Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 March 7

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March 7

I Hear

What is the etymology of needle drop?100110100 (talk) 07:05, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Probably something to do with the "needle" that was used to play vinyl records, which is what "needle drops" come from. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Probably a slangy and shorthand way of saying "converted from analog/vinyl to digital". Before CD's came along, variations on "dropping the needle" were a common, slangy way of describing the playing of a phonograph record. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:07, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

And, in case you're wondering, the proper name for the "needle" is a stylus. StuRat (talk) 18:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

We seem to have parallel articles, as there is also one for Magnetic cartridge. The original phonographs literally used a "needle" as the part of the tonearm that touched the record. A modern-day "stylus" is typically a tiny crystal embedded in the cartridge. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, they aren't quite the same thing, as the cartridge contains the stylus, so having two articles is probably fine (although the one I linked to is just a section of the sylus article). StuRat (talk) 21:25, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The article attributes the term to Peter Goldmark, who coined it to describe the transfer of music from lacquers and 78s to LP, but it's sourced to a discussion forum, and as yet I've found no more reliable source to corroborate.

Another use of the term appears to be "canned" music written and recorded for no specific use, which can be played in a variety of settings:

"The landscape of using music in TV has changed greatly in the last couple of years," says Billy Gottlieb, music supervisor for Fox-TV's new crime drama, "Bones." "It used to be the bastard stepchild—the last thing a studio wanted to do was put extra money into the music. But now there's an expectation that audiences want to hear new music and not some standard needle drop."

(Whitemire, Margo, "Partners in Crime." Billboard, Oct. 2005)

An article, "Cartoon cutups: Music Editing for TV Animation." By: Erik Hawkins in Electronic Musician from June 2000 has this:

Enter Nick Carr, an ace music editor able to weaver mind-blowing musical backdrops with only a small collection of home studio gear and some needle-drop music (prerecorded music purchased for commercial use also known as production music).

"How to produce professional-looking, in-house videotapes" by A. E. Beasley, in Book Report, Jan/Feb 1991 has:

Remember the copyright laws when you add music to an audio. Royalty-free music is available on records, tape and compact disks. Be sure that the seller does not charge a "needle drop fee." This fee must be paid each time you use a musical selection. With the popularity of home videos, many companies are offering royalty-free music for $30 to $ 50 a tape. There is a variety of music to select from, with most pieces averaging about one minute in length.

"What, Me Produce Video?" by Peter r. Schleger in Training & Development Journal, Oct84:

Music is generally added during the online edit from previously selected choices. There are music libraries that charge by the needle drop, and most post-production houses have some records in-house for you to play

"AUDIO FOR TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: SOME NOTES ABOUT THE MEDIUM." By: O'Sullivan, Kevin. Training & Development Journal, Jan1977:

Nonlibrary commercial recordings are generally not reproducible without substantial expense and special clearance. As a fixed rule, you're on safest ground to access a stock music library and pay the publisher's fee for each individual sequence you choose (called a 'needle drop' charge).

The 1977 mention is the oldest I can find. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 15:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear dummy?

Hi - years ago I was told the word it in the phrase 'it is raining' is called in grammar a nuclear dummy. If so, can someone please explain further? Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 07:40, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard that, but "dummy" would refer to the fact that it has no real meaning (similar to a dummy edit). The term in syntax is expletive. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Also see Dummy pronoun. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

And perhaps Extended Projection Principle for a possible explanation of its presence. Not all languages require a grammatical subject, for more information on that you may refer to Null subject language.Synchronism (talk) 08:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

