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This is just a survey on something that has already been fixed in an article. What is the first meaning of "held" that comes to mind on reading this line: "a guest arriving from Berlin was delayed, and for the first time in years dinner was held." Jay ( talk) 11:49, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Jay has biased the survey by putting "dinner was held" in the heading and boldfacing the word in the quote. The eye is drawn to those places first. The words "dinner was held" are, I think, most often heard in the context of "a dinner was held", meaning a banquet, so in isolation they put this in mind. If the complete sentence had been in the title, people might read the actual context before getting to the word "held", and then they would be more likely to think of the intended meaning, familiar from things like trains being held for passengers connecting off another, delayed train. --Anonymous, 19:32 UTC, April 7, 2009.
In Chapter 18 of Great Expectations, a character uses a word "ekervally" in the following context:
Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again, and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining his knees, said, "Aye, aye, I'll be ekervally partickler, Pip;"
Joe's speech is often represented in eye dialect, so I wasn't surprised when the OED didn't have this word. I can't find a definition online, because the book is common enough that typing it simply yields digitised editions. Any idea what it means? From the context I guess that it relates to Biddy's "very", and I'm wondering perhaps if it's related to Old English éac, more modern "eke", to mean something like "extra"? Nyttend backup ( talk) 14:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I am reading a novel by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, in which one of the characters is repeatedly referred to as a "Druda". The novel was originally written in German but I am reading it in English translation. I have already looked at a German-English dictionary without any luck. Does anyone know if "Druda" means anything in German, or if it could be something made-up? Thank you. Loves Macs (talk) 17:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
what does "el grullense" mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.192.120 ( talk) 19:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
It's "gases". I wonder why it's not "gasses". Stressed short vowels in infinitive verbs normally take double consonants in the present participle and past tense, to prevent them from being perceived as long vowels - "hit" > "hitting", "fit" > "fitted", and so on. "Gases" could well be quite reasonably pronounced by a lingo-newby as "gazes", and I'd have a hard time explaining why it doesn't rhyme with that word, or with "phrases" or "vases" (US pron.), but with "basses" (fish), "lasses", "masses" and "wrasses", all of which have double consonants (although I appreciate their singulars do too). There's the verb "gasses", but in a context it would be hard to confuse that word with a noun. And we have a multitude of homonyms in English, with which we generally have no difficulty. So why "gases" and not "gasses" for the noun? -- JackofOz ( talk) 22:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
The coming summer, I figured I'd go to the World Bodypainting Festival again, but this time stop in Prague along the way, as it's conveniently situated along the route from Germany to Austria. However, this would be my first time alone in a foreign country where I don't even understand a modicum of the local language. How well am I supposed to get along with English? Do the locals speak German too? I speak German fairly well but worse than English. I speak absolutely zero Czech. JIP | Talk 23:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I've found out that in my native Finnish, changing a sentence from positive to negative does not simply add a negative marker, it changes the verb itself into a negative version of itself. For example:
Compare this to the other languages I speak:
In Finnish, the word en is not simply a negative marker, it's an auxiliary verb, so the sentence literally means "I not-do be a Finn". If the auxiliary verb were to be simply left out, the sentence would become Minä ole suomalainen, which is ungrammatical, but nowadays young people use a slang form similar to it: Minä mikään suomalainen ole ("I am not any kind of Finn", the word "not" is left out, but implicit from the context), or even Vittu minä mikään suomalainen ole ("I am not any kind of fucking Finn"). Do any other languages have this kind of feature? JIP | Talk 23:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
(EC) ::Well, there is the obvious one of French, where more and more people would say 'je suis pas finnois', leaving out the 'ne'.-- KageTora ( talk) 23:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Korean has different verbs for "is true" and "is false". Korean has different verbs for "does exist" and "does not exist" as well. 나는 사람이다. "I am a person." 나는 사람이 아니다. "I am-not a person." 사과가 있다. "(An) apple exists." 사과가 없다. "(An) apple does-not-exist." -- Kjoon lee 23:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
