Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 17

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August 17

Pronunciation of nonexistent words

1. The Google "human speaker" pronounces "wir" as wire, and "rir" as reer (although "fir" is always pronounced as fur, never as fire nor as fear). Are there any "rules" for pronouncing such nonexistent words like wir and rir?
2. Additionally, it pronounces "wor" as were, so the "or" in "wor" is pronouced as the "or" in "word" "work" (and likewise), rather than as the "or" in "nor" "for" (and likewise). How does Google "know" that the "or" in the nonexistent word "wor" should be much similar to the "or" in "word" "work" (and likewise), rather than to the "or" in "nor" "for" (and likewise)?

Eliko (talk) 08:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Obviously, the machine has to follow some rules, but I'm afraid only Google can tell which ones (if they do not keep it a trade secret), and anyway you should not assign any significance to what it happens to return for nonexistent words because that's not what it is supposed to be designed for (garbage in, garbage out).—Emil J. 11:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

For your 2nd question, Google's pronouncer program probably has a big dictionary of pronunciations (i.e. words mapped to their phonetic makeup) that is uses in most cases, but if you ask it to say a word it doesn't recognize, it probably defaults to the language's most common pronunciation of that combination of letters. I'm guessing <or> pronounced as "err" ([ɝ, ɚ]) is more frequent in English words than the pronunciation "or," and Google's program figured this out by counting the occurrence of both pronunciations of <or> in its dictionary.I use probably a lot because, as far as I know, Google has not released this algorithm as open-sourced yet, so there's no way to know for sure.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, not exactly. <or> is more likely to be pronounced as "or" than as "err". Here are a few common examples (with four letters): "horn", "corn", "norm", "morn", "lord", "fork", "cord", "cork", "born", "form", "torn", "sort", "tort", and many others.

"wor" is similar to "nor" and "for" (and likewise) in that all the three have three letters only, and end with "or". However, "wor" is also similar to "word", "work" (and likewise) in that all the three begin with "wor".

Anyways, I've just found that "wor" does have a meaning ("wor" = "our"), in Geordie English, as indicated in the article Geordie.

Eliko (talk) 07:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

You're right, so I've striken my mistake above. In that case, perhaps Google's algorithm is smarter than I originally gave it credit for, and must take into account that since worry, (at least in my AmerEng accent) word, and work are all pronounced as "were" ([wɝ]), the same pronunciation should follow for the unknown word wor (or it recognizes it as the Geordie English word, as Eliko mentioned, if it has a really good dictionary). Google's program also pronounces the vowel in born and sore the same as in the nonce words *bor and *sor. As for the OP's observation that this same algorithm pronounces *wir as "wire" but fir as "fur", it turns out English does have a word fir pronounced that way. *rir is anyone's guess, but perhaps the program is forming its pronunciation off of weir.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Re wor: I've already indicated that wor is similar to "word" and "work" in that all the three begin with "wor", so what new things did you find in "worry" - that don't exist in "word" and "work"?

Re fir: My question was about wir and rir, not about fir (which is an existent word and is pronounced as fur). I've only asked why the <ir> in wir and rir is not pronounced as the <ir> in fir. Did you mean that fir isn't pronounced as fur but rather as fire or fear?

Re rir: I've only asked why Google pronounces it as *reer (i.e why Google pronounces the <ir> in rir as the <ir> in weir), and doesn't pronounce the <ir> in rir as the <ir> in fir (i.e. as the <ir> in sir).

Eliko (talk) 09:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Flink

There are multiple links to 'flink' on the net - "a group of 12 cows" - but there is no wiki entry nor a dictionary.com entry. Is this word a myth or perhaps has dubious origin? Sandman30s (talk) 10:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The OED has an entry for flink, with the definition "to behave in a cowardly manner." It gives one example: 1893 E. CUSTER Tenting on Plains xix. 388 All the boys done bully, but Corporal Johnson -- he flinked. It guesses that the word is an alteration of flinch. I found nothing authoritative for the word flink relating to cows on the open web or ebook/journal databases available to me. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 12:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I could not find it in any slang or dialect dictionary but I found a flurry of flink from 2002 works which may have been when it was coined. Seems an unlikely word, why would a word be needed for such a specific number, more likely someone suggested a small flock was a flink as a form or humorous diminutive, in fact it may be a propagated nihilartikel. Collective nouns are often fairly dubious with little evidence of their natural use. Here is the actual creation of a "flange of baboons". As an aside slink is an interesting word related to cows and other farm animals. meltBanana 21:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks! (nihilartikel is a new word for me) Sandman30s (talk) 08:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Haha! I've just realized that it could have come from a back formation of "cowardly" as defined in the OED! Sandman30s (talk) 08:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

A vs. E

I started this at Humanities, where they were talking about Anglicanism, etc., and I have moved it here...

