Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Language/2006 August 3

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[edit] Whopper-jawed

When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me that I looked "whopper-jawed" (or "wopper-jawed") if my skirt was crooked or a button was dangling or my hem was hanging. She'd then straighten me out so I was presentable to the sisters at school.

I've tried to find this word and haven't found anything remotely like it. My grandmother was from West Virginia so I thought Mom might have picked it up there. She also lived in Ohio and Chicago. Mom doesn't remember where she first heard the word. She could be making up hence my failure to find a reference to it.

I'm not sure about the spelling or the hypen. I wondered if it originated with the slur "wop". I'd be grateful if any of you have heard the word before ... period. If you have, if it's used in the same context as above and where it originated.

It's probably a made-up word but I still like it. Thanks in advance. Leener

A "whopper" is a big lie or anything big, like Burger King's big burger. Perhaps being "whopper jawed" meant having a large jaw, which would be an unattractive look for a girl. Thus, it would be a way of saying "you look ugly". StuRat 07:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Is it related to "whooping"? 惑乱 分からん 09:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
(Seems not...) 惑乱 分からん 10:22, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
For starters, the correct spelling is wapper-jawed—assuming that such a word can have a correct spelling... The word wapper is unrelated to whopper or whooping, and was originally a verb meaning "to blink the eyes." Hence wapper-eyed, self-explanatory, and wapper-jawed, which means "having a crooked jaw." It figures. HTH, JackLumber. 12:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preferred term for Latin Americans, especially those living in the US

