Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Language/2006 July 28

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< July 27	Language desk archive	July 29 >

1 What is the correct pronunciation of Excel (Microsoft program)?
2 Danish pronunciation of Kierkegaard
3 Beret
4 Songs in orals(speech)
5 IPA for Gilles Villeneuve
6 Languages
7 German u
8 The Lagoon

[edit] What is the correct pronunciation of Excel (Microsoft program)?

Simply put, where does the stress fall? Excel or Excel? Why?

I pronounce it Ex-el since the 'c' in covered at the end of the x. schyler 00:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Presumably the second, same as the verb. --Ptcamn 01:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Presumably you mean the second syllable, not the second option offered by the questioner (where the stress is on the first syllable). JackofOz 03:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I always pronounce it "EK-sell". --π! 04:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

How interesting. I always pronounce it "ek-SELL". JackofOz 04:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I use "ek-SELL" because the other version's harder to say and would probably sound closer to "EK-sill". - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 07:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the c is covered at the end of the x. I pronounce excel differently than I pronounce X-L; the /s/ sound is lengthened more in excel than in X-L. There's a word for this; it's the same thing that allows us to distinguish between the words unaimed and unnamed. I read the Wikipedia article about it a few weeks ago, but I don't remember what it's called, and I'm too lazy to search for it. —Bkell (talk) 04:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I figured by now someone else would have come along and given a link to the article I was talking about. Since no one did, I had to search for it myself. The phenomenon I'm describing is called gemination. —Bkell (talk) 06:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Curiously, I think many people don't even pronounce it the same as they would pronounce the familiar verb excel. Notinasnaid 07:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

EX-cel. Funnily enough I'd never even twigged that it was spelt the same as the verb "to excel". Jameswilson 22:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was the same pronounciation as the verb excel. --Proficient 19:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

My father works as a database developer/administrator, so he works with Excel day in, day out. He has assured me, quite passionately I might add, that the correct pronunciation is EX-cel, like the verb. He has even stated that everyone he has ever worked with that pronounced it ex-CEL wasn't very good at database work, haha. Go figure? --69.138.61.168 21:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Danish pronunciation of Kierkegaard

One of those sad cases when IPA is of little use - Wikipedia article gives [ˈkʰiɐ̯g̊əˌg̊ɒːˀ]) In fact, I am not sure this transcription is entirely correct. But even if it is correct, what is the nature of [g̊]) ? Is it voiced or voiceless? In both cases? I think it must be something like Keerkegore? If you know Danish please help me (others too - see discussion)

I think voiced, because g's are voiced k's, so the symbol would be k if it was voiceless. (Wow, you got IPA to work! It never works for me) - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 07:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Some linguists use [g̊] to refer to a voiceless lenis stop, while [k] is a voiceless fortis stop. Similarly, [k̬] can be a voiced fortis stop.

It's also valid to use [g̊] for a partially voiced stop. The ring says it's devoiced, but it doesn't specify to what degree—it needn't be 100%.

However, sometimes [g̊] is simply used to represent something that really could be transcribed as [k], but is considered to be "g" for historical or orthographic reasons. I've seen [t̬] used for American English city, which is really a fully voiced [ɾ]. --Ptcamn 08:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[[1]] could he useful.Evilbu 11:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Fully voiceless, I think. But not aspirated, so neither keerkegore nor keerkecore is accurate; and since keerkecore would sound exactly theh same as Danish kierkekaard (not -gaard), I suppose that "keerkegore" is a better option. It's not that I expect somebody to read this post. --194.145.161.227 15:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Beret

Article says that beret is pronounced /ˈbɛɹeɪ/ in English, except in American English in which it is pronounced /bəˈɹeɪ/. I say it as "bey ray" -- slightly like berry. Which way am i pronouncing this? the American or British way? If I am saying it like the English way, how do Americans pronounce it (or vice versa)? 81.131.52.63 13:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The difference is basically one of stress: Brits stress the first syllable, Merkins the second. I'm not sure how to interpret your phonetic spelling, but the British version is more like 'berry'. Henry ^Flower 16:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm an American, and I pronounce it "buh ray" or "those silly hats Frenchmen wear". :-) StuRat 04:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Songs in orals(speech)