(A note to the brave, though: the EPP is a bit more controversial that that Wikipedia article makes it out to be ;) ). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 09:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Why doesn't "it" have a meaning in "it is raining" ? I'd say it means "the sky directly above us". StuRat (talk) 18:43, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Because it's the same "it" in phrases like "it is foggy" and "it's cold." You can't even say "it" refers to "the weather" since you can say "it's stuffy" to refer to indoor climate. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:59, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Why do you say it's the same "it" ? Can't a different "it" be implied in each case, depending on the context ? StuRat (talk) 19:40, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The lack of semantic content is emphasized by the fact you cannot possibly apply any of the operations you can do to a normal subject: no passive (*it is being rained), no focus (*It is it that is raining). In fact, the subject of "raining" if anything, would be the rain itself or whatever is falling from the sky (cf. "Cats and dogs are raining", which is roughly the same as "it is raining cats and dogs"). Circéus (talk) 20:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

"Rain, it is falling" might work as a passive form, containing "it". Perhaps the issue isn't so much that "it" has no meaning, as it may have more than one, such as meaning "water" in some cases and "the sky" in others. Part of this comes from the many meanings of "raining", from "anything falling down" to "water falling down for any reason" to the most specific "water falling down from the sky as precipitation". StuRat (talk) 21:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

That is not in any way a passive. The passive of "rain is falling" would be the ungrammatical "*rain is being fallen". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems that it's a good thing that you're not being paid to be a professional lexistician/linguologist, Stu.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:27, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Yuk, I'd rather clean toilets for a living. StuRat (talk) 21:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

(Hey now Jack, there you're mixing expletives with clefting. Tsk, tsk! rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC))

(Thank God there's a rich heritage of precedents for combining things in previously unheard of ways.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC))

My Webster's calls this usage, "the subject of an impersonal verb that expresses a condition or action without reference to an agent (example: 'it is raining')." Seems to be an English construct. The Spanish equivalent, está lloviendo, is translated as "it is raining", but actually says "is raining", which is why a Spanish-speaker might leave off the "it" in those circumstances. If you were referring to something specific, you might say, él está lloviendo, if you were answering specifically about "the sky", el cielo, though that might be an unusual usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the linguistic concept you want is valency. Basically verb like "to rain" are avalent and have no semantic agent. If they did, you could apply a valency reduction of some sort, but you can't, because there is no argument to reduce! Circéus (talk) 20:58, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

@Bugs: Not exactly. You only see this in Spanish because Spanish is a pro-drop language, where subjects aren't required; the subject is implied in the verbal morphology (i.e., the conjugation). You see the same thing in some Turkic languages, such as Uyghur language (yamghur yaghidu, lit. "[it] is falling rain"), and even Mandarin, which is a pro-drop language but doesn't have verb conjugations (下雨了, "is falling rain"). The use if "it" here is certainly not an "English-specific construct". French also has a null pronoun there (il pleut, "it is raining"), and I'm sure many other languages I don't know have it as well. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understand you, but let me point out that in está lloviendo there is no subject, since it is an impersonal construction. The verb follows the third singular person conjugation mark, though. Pallida  Mors 18:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

@Circeus: Good point. Weather verbs like "rain" not only have no agent argument, but AFAIK they have no arguments whatsoever, which is why in English and some other languages the expletive ends up in the subject position (because there are no other arguments to put there). In unaccusative verbs that also have no agent argument but do have an internal argument (such as "fall" or "die"), that argument ends up being the subject, so there's no expletive. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:05, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Dang, I thought this was going to be about George W. Bush when he was president ... Clarityfiend (talk) 21:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Nah, you're looking for #Nucular dummy! rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

When I google 'nuclear dummy', I get lots of stuff about dummy warheads, and also links to something called relational grammar, which to my completely lay eyes seems to be a sort of hierarchy of words in a sentence, with a 'nucleus' at the top. I like the term chômeur, referring to an 'unemployed word'. Adambrowne666 (talk) 21:39, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

What came to mind when I saw the title was essentially crash test dummies, modified with radiation sensors, and used in nuclear weapons testing. StuRat (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Changing Language

What's it called when language changes over time? Like 200 years ago English is completely different from what we have today. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chime444 (talk • contribs) 11:03, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