I hear three terms a lot, hispanic, latino and chicano. I never use any of them because I'm afraid of causing offence. I've heard that chicano is a pejorative, what about the others? Is there another descriptive term that's more acceptable?--Anchoress 04:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Chicano isn't inherently a pejorative, but some people might be offended by it. It refers specifically to Mexican-Americans. --π! 05:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
"Chicano" is rarely used these days. "Hispanic" is still used, but I think "Latino" (for the group, or a specific male) and "Latina" (for a specific female) are becoming the most popular terms in the US. StuRat 07:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Which makes more sense than 'Hispanic' because that refers to Spain and Brazil has a Portuguese colonial history. Then again, what about the Indians (or what should I call them), blacks and the various ethnic mixes from central and south America. Are they 'Central Americans' and 'South Americans' and does this mean you first have to ask which (sub)continent they're from? And what about people from French Guyana? French is a Latin language. And are Belizians excluded because English isn't? What exactly is meant by the term 'Latino'? I don't mean the official definition, but what people really mean by it.
Of course we could just call them 'people', but that would be too easy. :) It does, however, raise a question. What do we need a word for these people for? You need a word for something when it is clearly different from other things. When you're an Eskimo you need different words for different kinds of snow. When you're not you don't. So what do you need the distinction for? This reminds me of the Dutch word Allochtoon, literally meaning something like 'from a different culture', but defined as having at least one parent born outside the Netherlands. But that's not what people really mean by it. So a new word was introduced, 'non-western allochtone', meaning allochtones from outside Europe and North America (although the official definition is much more complicated). But what people 'in the street' really mean when they say allochtone is 'those darkies'. Does a similar problem play here? DirkvdM 08:04, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're asking, but to clarify, I'm not trying to come up with a word for 'these people', and I'm not asking about one general word for people south of the 30th parallel. But the fact remains that there is a large population of people in America, mostly but not all Mexican, and they are often referred to by the three words I mentioned above. These folks probably have words they use to refer to their own cultural groups. I'd like to know what they are. I'm not trying to make an 'us vs them' distinction, but it's a foregone conclusion that cultural groups all over the world have words to describe them, some acceptable, some not. I'm trying to learn, so I can be respectful, and so I can get to know a bit more about cultures I haven't had much exposure to.--Anchoress 10:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I just meant to say that if you want to name a group you first have to define them and if that definition proves difficult then maybe there shouldn't be such a name. DirkvdM 18:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
But providing a label for any group is going to be inexact. For example, if a health agency said "to slow the spread of AIDS we plan a major condom distribution campaign in the homosexual community", this would be a reasonably clear statement, despite the fact that "homosexual", in this case, may or may not include lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex individuals, transvestites, etc. While imprecise, the statement is still better than none at all. StuRat 06:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
True, but my 'allochtoon; example shows how dangerous this can be. If different people use different definitions of a word (which is more likely if it is difficult to define) then people who see the statistics may think that the Netherlands are being overrun by 'darkies' and muslims (and 'therefore' terrorists) and the like, when most of them area actually of German descent (like me, for example). DirkvdM 06:49, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if I can find it again now (perhaps someone else knows), but somewhere on the net I saw a survey indicating what various ethnicities in the U.S. choose to call themselves. Interestingly, the "politically correct" terms were usually pretty unpopular: most blacks call themselves "black", not "African American", and most Indians call themselves "Indians", not "Native Americans". Unfortunately, I can't remember what the survey said about Mexican-Americans, but I suspect it wasn't "Hispanic". User:Angr 10:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
No, none of these are offensive terms ("wetback" would be an offensive term, implying they are illegal immigrants who just swam the Rio Grande). In fact, Latinos themselves probably use the word most often. There are Latino dating services, for example. StuRat 08:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, all three are technically inaccurate. Hispanic means "deriving from spain" but Brazilians speak Portugese (and technically this definition would include Filipinos - but people don't lump them together, unless they were mistakening one for the other). Chicano refers to Mexicans, which is where the pejorativeness comes from - if you called all Latinos Mexican they'd probably be offended as well, it would be the same as calling all East/Southeast Asians Chinese, all South Asians Indian, and all whites as American. Latino/a has romance language connotations even though French is not included. Latin@ (o/a) would probably be the best use in North America. --ColourBurst 08:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Despite our Spanish heritage, I strongly object to Filipinos being called Hispanic. The base of our cultures as well as our languages existed long before Magellan set foot in the archipelago. --Chris S. 21:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The usage varies by geographic region of the US and by register, but Latino and Hispanic are synonymous. Chicano refers to Mexican Americans, as pointed out above, most commonly but not exclusively in California. Latino is favored in academics, art, and politics (again not exclusively) as well as in the West in lower registers. Hispanic tends to be used more commonly in the East. Other terms used are Spanish, a low register term commonly used at least in NY and Latin, typically used to describe music. With all due respect, the arguments about whether Brazilians are excluded because Hispanic refers to Spain are really not definitive. People accept or don't the use of a term as a reference to themselves for complex reasons, etymology and other meanings a word or related word might have are just one factor. Certainly, at least some immigrants from Spain often do not refer to themselves as Hispanic, while in Spain itself a term emerging from Latin American immigrants is Hispano. Etymology is not destiny linguistically.

That said, I avoid Latina(s) to refer to female(s) because sex reference nouns have been disappearing from English, and it seems like a kind of useless importation of foreign morphology. Then again I'm not a big fan of Greek, Latin and Hebrew plurals in English either, but I recognize that the terms are used. mnewman

I dont know the answer to your question but there are nicknames in Spanish for the various nationalities. For example, Uruguayans are often referred to as "charrúas" by Spanish-speakers, deriving from the Indians who lived there before. Its not at all pejorative, more like "Kiwi" for New Zealander. On the other hand, there are pejorative words in Spain for South Americans such as "sudaca". Jameswilson 22:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of "nunchaku" (martial weapon)

Nunchaku fails to explain where the term nunchaku or nunchucks comes from. It also doesn't mention the Cantonese term and Jyutping for it.--Sonjaaa 04:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Using cojak.org, the Cantonese readings would be soeng1 zit3 gwan3 (雙節棍), loeng5 zit3 gwan3 (兩節棍), and ji6 zit3 gwan3 (二節棍). I don't know if this is Jyutping, though. However, I looked at the Japanese article where I saw 福建語で読んだ「n=ng-chiat-kun」 And apparently it's of Min Nan origin. Obtaining the dictionary definition from Google leads to an entry about the Taiwanese, which is a dialect of Min Nan, origin of nunchakus. I do remember the word nng becoming the word for "two" in Min Nan. --Chris S. 05:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. The kanji indicate "Hokkien language" which is a Min Nan variant. --ColourBurst 19:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
A 'martial weapon'? Doesn't 'martial' refer to war and indirectly to fighting and isn't any weapon therefore martial? (not nitpicking this time, because this is the language ref desk :) )DirkvdM 06:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic vocabulary

I'm trying to find the Arabic equivalents for some basic military terminology. Does anyone know how modern standard would translate "platoon," "company," "battalion," "brigade," and "division"? Thanks.