Really a language question, but I wonder how come it's "Anglia" ("Anglo-land") and "Anglican" and "Anglo-Saxon" vs. "Eng-land"? For that matter, "Saxon" vs. "Wessex" ("West Saxon"), "Sussex" ("South Saxon"), etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

England#Etymology TomorrowTime (talk) 11:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't really explain why "A" vs. "E", but there's a clue in the fact it was first applied to the southern part of the island, where "Sussex", etc., are and also in the etymology of "Saxony", which suggests it was somewhere between an "a" and an "e" sound, hence variant spellings. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it's umlaut; it's the same thing that gives us the e in men from the a in man. +Angr 13:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I suspect Angr's right. I think that in Anglo-Saxon, you would have referred to one "Angel" (with a hard G) and two or more "Engel" or some such. The "Engla" in "Englaland" (the original form of the name England) is, I believe a genitive plural form, such that the name means "land of the Angles". Marco polo (talk) 14:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It had to remain "Angl-" in Latin so Pope Gregory could make a terrible pun. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Having done a little more research on this, I no longer think that "Engel" was the plural form of "Angel". There were a few Anglo-Saxon nouns that formed plurals that way, but those nouns would not have had a genitive plural in -a, as this word does. Also, my Anglo-Saxon dictionary shows the nominative plural form as either "Engle" or "Angle" (with the second syllable pronounced [lɛ]). So, it looks as if these were two variant forms of the same name. I don't think it could be right that the pronunciation was somewhere between "A" and "E", because Anglo-Saxon vowels are represented very clearly by the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, which has a letter—Æ—for the sound intermediate between "A" and "E", but this letter is apparently never used to spell this name. The two variant forms could reflect different Anglo-Saxon dialects (say, Midland/Mercian vs. Wessex). It could be that a process of umlaut affected the stem form of this name in one dialect but not another. Marco polo (talk) 12:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Translatish

I'm curious: what is this? I encountered it while searching possible vocalizations of an unfamiliar surname (זורלא) I need to romanize from a Hebrew-language source text. The site is useless to me, I'm just perplexed that I can't make any sense of it and am prepared to blush if it's something obvious I'm missing . -- Deborahjay (talk) 18:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks kind of like Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2008_October_12#Mystery_language.3F_Code.3F... AnonMoos (talk) 19:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

That page has been discussed here. It's quite likely a constructed puzzle challenging readers to decipher it. The blue words are links to supplementary pages, like this one, where there are English translations of some sample sentences. --Theurgist (talk) 22:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

License template help needed in Spanish and Polish

Hi! The Commons template Commons:User:Raboe001/licence is in need of some translations

The Spanish language template is missing a translation for:

• "PS: In case of refusal of the above terms the author reserves the right to take legal action.

This license and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by you of the terms of this license. In this case the author reserves to demand declaration to cease and desist, and compensation (according to the MFM fee references currently in force). Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder."

The Polish language template is missing a translation for:

• "This license and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by you of the terms of this license. In this case the author reserves to demand declaration to cease and desist, and compensation (according to the MFM fee references currently in force).

Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder."

It would be nice of someone would post the entire paragraph in Russian, Arabic, and Korean.

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 21:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• The Russian translation was completed by Commons User Kaganer. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

"Read by anyone without"

"The book is mostly written without much technical detail and can be read by anyone without a mathematical background."

The second part of this sentence suggests to me that having a mathematical background is an impediment to reading the book. Is that a fair interpretation of the second part of the sentence?

I'm being picky. The meaning "a mathematical background is not needed to read the book" is pretty clear from the first part of the sentence. But is the second part correct?

Thank you. Wanderer57 (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It's fine; it doesn't say anything like "can be read only by people without a mathematical background." --Anonymous, 22:37 UTC, August 17, 2010.

Without knowing more of the context, it's possibly not clear that "without much technical detail" means "without much mathematical detail." You might consider a rewrite like "Smith's writing is clear and can be understood without a detailed knowledge of mathematics." --- OtherDave (talk) 23:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not fine, it's very sloppy writing. Looie496 (talk) 00:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

How would you prefer it to have been worded? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 08:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:30, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Well it isn't, it's terrible. "Mostly written without much technical detail" – wtf? What about the bits that are then, is a non-technical person supposed to just skip those bits? And the second part obviously means that you don't need a mathematical background to be able to read it, but it doesn't say that. I would rewrite the second part to something like "can be read by non-mathematicians". The first part, though, is unsalvageable. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 13:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not: "...can be read by anyone, with or without a mathematical background." Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:39, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Certainly it could be written better, but it's not terrible. It's totally understandable as stated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:50, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The first part is confusing/merging 2 concepts: 'The book is written without much technical detail' and 'The book is mostly written without technical detail'. These say the same thing in slightly different words, but what we have is a little of each. Or, it might be saying that it's replete with technical detail but only a little at a time, except in some places, where there's a lot more. I sort of doubt that's the intention, but it's a valid interpretation of what's written. Rather than talking in negative terms, how about "The book contains very little technical detail ..."? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 14:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)