Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 November 17

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November 17

Meaning of Oscar in Gaelic

Hi, Oscar (given name) states that In Irish legends, Oscar was the son of Oisín. This name was Gaelic, meaning "deer lover." I would like to know if it is meant as sexual love towards deers or, given that "love" may also stand for "like" and simillar feelings, does it mean "one who likes deers" or something like that. Also what is meant by Gaelic - the article links Goidelic languages, which obviously is not a single language ? --~~Xil...sist! 01:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

It's os (deer) plus cara (friend, friendship). No bestiality is inferred. Xn4 01:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Names composed of two nouns occur in nearly all branches of Indo-European. The elements need not have any rational relation to each other. —Tamfang (talk) 10:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The Goidelic languages were once a single language. I assume that's what it means. Strad (talk) 02:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Not that I meant zoophilia - by definition in dictionary "lover" seems to refer to sexual partner as opposed to "love" which can have few more meanings. This common language is described as having several stages of development - is Goidelic the common name for all these forms ? ~~Xil...sist! 03:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

All the modern Goidelic languages descended from Old Irish, though Scottish Gaelic speakers get annoyed by the fact that it's called that. The name Philip, incidentally, has a similar "animal-lover" meaning. —Angr 07:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Latin Questions

1. What does the Latin part mean? "... rational soul is joined to its body ut motor mobili et ut perfectio formalis suo perfectibili". 2. What is libertas consilii et complaciti that Alexander of Hales distinguishes it from libertas arbitrii (free will) and says that while the former may be lost, the latter cannot. Omidinist (talk) 06:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, since there are no subjunctive verbs I assume "ut" must simply mean "as" here, so "a rational soul is joined to its body, as a mover [is joined] to a movable thing and as formal perfection [is joined] to its own perfectability". That's not very elegant though; it means something capable of moving must therefore be joined with something that causes it to move, and "formalis" probably meaning something like "the very model of perfection", means that if something is perfect there must be something innate about it that causes it to be perfect.

Secondly, I guess he is distinguishing freedom of thought and freedom of pleasure; even if we do not have free will, we would still have those things. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The only change I'd suggest in that translation is "that element/aspect of it which is perfectible," rather than "its own perfectibility," for suo perfectibili. And as far as the interpretation goes, it seems like another case of Aristotelian hylomorphism with a somewhat Platonist note in "perfectible." Wareh (talk) 21:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, both gentlemen. Omidinist (talk) 05:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I only now noticed there was a second question. Literally libertas arbitrii and libertas consilii et complaciti are, respectively, "freedom of will[/decision]" and "freedom of intention/deliberation and of opinion" (in other words, freedom of action vs. freedom of thought). (On a side note, I think Google Books just allowed me to determine that Copleston cribbed some of his History of Philosophy from Knapke's Scholastic Theory of the Species Sensibilis, which, at least in the US, is available free & entire via Google Books and may be of some interest to your study of Alexander of Hales.) Wareh (talk) 20:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again, Wareh. Omidinist (talk) 05:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of Japanese term "ganbare"

Searching the web for this hasn't been very satisfying thus far and I'd appreciate it if a native speaker or expert could clear this one up for me. Am I right to assume that "ganbare", although often used for "Good luck" and in sports context as a cheer similar to the Italian "Forza" or the French "Allez", has a much wider range of meaning? I know it can mean something along "do your best" in a demanding sort of way (when a teacher says it to a student) but can it also be a real encouragement in times of trouble sort of like a "hang in there", "don't give up"?

Also, what grammatical form is "ganbare" (I'm guessing imperative?) and what is the exact difference to "ganbatte" for example?

I think that's the kanji for ganbare: 頑張れ Please correct me if I'm wrong. My knowledge on Japanese language and grammar is very very limited respectively non-existent, but I'm really interested in this, so please bear with me.

You are right. You understand the word very well. Yes, "ganbare" is the imperative of the verb 頑張る. The noun is 頑張り. As for "ganbatte", it has a softer and lighter tone and is used wider in daily life. Maybe you can think it as Take care. Just 頑張れ sounds like an order. Teachers say ganbarinasai. The general polite form is gannbatte kudasai. It is often used with もっと/more. Oda Mari (talk) 18:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you can think it as try hard or work hard. Like 頑張って、レポート書かなきゃ/I have to work hard to write the report. Oda Mari (talk) 19:06, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The first kanji, 「頑」, means 'firm' or 'resolute'. The second part, 「張る」, means 'insist', amongst other things. So the whole word literally means something like 'be resolute' - hence 'do your best'. --Manga (talk) 20:11, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ganbare is more of an affirmating informal command to "try hard". Ganbatte is short for "Ganbatte Kudasai" the polite form of asking someone to "try hard".

how do you say issue in spanish

as in a mazagene issue.

Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr) says "edición." Catrionak (talk) 21:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

"ejemplar" [1]--El aprendelenguas (talk) 23:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I would point that número [2] may be a better choice, especially if a specific time reference is attached: "El número de abril" [April's issue]. Edición[3] will also work in this sense.

Ejemplar[4] in general applies to a specific piece of the issue: "Tener diez ejemplares de la última edición" [to have ten exemplars of the last issue]. Pallida  Mors 00:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

oil spill in spanish

how do you say oil spill?

Again with the Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr): this is "derramamiento del aceite." Catrionak (talk) 21:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

We would all be grateful if you could sign your questions. Just type 4 tildes '~' at the end of it. --ChokinBako (talk) 22:04, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

If you are referring to oil spills happening from oil tankers' accidents, then you are looking for derrame de petróleo. Indeed derrame has an acceptation as "something that flows out and is lost by defect or break of its container". That's why it's more specific than derramamiento, Pallida  Mors 00:48, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I point out that Babelfish, Google Language Tools, and other such machine translators are poor ways to answer this sort of question. If a word has more than one translation, it's a matter of luck whether you get the one you want.

For topics that have Wikipedia articles, it is sometimes helpful to look at the "Other languages" links — for example, oil spill links to marée noire in French. But it doesn't have a Spanish version, so that doesn't work here. Also, when it does work, you have to know enough of the other language to be able to tell whether the article title really seems to mean the same thing or whether it is only a closely related subject.

For topics that are currently in the news, Google News may be useful. I just did a Google News search on "oil spill" and saw that the ship involved in a recent incident in California was the Cosco Busan. Then I just went to the Google News Spanish-language U.S. pages (via the "Estados Unidos" link) and searched on that name. (In another instance, it might have been a personal name or a place name that I searched on -- although I might have to remember to translate the name.) It's easy to see that "derrame" is indeed preferred to "derramamiento". Of course, if another language than Spanish had been wanted, the event would have had to be big enough news to be covered in news sources from countries using the desired language. And again, you have to be able to read enough of the language to understand the headlines.

Of course, if you have a proper language dictionary, you are likely to get better results in fewer steps with that.

--Anonymous, 06:15 UTC, November 18, 2007.

Right, interwiki links ("Other languages" links) can sometimes give you confusing answers, if other editions of Wikipedia use different naming schemes: plant vs. plants vs. the plant, etc. Also, sometimes you will find interwiki links do not always link to the same concepts. --Kjoonlee 11:15, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the previous comments remark how useless translator machines are so far, and the deficits some other wikipedias have (for the case, the Spanish one).

I would like to point out some interesting result: You may like to try searching an archive of a newspaper. For the present example, if you take La Nación (my favorite Argentine newspaper), and look for "Exxon Valdes", a lot of articles show up, many having the phrase derrame de petróleo. Furthermore, thanks to a Russian accident, one recent article even is entitled with the phrase. Pallida  Mors 16:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Although there appears to be no Spanish language Wikipedia article, there are Galician and Portuguese versions, and both use Maré negra, so it would be a good assumption that it's Mar negra in Spanish. But that's just an assumption. Corvus cornix (talk) 22:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm a Spanish native speaker and if asked for advice, my first two recommendations would be

• Derrame de petróleo
• Derramamiento de petróleo.

Also possible, although less frequent, as far as I understand, would be the phrase marea negra, which is the term I believe Corvus is making reference to. It has been built up in analogy with Marea Roja (red tide). But take the phrase as a figurative convention. Pallida  Mors 05:22, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

But interestingly during the reporting of the big oil spill off the Galician coast about 4 years ago all the TV channels in Spain referred to the spilt oil as 'fuel' (foo'el), 'petròleo' was conspicuous by its absence. I remembering it irritating me because they were using an English word when there was a perfectly good Spanish word available. Richard Avery (talk) 10:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but 'fueloil' is a Spanish word, at least according to the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas. The word 'fuel' seems to have been adopted by so many languages because 'petroleum' is not specific enough. 'Fuel', incidentally, comes from the Old French 'feuaile' (bundle of firewood), which in turn comes from Late Latin 'focālia' (hearth), from which 'foyer' also emerged. It is also interesting to note that 'fuel' has returned to French in the form of 'fioul' (fuel oil). Lantzy ^talk 16:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Ehm... But you don't spill fuel here, you spill oil! (crudo). Pallida  Mors 22:35, 21 November 2007 (UTC)