--Wes

Those wee phrasebooks you get when you join the army are really useful - unfortunately I don't have an Arabic one... Surely the word would be in the language bar at the side of the article in question? - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 08:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The standard words in MSA are:
  1. platoon — فصيل or فصيلة — faṣīl or faṣīlä
  2. company — شركة — širkä or šarikä (but I'm not sure if this is used for military companies)
  3. battalion — فرقة — firqä (although this may mean 'division')
  4. brigade — لواء — liwā’
  5. division — تقسيم or قسم — taqsīm or qism (although this might be any kind of division)
I hope you can make sense of these. If you want to use them in a sentence, post your sentence and we shall try to translate it for you. — Gareth Hughes 10:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks very much; I'm good with the grammar, just needed the vocab. --Wes

[edit] Non-subject/ predicate languages

Are there languages that don't use the subject-predicate distinction ? I can see how one might use a single word to cover a subject/ predicate [noun/ verb] sentence; e.g. one could take the name 'Cicero' and invent 'Ciceron', meaning 'Cicero has been hit'. But are there actual languages like this ? I realise there are inflected languages such as Latin, Greek, Russian ... but they all retain separate subject-terms and predicate-terms. Put this point like this : Are there languages that use single words/ terms for the subject/ predicate combinations that we find in English, Latin, Greek, Russian sentences ?

Well, there are pro-drop languages like Latin, where the subject is integrated into the verb and needn't otherwise be explicitly stated: "amo" = "I love", "amas" = "you (sg.) love", "amamus" = "we love", etc. User:Angr 14:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about (I'm no linguist) but in Biblical Hebrew, you can have words containing a noun and a verb - i guess this would be a one word subject/predicate sentence. An example would be from the Song of the Sea: "וַאֲרֹמְמֶנְהוּ" va'aromemenehu, which means "and I will exalt Him (God)". СПУТНИКCCC P 16:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
On second thought, it's an alright example, but i wouldn't say that Hebrew is a language with doesn't have subject-predicate distinction. It has the distinction - in poetic Hebrew, you can contract it so you have one word sentences, but it's not like that's a grammatical feature of the language. I think you'd be better off looking at native languages like Quechua or Ojibwe, which are agglutinative, and seem to have the feature you're looking for. СПУТНИКCCC P 16:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Especially polysynthetic languages and languages with incorporation. Too bad I never quite managed to understand this stuff... Maybe you will... :) --194.145.161.227 20:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Don't forget ergative-absolutive languages. mnewmanqc
Then there are the languages of Tlön, which damn near scrap the whole idea of subjects (well, nouns, anyway) entirely. E.g.: "The moon rose above the water" more or less equals "Upward behind the onstreaming it mooned." ;-) zafiroblue05 | Talk 04:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] latin inscription translation help

Found on an article talk page:

I translated "proconsul asiam provinciam op… divi augusti iterum syriam" myself, but I could use someone who is expert in reading inscriptions to check this out; inscription, with their missing letters and shorthand script at notoriously hard to read. Particularly, I wonder if my rendering of asiam as the adjective modifying syriam is a mistake, and if it should just be the noun, meaning Asia Minor; I think there is room for interpretation here but if so I could at least use a scholarly source for this. Lostcaesar 08:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Would you mind reply at Talk:The Census of Quirinius and the Gospels. Thanks for your help!--Andrew c 14:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC

Almost forgot, here is the current translation : "Proconsul again in the Asian province Syria, of the divine Augutus."--Andrew c 14:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mayan Word

What does the word Pixan mean?--64.52.43.98 15:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The Mayan word pixan is best translated as "soul" or "spirit", apparently. There's my ancient Mayan word of the day... СПУТНИКCCC P 16:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is or that is

Which is correct:

Some believe that Jason took the palace in Athens and that is where he fought and killed a man.