In Polish, the verb "to be" changes to "to have" when negated in expressions equivalent to "there is/there is no...". For example, you walk into a grocery and ask if they've got some bread: Czy jest chleb? ("Is there bread?"). If they have, then the answer is: Jest ("There is" where jest is the third person singular form of być, "to be"). But if you're back to the 1980s and all they have in stock is vinegar, then the answer is: Nie ma ("There is none" where ma is third person singular form of mieć, "to have"). In other words, instead of "There is no bread", you'd say "There has no bread" (Nie ma chleba). This happens only in the present tense and only in sentences expressing the physical lack of something or somebody. — Kpalion (talk) 07:53, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Arabic has a negative form of "to be", "laysa", which is conjugated in the perfect tense but has a present meaning. (Arabic doesn't actually have a present tense form of "to be" but it does have one for the past tense, "kana".) Adam Bishop ( talk) 08:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
In fact, there are even further differences between positive and negative sentences in Finnish. There is a suffix that has both a positive form: -kin (meaning "also" or "after all") and a negative form: -kaan/-kään depending on vowel harmony (meaning "not even" or "not after all"). The positive form may only appear in positive sentences, and vice versa. For example, hän osti leipääkin ("he also bought bread") vs. hän ei ostanut leipääkään ("he didn't even buy bread"), or hän ostikin leipää ("he bought bread, after all") vs. hän ei ostanutkaan leipää ("he didn't buy bread, after all"). In questions, either form of the suffix may appear, but the meaning changes. For example, ostiko hän leipääkin? means "did he also buy bread?" but ostiko hän leipääkään? means "did he even buy bread?".
Furthermore, Finnish has separate telic (completed) and atelic (ongoing) direct objects. For example, hän osti auton ("he bought a car, now it's all his") vs. hän ostaa autoa ("he is currently in the process of buying a car"). However, in negative sentences, telic objects become atelic, even if the meaning is still "telic" (completed). It is correct to say hän ei ostanut autoa but not hän ei ostanut auton, even though both mean "he didn't buy a car". Does something like this happen in other languages? JIP | Talk 18:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Language desk | ||
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< April 6 | << Mar | April | May >> | April 8 > |
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. |
This is just a survey on something that has already been fixed in an article. What is the first meaning of "held" that comes to mind on reading this line: "a guest arriving from Berlin was delayed, and for the first time in years dinner was held." Jay ( talk) 11:49, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Jay has biased the survey by putting "dinner was held" in the heading and boldfacing the word in the quote. The eye is drawn to those places first. The words "dinner was held" are, I think, most often heard in the context of "a dinner was held", meaning a banquet, so in isolation they put this in mind. If the complete sentence had been in the title, people might read the actual context before getting to the word "held", and then they would be more likely to think of the intended meaning, familiar from things like trains being held for passengers connecting off another, delayed train. --Anonymous, 19:32 UTC, April 7, 2009.
In Chapter 18 of Great Expectations, a character uses a word "ekervally" in the following context:
Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again, and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining his knees, said, "Aye, aye, I'll be ekervally partickler, Pip;"
Joe's speech is often represented in eye dialect, so I wasn't surprised when the OED didn't have this word. I can't find a definition online, because the book is common enough that typing it simply yields digitised editions. Any idea what it means? From the context I guess that it relates to Biddy's "very", and I'm wondering perhaps if it's related to Old English éac, more modern "eke", to mean something like "extra"? Nyttend backup ( talk) 14:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I am reading a novel by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, in which one of the characters is repeatedly referred to as a "Druda". The novel was originally written in German but I am reading it in English translation. I have already looked at a German-English dictionary without any luck. Does anyone know if "Druda" means anything in German, or if it could be something made-up? Thank you. Loves Macs (talk) 17:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
what does "el grullense" mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.192.120 ( talk) 19:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