It's called Language change. And English of 200 years ago (for example the works of Jane Austen) is certainly not "completely different" from what we have today: a few words are unfamiliar, a few constructions unclear, but basically we can read it with no trouble. Even Shakespeare, 400 years ago, is not that hard, though there are more words that we aren't familiar with, and his poetry in particular is often not very clear to us. On the other hand, the English of 1000 years ago is very different. --ColinFine (talk) 11:34, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The English of 600 years ago is starting to get a bit difficult, with different spellings, and they hadn't had the Great Vowel Shift so "knight" (then spelt "knyght") was pronounced "k-nicht" rather than "nait", for example. In the Canterbury Tales one character from London travelling to the Continent remarks that he stopped off in Kent to ask to buy "egges" and couldn't make himself understood to the local English people because the local word for eggs was "eyren" (compare to "ei" and "eier" in modern German). In school I always had trouble understanding the Canterbury Tales until I hit on reading it with a Birmingham accent, which helps a great deal! -- Arwel Parry (talk) 14:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Pedantry follows: The egges/eyren story is actually told by Caxton in the preface to his Eneydos, not in The Canterbury Tales. Deor (talk) 18:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

"eřggs"? How does one insert an 'ř' by accident? —Tamfang (talk) 17:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

One doesn't - a vandal does it deliberately! - Arwel Parry (talk) 17:58, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

How disappointingly prosaic. —Tamfang (talk) 21:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

"Evolution" of language would be a good term. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

...unless you're a creationist ;) -- Flyguy649 ^talk 17:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit of both. New words and new meanings for existing words get created every day, for reasons such as: someone has too much time on their hands; or they're being a smartass; or it's just change for its own sake; or it stems from ignorance of an existing word or meaning that does the job perfectly well (that would explain the verbal use of "transition", for example); or maybe, just maybe, there really is a genuine need. Individually, that's creationism, and oftentimes it is abhorrent. But the broader picture within which this operates collectively is evolution, which is totally acceptable. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:18, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Evolution of language is provable, and is also a good parallel with biological evolution, as they both have to do with localization. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

It helps to note that modern linguistics treats English prior to the 15th-16th century (approximately) as distinct language, Middle English, and that before the 13th century as another language all its own, Old English. The same is true for modern Spanish vs. Old Castilian, German vs. Old High German, Modern Mandarin vs. Middle Chinese or Old Chinese, etc. Change within a single "language" (e.g. Jane Austen vs. today) is naturally less radical...since the last 300 or more years, but especially the last 50-100 (i.e. spoken language/accent, etc.) technology has made change within languages arguably more common and few divisions into new languages (so far).--Dpr (talk) 00:45, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Using Chinese as an example is not analogous because middle Chinese and old Chinese represent the written form and during these periods, many different languages used these written forms.174.3.110.108 (talk) 03:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

<|--Change within English in the last 100 years has been negligible, but pronunciation is noticeably different. Just the intonation is different. Listen to movies made at the end of the 1920s or beginning of the 1930s. The sounds of words are different. Woogee (talk) 23:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe that's just more to do with dialect than overall language change. The majority of people making and starring in movies in the 1920s and 1930s were a totally different 'class' of people than Sam Worthington or Sigourney Weaver. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm speaking broadly here, not just of film but also of persons in politics, media, etc. but in the US during the 1930-40s (and probably before), there was a bias toward the "educated" Northeastern U.S. accent, which included New York but nothing like the stereotypical Manhattan or Brooklyn accents recognizable internationally today. People in film, media, etc. were encouraged to adopt this accent regardless of their actual class or geographic origins. It was also an -r dropping accent, much like that of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Of course I'm not ruling out variations but that's a general trend.--达伟 (talk) 11:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

"Va', pensiero" or "Va, pensiero"?