Some believe that Jason took the palace in Athens and this is where he fought and killed a man.

This gives the impression that you are in the palace, either figuratively or speaking from where the palace used to stand. That suggests distance and therefore is appropriate if you are not at the palace, either figuratively or physically. — Gareth Hughes 15:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Is Emprie when used in this context always suppsoed to be capitalized.

Under the Fatimids, Egypt became the center of an empire that included at its peak North Africa.

Alexander's empire?

I wouldn't capitalise it in either of the examples. I would capitalise Empire when it stood as part of the name of an empire (e.g. Roman Empire) or when it stood alone as shorthand for such (e.g. The beginning of the Empire is properly dated to the accession of Augustus), but not when it simply refers to the idea of empire (e.g. It was through might that the Romans created an empire, Al Jazeera's media empire has established a global image the envy of many networks). — Gareth Hughes 16:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Book of Job

One section of the article "Book of Job" contained this :

  • "Please translate David Betesh 19:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

לדעת הרמב"ן ספר איוב מרמז לרעיון גלגול הנשמות שהוא הפיתרון האמיתי לבעיית השכר והעונש. אחרים הדגישו רמיזות לעולם הבא, אם כי הוא אינו מוזכר בשום מקום בספר בצורה מפורשת, ואיוב אף דוחה את הרעיון שיש תקווה לאדם לאחר מותו (בפרק יד, יא-יב למשל: "אָזְלוּ-מַיִם, מִנִּי-יָם; וְנָהָר, יֶחֱרַב וְיָבֵשׁ. וְאִישׁ שָׁכַב - וְלֹא-יָקוּם.")

I took the liberty to put it in commentaries and bring the text in the talk page. Few of us shall be able to read without translation ; but the request to translate must not appear on the article page. Thank you (2 June 2006 (UTC)) see also the talk page. --DLL 16:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a really rough and quick translation:
According to the opinion of the Rambam (Moses Maimonides), the Book of Job hints at the concept of transmigration of souls, which is the real solution to the problem of punishment and reward. Others emphasized hints to the World-to-Come (Messianic Era) even though it is not mentioned in any place in the book in an explicit fashion, and Job even rejects the idea that there is hope for someone after his death; in Chapter 14:11-12 he says "As the waters fail from the sea, and the river is drained dry; So man lieth down and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep."
That's the best i could do at the moment; should i leave it here or put it in the article/talk page? СПУТНИКCCC P 13:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commas

Does a comma come after later:

Later, as Heraclius approached the Parthia capital of Ctesiphon, the Parthia aristocracy deposed their leader.

Yes. Also, I think the adjective is Parthian, and I'd avoid using aristocracy (singular) with their (plural). HenryFlower 17:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Depends on whether you're American or British for the second one, doesn't it? (There are of course no other varieties of English worth speaking of.) --Ptcamn 19:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, it may do, but anything that will cause discomfort to some of your readers is best avoided. HenryFlower 21:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
So you don't use 'aristocracy' at all? Because 'The aristocracy was...' would cause many readers as much pain as 'The aristocracy were...' causes you. To call the aristocracy 'it' as much as 'they'. Skittle 19:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sesquipedalian

6 sylobol word that starts with D

decentralization • decidability • dependability • desirability • deterioration • differentiation • directionality • disambiguation • discernibility • discontinuity • discriminatory • disinterestedness • disqualification • dissatisfactory • dissimilarity • distributivity • diversification • divisibility.  --LambiamTalk 18:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Deductibility... etc... 惑乱 分からん 22:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Di-trisyllabical? :) digfarenough (talk) 23:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Discombobulated. Adam Bishop 06:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Diphenylalanine. —Blotwell 07:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)