occasionally seen a picture of a gooseberry, but it never occurred
to me that a kiwi was a kind of gooseberry.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <40046D...@worldnet.att.net> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> > benlizross wrote:
> ...
> > > Interestingly, a more recent small Eng/Fr dictionary, while giving only
> > > "pomme de terre" as a translation for "potato", translates "patate" as
> > > "spud". They also give "(pommes de terre) frites" for "french fries",
> > > where I seemed to recall hearing only "(patates) frites".
> >
> > The Belgian fries places that sprouted all over the Village & East
> > Village over the last few years call them "pommes frites." (And one of
> > the dipping sauces offered is "mayonnaise," which has nothing to do with
> > Hellman's.)
>
> Well, as the Belgians are the inventors of the French fries, they may
Did _Belgium_ send troops to Iraq? Then they're still Freedom Fries.
(NPR did a little story on them last week -- the cafeteria manager in
one of the House office buildings said that because it involved an Act
of Congress, they can't take the stupid label off the french fries until
the Act is repealed.)
> have something to say about it. But in Belgium they are called "frieten"
> of "frites" (depending on where you are). "Pommes frites" are something
> different: fried sliced or complete potatoes (sliced meaning sliced in
> only one direction, so you get round slices). Frieten are deep-fried.
> In France you can in most restaurants not get french fries, unless you
> go to a MacDonald's or something similar. But you will see "pommes
> frites". I think that you might occasionally see it as "patates frites"
> in France. Here in Amsterdam there are a few shops selling "Vlaamse
> frieten", but we call it "patat".
The pommes frites sold in trendy Manhattan neighborhoods are shaped like
McDonalds fries (square columns of potato), but more slender. Perhaps
this was a variation that already existed in Belgium, and the
entrepreneurs figured the familiar shape would be more readily accepted
in the New York market?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Javi" <poziyo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<bu0sf1$ceag0$1...@ID-177688.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> > Raymond S. Wise escribió :
>
> > > However, the word "chameau" is traditionally used in French
> > > translations of the Bible when the camel in question would presumably
> > > have been the dromedary, as in Matthew 19:24 (Louis Segond
> > > translation): "Je vous le dis encore, il est plus facile à un chameau
> > > de passer par le trou d'une aiguille qu'à un riche d'entrer dans le
> > > royaume de Dieu." In the King James (Authorized) Version, "And again
> > > I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
> > > needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
> >
> > No, it was not a camel nor a dromedary. There was a mistake by St.
> > Hyeronimus
>
> Hieronymus I know of is Bosch.
Actually, it seems like you perfectly well know about Bosch's namesake,
Hieronymus, Doctor of the Church, translator of the Vulgate, etc.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Harlan Messinger" <h.mes...@comcast.net> writes:
>
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> >
> [...]
> > > Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
> >
> > de pie".
>
>
> Like Andre, I've also heard "patate" for "sweet potato" from
> French-Canadians.
Teaching us those phrases would thus seem to have been a French plot so
that they'll always be able to identify Americans, even if our accents
are perfect.
Peter T. Daniels
What's a pi-rhyme?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> > Raymond S. Wise wrote:
> >
>
> [...]
> > > In this case, "dried plum" was adopted for marketing purposes: "Prune" had
> > > too many negative connotations, I guess. So far, I don't know anyone who
> > > regularly uses "dried plum" for "prune."
> [...]
> > Nu, who's calling prunes "dried plums"?
>
> Supermarkets everywhere.
Everywhere?
Harlan Messinger
>> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
>Really ?
>But Brits have no word for "jouďr".
Rejoice? Cum?
Harlan Messinger
>In alt.usage.english Harlan Messinger <hmessinger...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Not every animal, or even most: chicken/chicken, duck/duck, fish/fish,
>> shrimp/shrimp, etc.
>
>Unless my belly has been lying to me, there are several different kinds
>of fish (canned, pecan encrusted) and duck (Peking, shot by neighbor).
What does that have to do with whether we use different words for the
animal and for its flesh?
>But only one kind of chicken and shrimp (different sizes).
Donna Richoux
> Had anyone ever tried to import and widely market Chinese gooseberries?
There's quite a bit about the histories of various crops on the Web.
> I'd occasionally seen a picture of a gooseberry, but it never occurred
> to me that a kiwi was a kind of gooseberry.
It's not. You can't assume anything from common names.
http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/book/chap7/chinese.html
The name "gooseberry" is derived from the similarity in the
taste of the fruit, not to a botanical relationship
to Ribes spp. (Menninger 1 966).
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Harlan Messinger
Iskandar Baharuddin
"Harlan Messinger" <hmessinger...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2lga0012g7ijtjfmp...@4ax.com...
> Jim Ward <tomca...@NyOaShPoAoM.com> wrote:
>
> >In alt.usage.english Harlan Messinger <hmessinger...@comcast.net>
wrote:
> >
> >> Not every animal, or even most: chicken/chicken, duck/duck, fish/fish,
> >> shrimp/shrimp, etc.
> >
> >Unless my belly has been lying to me, there are several different kinds
> >of fish (canned, pecan encrusted) and duck (Peking, shot by neighbor).
>
> What does that have to do with whether we use different words for the
> animal and for its flesh?
>
> >But only one kind of chicken and shrimp (different sizes).
>
Did people eat shrimp/prawns around the time of the Norman invasion?
Izzy
Dik T. Winter
> Dik T. Winter wrote:
...
