Language desk
< December 7	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 9 >

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

December 8[edit]

Why "quintuple" is not "quinqueple"[edit]

The suffix "-ple" means fold. The words duple, triple, and quadruple mean 2-fold, 3-fold, and 4-fold. But when we use the word with Latin elements, we say "fifth fold" rather than "five fold". Any reason?? Was it historically common to confuse cardinal prefixes with ordinal prefixes?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Quadruple and quintuple both come from Latin via French.[1][2] <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 15:34, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I went to the link and included in the etymology is from Latin quintus "fifth". Note the difference between fifth and five. Georgia guy (talk) 15:39, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So get in your time machine and go back to the 1500s, and ask that question. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 15:45, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be silly. There was no Wikipedia in the 1500s. --Trovatore (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2021 (UTC) [reply]

There was, sort of, but it was kept on parchment. You had to scroll through it. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 21:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But before you do that, check out the etymologies for single, double and triple.[3][4][5] <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 15:49, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia_guy -- Latin "Multiplicative numerals" (see Gildersleeve and Lodge, page 54), go like this: simplex, duplex, triplex, quadruplex, quincuplex. The "Proportional numerals" (adjectives), go like this (in masculine singular nominative form): simplus, duplus, triplus, quadruplus, but no form for 5 is attested. So if you want to form a non-ordinal alternative for "quintuple", it seems that "quincuple" would be most correct according to Latin analogies... AnonMoos (talk) 19:47, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The OED actually has an entry on quincuple, classified as very rare (mainly restricted to a Quincuple Psalter from around 1509). The etymology of that form is traced back to Boethius (as quincuplus, which seems to contradict your reference?), whereas quintuplex seems to be attested earlier, in the 4th century. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:Wrongfilter, I saw a Wiktionary entry for quincuple, but it is short and has no entries linking to it. Georgia guy (talk) 20:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wrongfilter -- in the grammar I was using (Gildersleeve and Lodge), "only the following forms occur" means in Classical Latin. Boethius is considered medieval... AnonMoos (talk) 22:24, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, I would put him in Late Antiquity, but his times are in-between more than anything else... Where do they draw the line in that grammar? I think the OED spoke about "post-classical". --Wrongfilter (talk) 23:24, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's no specific explanation of this in the grammar ("medieval" is my term), but Boethius is not listed in the "Syntax of individual authors" index, and the lengthy syntax sections are dominated by quotes from Julius Caesar, Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, etc. The official Wikipedia term for this is Late Latin, not considered the same as Classical Latin... AnonMoos (talk) 05:52, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

L&S list the adjective quincuplex, meaning five-fold. Gaffiot also gives this word, and, moreover, the corresponding adverb quincupliciter (and the Boethian terms quincuplico "I multiply by five" and quincuplus). Wiktionary states at the entry quadruplus that this adjective is "rare in Latin" – to which I might add that it is rare in other languages as well – so presumably the old Romans had no urgent need for a further extension to higher multiplicities. But should they have felt the urge, like Boethius did, quinque + -plus = quincuplus would have served them as the more regular formation, not the odd quintus + -plus = ^✽quintuplus, literally "fifth-fold". However, the equally odd formation quintuplex is attested, and, at least according to le Trésor, this is the etymon of our term quintuple. --Lambiam 12:02, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Flying House vs Tondera House[edit]

The article The Flying House (TV series) gives the Japanese-language title as "Tondera Hausu no Daibōken (トンデラハウスの大冒険, Adventures of the Flying House)". A web search shows various pages that say the Japanese title translates to "Flying House" or "Amazing House". However, it's not clear to me that "tondera" in Japanese means "flying" or anything else. It doesn't show up in Wiktionary, and it's written in katakana, which suggests a non-Japanese word or name. My guess is that "Tondera House" is simply the name of the house in the Japanese-language version of the show, without any literal meaning. Is that correct? Is it likely to be taken from the place name of Tondela, Portugal (with the same spelling in katakana)? --Amble (talk) 18:38, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unless a Japanese speaker here knows better, I found this forum thread which says:-

I don't think the word トンデラ came from any kind of western language. I guess that word was coined by the creator of that anime from a Japanese colloquial トンデル (tonderu), which originally means flying but also means active, fashionable, cool and so on. Alansplodge (talk) 19:09, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Katakana isn't necessarily only used for foreign words, but it could also be used for certain animals where the kanji is rarely used, or for general emphasis. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:05, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Right, katakana suggests it might be a foreign word or name, or just a made-up name, but not necessarily. One other point that could be relevant is that the Korean-language title just transliterates "Tondera", which is also consistent with it being a name instead of an ordinary word.--Amble (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Still, an actually flying house seems to me a more probable origin, than the show being named after an obscure small municipality in Portugal. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if "tondera" means flying. It seems based on the forum post Alansplodge found that it's similar to a word that can mean "flying" (among other things), but perhaps changed a bit to make a name. I don't find exactly these words on Wiktionary, but I don't know Japanese, so a Japanese speaker can probably help clarify. --Amble (talk) 22:49, 8 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I found a Japanese dictionary listing 翔んでる, described as a colloquialism for "flipped out, groovy", where the first character is a kanji for "to soar or fly", and putting the whole phrase through a translation tool gives ton deru, "it's flying". (What then are the other characters? I don't know enough about Japanese to say if they're katakana or some third thing. The first two characters together seem to make "ton" according to the translation tool, so how does that work if a kanji character isn't phonetic? But anyway, the forum post seems to be plausible.) (Edit after reading relevant articles: I guess they're hiragana and this is an example of okurigana.) Card Zero (talk) 01:32, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And the tiny と over the kanji character 翔 that can be seen in that dictionary is furigana. The kanji character itself is a jinmeiyō kanji (approved only for writing Japanese proper names), appended to the jōyō kanji (the official standardized list of common kanji) in 1981. --Lambiam 10:44, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[翔んでる] is a verb, as a whole. That the last three syllables (morae) are written in hiragana, is so you should be able to have it conjugated in written form. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:01, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. Given that information, to say that the title means “flying house” is simplifying things a little, but not incorrect, so the article is probably OK as it stands. —Amble (talk)|