Hi all,
About the "Slaves Chorus" from Verdi's Nabucco.
~244,000 GHits for "Va, pensiero", and ~244,000 GHits for "Va', pensiero". Yup, that's exactly the same results for each version. Google is your friend, but in this case, a fair weather friend. Tried looking up the the Italian language Wiktionary but it's an errore quattrocento e quattro. I think it's the vestigial remains of a grave accent indicating the imperative mood {{Original research}}.
Ahem. My questions are:

• what is the correct (or more precisely, the verifiable) version?
• why is it the correct (or more precisely, the verifiable version) the correct version?

Wiser heads than mine needed here.
--Maillot Cinquante-huit

Well, the Italian wikipedia gives Va, with no apostrophe, but my Italian dictionary gives va and va' as alternatives. The latter is an elided form of vai. Ehrenkater (talk) 14:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem with your Italian Wiktionary link is that it includes www. http://it.wiktionary.org works fine. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

"Va'" is apostrophized because it's an elision of the imperative "vai", similar to "po'" for "poco", or "fa'" for "fai". gli accenti ---Sluzzelin talk 15:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

it:Apostrofo has more imperative examples besides va' & fa': sta', di', and da'. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

btw, Ehrenkater, how did you manage to italicize the va'-with-apostrophe? When I tried it, everything went messy and semi-bold. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

''va''' seems to properly create va'. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:58, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Sluzzelin, in a pinch you can always use &#39; to make a typewriter apostrophe. That won't interfere with the apostrophes used for formatting at all. Alternatively, you can use <i> and </i> for italics and it won't interfere with apostrophes used for content at all. +Angr 17:10, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the hints. Maybe it's because I used a whole string, but following jpgordon's advice gave me sta', di, and da and this is the mess ... ---Sluzzelin talk 21:11, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised it picks up apostrophe-space-apostrophe as apostrophe-apostrophe. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:36, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

''' —Tamfang (talk) 17:55, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

So, Sluzzelin, are you saying that it's strictly wrong to leave the apostrophe off? Or is there a choice? I have a particular interest in this question, and its appearance here is quite timely (I'd also have said spooky, had I not just now noticed who Maillot Cinquante-huit is). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was going by standard modern Italian orthography. The original print might cut it. According to it:Discussione:Va,_pensiero#Va.27.2C_pensiero_.2F_Va.2C_pensiero, Solera and Verdi used "va" without the apostrophe. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:46, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the Italian Wikipedia, the original texts (from Solera and Verdi) have the form without the apostrophe (VA), so this is the official form. In standard Italian, the correct form is VA' with the apostrophe (is the elision of VAI, because you are actually speaking directly to the thought).--151.51.128.89 (talk) 21:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Moroccan Arabic lyrics

I'm looking for a translation of the lyrics to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PpDfx3Orag نا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني انا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني أنا عبد ربي له قدرة يهون بها كل أمر عسير فان كنت عبدا ضعيف القوى فربي على كل شيء قدير انا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني مني اش عليا أنا عبد مملوك و الأشيا مقضيا ما في التحقيق شكوك ربي ناظر فيا و نا نظري متروك في الأرحام و في الأحشا من نطفة صورني انا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني يقول لما شاء كن فيكون و يبدىء سبحانه و يعيد و يحكم في خلقه ما يشا و يفعل في ملكه ما يريد انا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني في ظلمة الأرحام صورني من نطفا و بدأني بالأنعام نعمة من كل صنفا و خلق لي ما و طعام و نعايم مختلفا و نزلت من غير قميص غطاني و سترني انا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني مني اش عليا أنا عبد مملوك و الأشيا مقضيا ما في التحقيق شكوك ربي ناظر فيا و نا نظري متروك في الأرحام و في الأحشا من نطفة صورني انا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني انا مالي في اش أش عليا مني نقنط من رزقي لاش والخالق يرزقني Thanks! Mo-Al (talk) 19:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I'm real curious now after running that through Google Translate, which makes it contains phrases such as "Lord bless me, I have the capacity to trivialize". --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Offhand, it looks like, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