> > I think that you might occasionally see it as "patates frites"
> > in France. Here in Amsterdam there are a few shops selling "Vlaamse
> > frieten", but we call it "patat".
>
> The pommes frites sold in trendy Manhattan neighborhoods are shaped like
> McDonalds fries (square columns of potato), but more slender.
In that case they are *not* Belgian. McDonalds fries are slender compared
to those of the inventors, the "Vlaamse frieten".
> Perhaps
> this was a variation that already existed in Belgium, and the
> entrepreneurs figured the familiar shape would be more readily accepted
> in the New York market?
There is indeed an entrepreneur with marketing ideas.
Javier BF
> >"toe": they both are "dedos"; if precission is required, we add "de la mano"
> >or "del pie".
And we have "meñique" for "little finger". I must confess
I've never understood what's the logic of having different
words for fingers and toes while not having a name for the
little finger. I find distinguishing between fingers is of
more practical importance than bothering to give a special
name to toes; after all, toes are just smaller versions
of fingers and most of the time they are 'useless'. In fact,
I've never felt any need for a special word for toes, adding
"del pie" does just fine for me because seldom I've needed
to refer to them specifically as opposed to fingers. While
I'd very much welcome having not just "pulgar" and "meñique",
but also specific words for the other three fingers instead
of saying "dedo índice", "dedo corazón" and "dedo anular".
> You make up for it with *oído* and *oreja*, though ( the Q-tippable
> and sticky-out bits, respectively, of ears)
But we lack a word for nostril, which is just "el orificio
de la nariz", :-\. Although I recall having found it weird
to have a special word for it when I first learnt about
English "nostril".
> and you also neatly
> distinguish between *pelo* and *vello* (head and body hair).
To refer specifically to head hair, we say "cabello".
"Vello" refers primarily to the shorter and softer kind of
hair characteristic of body hair as opposed to the longer
and harder ones characteristic of head hair ("cabello"),
and the word may be used also for bloom on fruit. "Pelo"
is unspecific like English "hair" and we say both "pelo
corporal" and "pelo de la cabeza", although most usually
when people talk about their "pelo" they refer to their
"cabello", just like in English. In this respect, "vello"
and "cabello" have a somewhat more formal/literary feel
than "pelo".
Cheers,
Javier
Ross Howard
wrought:
>> >That's right. In Spanish we do not have different words for "finger" and
>> >"toe": they both are "dedos"; if precission is required, we add "de la mano"
>> >or "del pie".
>
>And we have "meñique" for "little finger". I must confess
>I've never understood what's the logic of having different
>words for fingers and toes while not having a name for the
>little finger. I find distinguishing between fingers is of
>more practical importance than bothering to give a special
>name to toes; after all, toes are just smaller versions
>of fingers and most of the time they are 'useless'. In fact,
>I've never felt any need for a special word for toes, adding
>"del pie" does just fine for me because seldom I've needed
>to refer to them specifically as opposed to fingers. While
>I'd very much welcome having not just "pulgar" and "meñique",
>but also specific words for the other three fingers instead
>of saying "dedo índice", "dedo corazón" and "dedo anular".
>
>
>> You make up for it with *oído* and *oreja*, though ( the Q-tippable
>> and sticky-out bits, respectively, of ears)
>
>But we lack a word for nostril, which is just "el orificio
>de la nariz", :-\. Although I recall having found it weird
>to have a special word for it when I first learnt about
>English "nostril".
I trust you exclaimed "¡Qué narices...!".
>
>> and you also neatly
>> distinguish between *pelo* and *vello* (head and body hair).
>
>To refer specifically to head hair, we say "cabello".
>"Vello" refers primarily to the shorter and softer kind of
>hair characteristic of body hair as opposed to the longer
>and harder ones characteristic of head hair ("cabello"),
>and the word may be used also for bloom on fruit. "Pelo"
>is unspecific like English "hair" and we say both "pelo
>corporal" and "pelo de la cabeza", although most usually
>when people talk about their "pelo" they refer to their
>"cabello", just like in English. In this respect, "vello"
>and "cabello" have a somewhat more formal/literary feel
>than "pelo".
I live in hope of some day seeing a Spanish hairdressing salon called
"El Séptimo de Cabellería".
And wouldn't it be more accurate to say of someone who speaks plainly
"no tiene vello en la lengua"?
--
Ross Howard
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <40053A...@worldnet.att.net> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> > Dik T. Winter wrote:
> ...
> > > I think that you might occasionally see it as "patates frites"
> > > in France. Here in Amsterdam there are a few shops selling "Vlaamse
> > > frieten", but we call it "patat".
> >
> > The pommes frites sold in trendy Manhattan neighborhoods are shaped like
> > McDonalds fries (square columns of potato), but more slender.
>
> In that case they are *not* Belgian. McDonalds fries are slender compared
> to those of the inventors, the "Vlaamse frieten".
Well, the storefronts claim they are.
> > Perhaps
> > this was a variation that already existed in Belgium, and the
> > entrepreneurs figured the familiar shape would be more readily accepted
> > in the New York market?
>
> There is indeed an entrepreneur with marketing ideas.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Peter T. Daniels
And Jerry knew that, despite claiming otherwise.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> y.eu...@inbox.ru (Yves Euld?de) wrote:
>
> >> Anyway, French doesn't even have words for toe or potato.
> >Really ?
>
> Rejoice? Cum?
Several pages of the introduction to the translation of one of Barthes's
books are devoted to this problem.