Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 September 30

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CALLANDERMAN

00:40, 30 September 2006 (UTC)64.12.116.134Determing the definition or use for the word callanderman. ExAMPLE - HE WAS A CALLANDERMAN IN GLASGOW IS RECORDED IN A SCOTTISH GENEALOGY REPORT..

Aye, well, a Callanderman would be a man who hails from Callander.--Shantavira 06:24, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

genealogy = callanderman - finished cotton cloth in cotton mill

Word Meaning

Groupier: I understand the word to mean, card dealer. I think it might be an English slang word used by casino houses in England to identify their card dealers, but I'm not sure. Does anyone know the history of the word?

The word you want is "croupier" - Nunh-huh 04:20, 30 September 2006 (UTC) (P.S. as for the history of the word, I don't understand why, but it's apparently from the French word "croupe", meaning a horses's ass.... A "croupier" would be someone who rides on a horse's rump. How this relates to card playing, I'd love to know :) - Nunh-huh 04:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think it's from a stick used to hit the horse on the rump (see English "crop")and a croupier uses a stick which looks like a reversed hunting whip(with the handle on the table) to scoop up the chips.(hotclaws**== 11:24, 30 September 2006 (UTC))

What does "the jig is up" mean?

I use it and know by context but had the occasion to try to explain to a mandarin speaker with little functional english and am in the mirror position (english speaker with barely polite mandarin) what it ment. What is the derivation and exact meaning?

I don't know the derivation, but it means "the deception has been discovered". For example, if planning a surprise party, once the guest of honor discovers the plans, you could say "the jig is up". StuRat 05:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

There's a bit on the derivation of the phrase about halfway down this page. --McMillin24 _contribs^talk 06:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

There's a fullish derivation here. Apparently "jig" also means "a piece of sport or trick", hence "the jig is up". -- the GREAT Gavini 07:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

seeking help

--Biruk asamere 11:47, 30 September 2006 (UTC)iam from ethiopia orthodx church igive serves in thechurch naw iwantlearn more in your school please help me

This here is Wikipedia, an on-line encyclopedia. Next to Wikipedia there is Wikiversity, a separate project devoted to learning materials and activities. The project is less than two months old and is still very much under development, but if you want to check it out, please visit the English language Wikiversity.

You can also learn things by reading articles in Wikipedia. Did you read our help page on Browsing Wikipedia? For example, if you want to know more about the topic "orthodox church", you can simply type that in the search box at the left and click the button Go. That will bring you to our article Orthodox church. In there, you find for example a link to the article Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and if you want to read that, just click on that link.

If you can read Amharic, and your browser has the Amharic fonts installed, you can also have a look at the Amharic Wikipedia.

 --Lambiam^Talk 13:06, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, see the smaller Simple English Wikipedia for articles that are easier to understand. — X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve)08:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

French : completely confused about dont versus duquel/de laquelle....

Hello,

first of all many thanks to all people who have helped me on this Reference Desk with my questions. I do have books, but now that I am out of high school, I am starting to question their quality more and more :(....

Here is another question if I may :

my book say: "dont" is an "invariable relative pronoun", which replaces "de"+the name of a person or thing

"duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles" is "variable relative pronoun" replacing "de"+name of a thing

So what to use for a thing? "C'est le film dont je parle" or "C'est film duquel je parle"? Which is correct, and if both are correct, what is the difference?

Thank you very much, Evilbu 13:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

using "duquel" would sound more formal, I guess. "duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles" are more often used in more formal contexts for their precision (they have gender and number, while "dont" don't have. Using "dont" may cause ambiguity when the main clause has two or more objects).--K.C. Tang 03:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Take the sentence Maintenant elle fait une promenade sur le lac, à la rive duquel sont amarrés les bateaux. Here you cannot say: *... le lac, dont à la rive sont amarrés .... (I think I first need to give some desinformation before Lgriot will step in and tell us how it really is.)  --Lambiam^Talk 19:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

No, no disinformation here ! It is all correct. I can't resist, it's very interesting of thinking about your own language in ways you never thought of.

So we can say that they are not interchangeable, I think that duquelle etc. expresses the possession "de", whereas dont is a simple compulsory preposition "de": "Le film dont je parle", because you say "Je parle de ce film" and there is no possession. De is compulsory because that is how "parler" works.

But you have to say "...ce lac, à la rive duquel ils sont amarrés" because you say "la rive de ce lac", and here you clearly mean some 'possession' of some sort.

I haven't had that much time to think about it, though, so I could be wrong, if you find a counter-example, please post. Lgriot 16:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Alors cet homme dont nous ignorons le nom va trouver les Londubat.

Elles étaient aussi robustes que ces arbres dont elles épousaient la forme.

Elle s’empara du cahier dont elle arracha la page qu’elle déchira aussitôt.