It's "gases". I wonder why it's not "gasses". Stressed short vowels in infinitive verbs normally take double consonants in the present participle and past tense, to prevent them from being perceived as long vowels - "hit" > "hitting", "fit" > "fitted", and so on. "Gases" could well be quite reasonably pronounced by a lingo-newby as "gazes", and I'd have a hard time explaining why it doesn't rhyme with that word, or with "phrases" or "vases" (US pron.), but with "basses" (fish), "lasses", "masses" and "wrasses", all of which have double consonants (although I appreciate their singulars do too). There's the verb "gasses", but in a context it would be hard to confuse that word with a noun. And we have a multitude of homonyms in English, with which we generally have no difficulty. So why "gases" and not "gasses" for the noun? -- JackofOz ( talk) 22:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
The coming summer, I figured I'd go to the World Bodypainting Festival again, but this time stop in Prague along the way, as it's conveniently situated along the route from Germany to Austria. However, this would be my first time alone in a foreign country where I don't even understand a modicum of the local language. How well am I supposed to get along with English? Do the locals speak German too? I speak German fairly well but worse than English. I speak absolutely zero Czech. JIP | Talk 23:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I've found out that in my native Finnish, changing a sentence from positive to negative does not simply add a negative marker, it changes the verb itself into a negative version of itself. For example:
Compare this to the other languages I speak:
In Finnish, the word en is not simply a negative marker, it's an auxiliary verb, so the sentence literally means "I not-do be a Finn". If the auxiliary verb were to be simply left out, the sentence would become Minä ole suomalainen, which is ungrammatical, but nowadays young people use a slang form similar to it: Minä mikään suomalainen ole ("I am not any kind of Finn", the word "not" is left out, but implicit from the context), or even Vittu minä mikään suomalainen ole ("I am not any kind of fucking Finn"). Do any other languages have this kind of feature? JIP | Talk 23:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
(EC) ::Well, there is the obvious one of French, where more and more people would say 'je suis pas finnois', leaving out the 'ne'.-- KageTora ( talk) 23:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Korean has different verbs for "is true" and "is false". Korean has different verbs for "does exist" and "does not exist" as well. 나는 사람이다. "I am a person." 나는 사람이 아니다. "I am-not a person." 사과가 있다. "(An) apple exists." 사과가 없다. "(An) apple does-not-exist." -- Kjoon lee 23:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
In Polish, the verb "to be" changes to "to have" when negated in expressions equivalent to "there is/there is no...". For example, you walk into a grocery and ask if they've got some bread: Czy jest chleb? ("Is there bread?"). If they have, then the answer is: Jest ("There is" where jest is the third person singular form of być, "to be"). But if you're back to the 1980s and all they have in stock is vinegar, then the answer is: Nie ma ("There is none" where ma is third person singular form of mieć, "to have"). In other words, instead of "There is no bread", you'd say "There has no bread" (Nie ma chleba). This happens only in the present tense and only in sentences expressing the physical lack of something or somebody. — Kpalion (talk) 07:53, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Arabic has a negative form of "to be", "laysa", which is conjugated in the perfect tense but has a present meaning. (Arabic doesn't actually have a present tense form of "to be" but it does have one for the past tense, "kana".) Adam Bishop ( talk) 08:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
In fact, there are even further differences between positive and negative sentences in Finnish. There is a suffix that has both a positive form: -kin (meaning "also" or "after all") and a negative form: -kaan/-kään depending on vowel harmony (meaning "not even" or "not after all"). The positive form may only appear in positive sentences, and vice versa. For example, hän osti leipääkin ("he also bought bread") vs. hän ei ostanut leipääkään ("he didn't even buy bread"), or hän ostikin leipää ("he bought bread, after all") vs. hän ei ostanutkaan leipää ("he didn't buy bread, after all"). In questions, either form of the suffix may appear, but the meaning changes. For example, ostiko hän leipääkin? means "did he also buy bread?" but ostiko hän leipääkään? means "did he even buy bread?".
Furthermore, Finnish has separate telic (completed) and atelic (ongoing) direct objects. For example, hän osti auton ("he bought a car, now it's all his") vs. hän ostaa autoa ("he is currently in the process of buying a car"). However, in negative sentences, telic objects become atelic, even if the meaning is still "telic" (completed). It is correct to say hän ei ostanut autoa but not hän ei ostanut auton, even though both mean "he didn't buy a car". Does something like this happen in other languages? JIP | Talk 18:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)