Language desk
< November 4	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 6 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 5[edit]

Threat?[edit]

I have a question. What could be considered a threat? Here are some possibilities:

If you touch that cord, I will make you regret it.
Ricardo, if I ever hear you talking about Keynes's opinions again, I'm going to close this classical thread.
Don't come close to me, or else I'm going to scream.

I think all 3 of these things are threats. Some are worse than others (I'd rank 1st, 3rd, and 2nd, in terms of "threath seriousness"). What do the rest of you think? Can anyone provide me a good definition for "threat"?

Thanks in advance.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 03:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is obviously a fine line between a "threat" and a "promise". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Often dictionaries are good with definitions: "A declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or course." Threats can be conditional statements (if X, then Y) or they can omit the conditional with the assumption that the conditions have already been met.

By the way, Bugs, I find the distinction between threat and promise to be disengenuous. Threats and promises are not mutually exclusive from each other. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the point. In essence, they are the same thing: a pledge to take action of some kind. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

... except that a threat is always a pledge to do something bad, whereas a promise may be (and often is) a pledge to do something good. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

... except when someone says, "That's not a threat, it's a promise!" Which is what I was originally alluding to. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If a sadist said to a masochist that he/she (the sadist) was going to deny him/her (the masochist) sexual favours, that could be said to be a threat from the sadist's perspective, and a promise from the masochist's perspective. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help. So, based on what has been argued here, the 3 statements I posted could be considered threats (or promises, which depends on perspective). Yes, dictionaries are good with definitions, but the discussion here was better.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 13:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes there is a fine line between a "threat" and a "warning". "Warning" meaning a statement that is made in order to protect someone. -- Irene1949 (talk) 22:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that just makes it a tad more confusing. Wouldn't a "warning" be something along the lines of the common Wiki warning: "Please don't vandalize articles in Wikipedia, further disruptive behavior may result in a block." The effective uses of "please" and "may" are effective ways of warning without being threatening, but the three options I originally posted at the start of this discussion are not warnings (they're threats). Or, does anybody have another opinion?--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 23:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine that one may "warn" (as opposed to threaten) of both potential (rather than absolute) negative consequences as well as those that are not caused by the speaker (e.g. Don't play in the street or you'll get run over). — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it is the intention which makes the difference between a warning and a threat. A statement like "If you do A, then B may happen to you" is a warning when it is made in order to protect someone from B–and it is a threat when it is made in order to prevent someone from doing A. It is possible that a statement is a warning and a threat: somebody might dislike A just as B. For exemple, a wikipedian might dislike disruptive behavior just as he dislikes blocks. -- Irene1949 (talk) 19:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Old Norse[edit]

I'm curious about the meaning of the *, R and RR symbols I found in a lot of Old Norse given names and common words. For example: *SvartgæiRR, HrókR, ÁvæiRR. Do they have a specific influence on pronunciation? --151.51.14.218 (talk) 11:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The * will be asterisk#Historical linguistics. Algebraist 11:16, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The R is the transliteration of the Younger Futhark rune "yr" (an upside-down algiz), which represented a sound that is reconstructed as z in Proto-Germanic but is spelled r in Old Norse texts written with the Latin alphabet rather than runes. It's uncertain what its exact pronunciation was; all we know is that it's a sound that used to be /z/ and later turned into /r/. +An gr 14:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish Main[edit]

Does the Spanish have an equivalent for the English Spanish Main? (By the way, I don't find a Spanish Wikipedia. Is there one?)--Omidinist (talk) 12:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In answer to your second question, the Spanish Wikipedia can be found here. You can get to it from Wikipedia's main page and clicking on the bit where it says 'Español' on the right. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 12:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anthony Trollope's book The West Indies and the Spanish Main seems to be translated in Spanish as Las Indias occidentales y el continente español. Actually, continente means continent, mainland, but not coast, so I'm not very sure about it. --151.51.14.218 (talk) 13:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The English is a romantic phrase without equivalent in Spanish, AFAIK. I've only ever heard it referred to it as las costas del Caribe, even with reference to pirates and the like. Continente in the context above obviously doesn't refer to the coastline at all, and perhaps shows the English phrase to be understood as a descriptor for the whole region. mikaul^talk 19:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So far, so good. Thank you all people. More comments are welcome. --Omidinist (talk) 19:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tierra Firme.[1] —eric 20:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tierra firme is a general nautical term. Maybe tierra firme de las Indias Occidentales can be an option. As it has been said, there is no direct equivalent in common use. Up to now, the most precise term in general use I have found is es:cuenca del Caribe, but I'm not convinced. :( 200.49.224.88 (talk) 22:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The central response is that there is no direct translation to Spanish Main. Las costas del Caribe español (The coasts of the Spanish Caribbean) is the closest translation.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 23:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen "Tierra Firme" used on some maps as an appareant equivalent for "Spanish Main". --Lazar Taxon (talk) 05:23, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Switching syllables in two words to comic effect[edit]

I'm scratching my head here, because I should know this, and it's on the tip of my tongue... What's the term used when someone switches syllables in two words giving an amusing result? One of the anchors on the BBC just said "snifer riples" instead of "sniper rifles" and for the life of me, I can't think of the term. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spoonerism. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I knew that I knew it. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd've said that was wrong. While some people use the word in an extended sense, a real spoonerism is a swap of the initial sounds -- in this case giving "riper snifles", which isn't bad either! The general term for a switching-around of sounds is metathesis, a word that (considering that the accent is on the "tath", not the "the") might be quite a bit easier to pronounce if some metathesis was applied to it... --Anonymous, 04:32 UTC, November 6, 2009.

Wow! I've never seen two apostrophes in the same word. Is that grammatical? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary describes that one as nonstandard. However, forecastle can be contracted with three apostrophes as "fo'c's'le", and this you will find in dictionaries. --Anonymous, 07:58 UTC, November 6, 2009.

Interesting. It might not be suitable for professional writing (which may explain why it's described as "nonstandard"), but in a film script or play text, it could be very appropriate, and I'd've thought there's no better way of writing it. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was curious what other languages called this. Most have their own native terms, but Turkish has just "spoonerism", and Polish has "spuneryzm", while Russian has "cпунеризм" (spunerizm). -- JackofOz (talk) 22:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you go to the spoonerism article and look at the links to other languages down the left-hand side (below the toolbox and stuff) you can see the names for whatever language currently have a WP article like this. (If you hover your mouse over each language, you should be able to see the name in a tooltip, status bar, or whatever, depending on your browser.) Some appear to be transliterations of the word "spoonerism", whereas others have their own words (like 'Antistrofe', etc.). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's how I got the results I reported above. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's the first time I heard of the word spuneryzm in Polish. If it's actually used, then only in specialist literature, but the common expression is gra półsłówek (literally: "play of half-words"), the spoonerism of which is sra półgłówek ("a dimwit is shitting"). Kpalion 194.39.218.10 (talk) 12:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Polish article acknowledges gra półsłówek. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Such things are also common parts of word games in other languages, such as Verlan and backslang —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.56.65.25 (talk) 01:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Verlan and backslang both apply within a single word, whereas spoonerisms are generally switching sounds across two words. They also have different stylistic effects—spoonerisms are usually either slips-of-the-tongue, or jokes; verlan is a form of slang that is used in all seriousness. Back slang isn't really used except in a couple words that have already been lexicalized. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]