From Googling some of those words it looks like it might be "Ana mali fiash" by Abdessadeq Cheqara. Maybe you already know that so that probably doesn't help much. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:13, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Er, sorry, I see Youtube already has the title... Adam Bishop (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Altnordisch/Altisländisch

What's the difference between the German terms Altnordisch and Altisländisch? Are them the same language? They have two different aticles in German Wikipedia, both redirecting to Old Norse.
Also, what would be an acceptable translation for "Groningische Sprache"? --151.51.128.89 (talk) 21:24, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Is Gronings helpful? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Old Icelandic is a dialect of Old Norse, the other dialects being Old Norwegian, Greenlandic Norse, Old Swedish, Old Danish, and Old Gutnish. Old Icelandic happens to be the dialect that is best attested and that almost all (if not absolutely all) literature is written in (the other dialects are attested overwhelmingly, perhaps even exclusively, in inscriptions), so if you're reading an Old Norse saga or something, the dialect you're reading is almost certainly Old Icelandic. We have separate articles on each of the dialects except Old Icelandic (which is a redirect to Old Norse) and Old Danish (which is a redirect to Danish language). +Angr 21:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

This indeed makes a lot of sense! Thank you both!--151.51.128.89 (talk) 22:12, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

E V Gordon's grammar of Old Norse includes an extract from the Gesta Danorum in Old Danish (including a version of Hamlet!), and other selections in Old Swedish and Old Gutnish. --ColinFine (talk) 22:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

vt?

What does "vt" stand for (as in Jack Vance#Selected bibliography)? Clarityfiend (talk) 21:57, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

My guess is "variant title", but I'm not sure. +Angr 22:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Angr, judging by context it does appear to be "variant title". The abbreviation should really be changed or eliminated as it appears to be nonstandard. It doesn't appear in Wiktionary and Google brings up mostly hits relating to Vermont (whose postal abbreviation is VT). Xenon54 / talk / 22:13, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) likely "variant title" or even "Vance Title": the section above suggests Vance had his preferred alternative titles. It should be made more explicit, since it is confusing (in literature contexts, "vt" stands for transitive verb). Gwinva (talk) 22:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

It's the abbreviation for 'variant title' used in some influential SF/Fantasy reference works, notably The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls (1978, 1993), and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) edited by John Clute and John Grant. It was/is not uncommon for SF and Fantasy stories and novels (and probably those in other genres as well) to appear under one title in magazine publication and another in subsequent book publication, or under different titles in the US and UK & Commonwealth markets.87.81.230.195 (talk) 00:04, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing up this very tiresome annoyance. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:00, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Procuratorates

Is this word latin: Procuratorate?

What does it mean? What is its etymology? Why is it used in the China?174.3.110.108 (talk) 22:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it is English, though derived from Latin roots. It derives from the office of Procurator. Under "procuratorate". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) says "In China: the public prosecutor's department, or the body of public prosecutors, at any of various levels of court hierarchy." It does not explain why this word specifically was used to translate the Chinese term (which it gives as "jiăncháyuàn"). --ColinFine (talk)

The English term "procurator" is often used to translate the word used for a prosecutor (public prosecuting attorney) in civil law legal systems (i.e. those wholly or partly derived from Roman law including French, Spanish, Latin American, Russian, and Chinese [since 1991]). Specifically, public procurator is often used for prosecutors in Commmunist countries (of which China is one)--see also socialist law. Likewise, Procurator Fiscal is a type of prosecutor in Scotland (Scotland is a civil law country, compared to the common law system of England, Wales, Ireland, US, etc.) The term is used in other languages, e.g. Spanish (Procurador fiscal).--Dpr (talk) 00:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

In Latin, fourth declension -atus endings were used for political and ecclesiatical offices (magistratus, episcopatus, etc - it's more common in late/ecclesiastical/medieval Latin). That's the etymology. Too bad fourth declension vocatives don't end in -e like the second declension. "Procuratorate" could have meant "O procuratorship!", but alas it does not. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)