All sound good to me, even though you can also say (I think) le nom duquel nous ignorons etc.  --Lambiam^Talk 17:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right, and in all three cases ("le nom de cet homme") the "dont" expresses possession. I'm baffled... Lgriot 20:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm very confused now? Is there no difference then? Thanks!Evilbu 20:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Look what I found in our own article French pronouns:

Traditionally, if the relative pronoun was to be the object of a preposition in the clause (other than the de of possession), or the indirect object of the clause's verb, a form of lequel was used, with the preposition placed before it: « la femme de laquelle j'ai parlé » ("the woman about whom I spoke"). (Note that here, as in the interrogative case described above, à and de contract with most forms of lequel.) Nowadays, the form of lequel is typically replaced with qui when the antecedent is a human: « la femme de qui j'ai parlé ». Further, if the preposition is de, even if it's not the de of the possession, dont has started to be used (with both human and non-human antecedents): « la femme dont j'ai parlé ». (However, dont has not started to be used in the case of compound prepositions ending in de, such as à côté de, loin de, and à cause de: « la femme à cause de laquelle j'ai parlé », "the woman because of whom I spoke"). Alternatively, if the relative pronoun is to be an adverbial complement in the clause, introduced by the preposition à (or a similar preposition of time or place), où may be used: « la ville où j'habite » ("the city where I live"), « au moment où il a parlé » ("at the moment that he spoke").

This should clear all confusion. Wikipedia rocks!  --Lambiam^Talk 21:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

How about this simple rule for modern French, then: "dont" can always be used in cases where it follows directly the noun it refers to la femme dont je parle, l'homme dont le nom est Pierre. "Duquel"-and-its-variations can be also used just after the noun it refers to, but is more formal / older: Le lac, duquel j'ai déjá parlé, est très petit.

But "duquel" is required if it is separated (even by a simple preposition) from the noun it refers to: J'ai rencontré cet homme, dont la femme était très belle but J'ai rencontré cet homme, la femme duquel était très belle, Il y avait un bateau, à coté duquel il se trouvait.

Sorry, forgot to sign. Lgriot 07:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

What about the following sentences?

1.  Maintenant elle fait une promenade sur le lac, la rive duquel était parsemée de bateaux amarrés.
2.  Maintenant elle fait une promenade sur le lac, dont la rive était parsemée de bateaux amarrés.
3.  Maintenant elle fait une promenade sur le lac, à la rive duquel sont amarrés les bateaux.
4. *Maintenant elle fait une promenade sur le lac, dont à la rive sont amarrés les bateaux.

The last one feels wrong to me. Would your rule account for that?  --Lambiam^Talk 11:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right, there is more to it. maybe "dont" cannot be followed by another preposition? I'm not even sure of that, (sigh), we need someone more competent in French linguistics than me... Lgriot 19:00, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Ce matin elle faisait une promenade sur le lac, dont à cet instant la rive était parsemée de bateaux amarrés. :)  --Lambiam^Talk 23:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, what you really mean there is "dont, à cet instant, la rive...". So "dont la rive" remains what you mean. "Dont" has nothing to do with the preposition. Instead in "...le lac, dont à la rive sont ..." you try to associate "dont" with "à" which is why it fails (I think) :-). Lgriot 17:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough.  --Lambiam^Talk 22:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Bilingual poetry

Hiya. Following a tangent from the Science reference desk, I have a question: is there a name for the virtuostic form of poetry in which the same sequence of sounds creates two different poems in two different languages? For example: here is the first line of a poem (a dirge) written by Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh of Modena in 1584:

In Italian: Chi nasce muor: Oime, che pass' acerbo! ("All that is born will die; alas! How bitter this move!")

And in Hebrew, the same pattern of sounds: קינה שמור, אוי מֶה כי פס אוצר בו ("Save your lament, alas how is it that no more is that which once encompassed")

I know of three such Hebrew/Italian poems and one Hebrew/French. Anyone know of additional examples involving other languages? --woggly 21:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't know of a formal name for it, but there was a 1967 "Mots d'Heures, Gousses, Rhames" book, with pompous pseudo-academic annotations of Mother Goose rhymes rendered phonetically into French (see Luis van Rooten, and for another book inspired by his, see French wikipedia, fr:N'Heures_Souris_Rames). AnonMoos 23:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly the same, but we do have Mondegreen and soramimi kashi. BTW, soramimi actually means "mishearing" AFAIK. --Kjoonlee 04:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

On a slight tangent, this reminds me of the 'supposed' motto of the French Navy. "À l'eau c'est l'heure" Skittle 21:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Took me a while to figure that one out - "Hello Sailor"? :-) Thanks for the suggestions. Mondegreen, soramimi and eggcorns are different in that they are inadvertent mishearings, usually within a language. I'm thinking of a deliberate bilingual form of poetry. But I suppose it could be that this type of poetry, being extremely rare, simply doesn't have a name... --woggly 07:48, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I doubt there's a name (though some obscure linguist may have, at some point, come up with one.) A poem, however, that can be read top to bottom or bottom to top is called a Tuanortsa (and we don't have an article on it). The Jade Knight 01:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Another French text having a meaning in English is "Pas de lieu Rhône que nous", while an example of English text having meaning in French is the name of the musical "Oh, Calcutta".

Yet another example is the ancient schoolboy "cod-latin" rhyme, as follows:

Caesar adsum iam forte. Pompey ad erat. Pompey sic in omnibus; Caesar sic in at.