I am doing an oral about australia and there are heaps of australian songs out there, i just don't know how to involve the/a song with my oral(speech). e.g. i would like to use "I still call australia home" as one possible song or some other outback song. thank you—Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.95.236 (talk • contribs)

Not sure I quite understand your question, but I would have thought that suddenly bursting into song in the middle of your oral exam, even with an excellent singing vioce, might not be the best idea, from a tactical point of view.--Shantavira 14:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I think he means putting one in a PowerPoint presentation. - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 17:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA for Gilles Villeneuve

Hi. Doing my best to get my head round International Phoenetic Alphabet to provide a pronunciation for the French Canadian driver Gilles Villeneuve. Someone asked on the talk page how it was pronounced, so I thought it would be useful to include it in the lead. The closest I can get is: ʒilə vilə.nœv. Can anyone help me improve on it. I'm (probably) working to a standard Parisian accent, but I suppose it should really be French-Canadian, with which I am not familiar. 4u1e

IPA: [ʒil vilnœv] is my interpretation. — Gareth Hughes 16:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I may have the terminology wrong here, but I thought that would be 'short' rather than long (i.e 'Hill' and not 'Heel', by analogy) for the first and second syllables. Not a problem? 4u1e

French doesn't really have the short "i" (as in "hill") so the "i" presumably would be long (like "heel"). - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 17:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

~~Jacques~~ Gilles Villeneuve is Québécois, so his name would indeed be pronounced with the "i" in "hill." --Chris S. 18:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. But how does the non French speaker (who are the ones this is needed for!) know that? I'll go with it anyway - my current advice at talk:Gilles Villeneuve is to 'camp up your French accent' - perhaps that's all one can say! Thanks for the advice 4u1e 18:03, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Pity! I just came back from the town of Villeneuve-d'Ascq, and yes the pronounciation given is correct... well, in international French it is! --Bearbear 18:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The original question asks about IPA, which is used so we don't have to resort to all this 'sounds like HILL not HEEL' stuff. The former sound is [ɪ], the latter [i]. The difference is more one of vowel quality rather than quantity. Especially in French, that has [i], but not [ɪ], calling one 'short' and the other 'long'. For that reason, I stick by [ʒil vilnœv]. — Gareth Hughes 20:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I would go with the /slashes/ instead of the [brackets]if we are to use [i]. Another alternative would be to give both the International French and Québec French pronunciations which is done in the Montreal article. --Chris S. 06:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

As you say, he was Québécois, so the 'correct' pronunciation is from that dialect, anything else is just us failing to quite get it right. (Like Murray Walker's use of 'John Alesi' for Jean Alesi!). How would one write that as opposed to International french though? No worries if it can't be done, I've put Gareth's version in now anyway. Thanks again for all the advice. 195.137.77.175 07:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Languages

I cannot find a free online dictionary that translates one word from English into Hebrew. There is not one on Wikipedia either.Thank you for paying attention to this letter.

Here is one, and here. Iolakana|^T 16:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

And by the way, Wikipedia is simply a encyclopædia, not a collection of translating dictionaries. - THE GREAT GAVINI {T-C} 17:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Whereas Wiktionary is meant be a multilingual dictionary and does have many translations. It's not complete though of course. - Taxman ^Talk 17:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] German u

In the captions for a German film from the 1930's, every letter u had a curve above it. What does this mean? Is it to change the pronunciation, like an umlaut? 66.213.33.2 18:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The ŭ is almost certainly a creative variant of ü — umlaut. — Gareth Hughes 20:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not an Umlaut. Older people sometimes do this to mark the difference between a u and similar looking handwritten letters (e.g. n m and u look very similar in my mother's handwriting, and no, that's not Sütterlin). Treat it like a plain old u. --82.207.239.57 00:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, it is only used in lower case. I think I've only seen it in handwriting, so it seems odd to have it in film captions. Wikipeditor 00:53, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Being a 1930s film, 66.213 was probably referring to the opening titles and other credits. It was once quite common for them to be written in a stylised handwriting, but this has gone out of fashion these days. JackofOz 21:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)