English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2013-01-09 (page 1 of 6)

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12:02 AM

Iaceo = throw. Probably not boast.

Iacto = 1. throw to and fro, 2. boast.

At least I think it works like that.

I could look it up but you have probably already done so.

@Robusto WHERE IS SQL IN USE IN this PUBLIC chat? I am NOT HAVING ANY luck when I BROWSE AND VIEW the archive. Please SELECT SOME REFERENCES OR post STATISTICS. I DECLARE, there IS NOT ANY RULE about HAVING SQL END here: we are HAVING FREETEXT discussion, DUMMY. You can NOT DENY it. You can NOT ORDER us TO BREAK it OFF. IF there IS SOME, do NOT get CROSS. SAVE yourself! Take a BREAK (OR a DUMP): ESCAPE WHILE the GROUP IS HAVING SQL chat. IF I am wrong, COMMIT (OR CONVERT) me.

*iacio

user19161

@MετάEd I see the parrot has returned.

@JasonBourne Yes. Normal is good. Maybe I'll do something for St. Valentine's day though.

I think they are both from jactare. It says jactitation was influenced by jactatio.

Oh, now I remember where I heard it. jactitation of marriage

> The suit of jactitation of marriage..which is not known to modern practice, may still be brought in the Divorce Court by the express terms of 20 and 21 Vict. c. 85, s. 6, when a person falsely boasts that he or she is married to another whereby a reputation of their marriage may ensue. The party injured sues for the purpose of having perpetual silence enjoined upon the unjustifiable boaster.

Ah, there is a Path. sense: A restless tossing of the body: a symptom of distress in severe diseases.

12:21 AM

@tchrist Of course.

Iacto comes from iacio, as does iactito.

It has survived in the boastful sense virtually intact into Spanish, jactar, which is always used reflexively and with of, so me jacto de, te jactas de, ella se jacta de, nos jactamos de, and so on.

It must be a “recent” reimport, though, not a survivor. That -ct- should not have survived.

It is possible.

I bet it was from influence of Canon Law.

But I dunno.

Note that jactarse is not from the erudite register that jactation is. It is the normal word.

-1

A: "By now" vs "now"

You should have get yourself fucked by now!

That is not going to go over well.

We cannot protect everything, but Lord knows there are zillions of drive-by idiocies daily.

1:18 AM

@MετάEd DROP TABLE MetaEd

Why do you drop tables on people?

It's a SQL thing.

22

Q: Would someone please explain why these question closures are such a bad thing?

I spent much of the past week involved in a rather extended discussion about closed questions. Near as I can tell, here is the logic: ELU has a lot of closed questions, at least compared to other StackExchange sites. Instead of closing questions, we ought to fix them and answer them. After all,...

This was so long I thought it was @tchrist while scrolling down.

4

I wouldn’t make those complaints. The markup is too heavy.

1:32 AM

I can make a complaint compliant just by anagramming it. Or misspelling it. Take your pick.

1 hour later…

2:48 AM

@Robusto ROLLBACK TABLE! ESCAPE!

Too late. You shoulda made a backup.

3:00 AM

@Robusto VIEW TABLE. DROP. ROLLBACK END OVER END. CURSOR. CURSOR. SHUTDOWN. OFF. END. ;n;

I will find your database and punch it until it swallows all its varchars.

3:27 AM

@FumbleFingers: Stop it! You're voting to close every single question on the site! This question is perfectly fine. Why did you change? You used to be a lot milder. — Cerberus 35 secs ago

He is like that lately.

I once half-said something, and I was told I should be more patient with the agèd and their seemingly inherently crotchety natures.

With Fumbles?

Or with Yoichi?

They're both old, I believe.

I know FF fairly well, and we usually agree, so I felt a personal appeal was appropriate.

I'm also hinting at his good qualities.

You think I should change it?

With FF! There is nothing to forgive Yoichi of, ever.

And no, I do not think anything should change in your appeal.

All right.

Yoichi has quickly accepted @Rob’s answer, but I get a different read of it via the OED’s entry for checkmate.

3:43 AM

Yeah I have a feeling there is more to it.

I could say "schaak( )mat" or "schaak en mat" in Dutch as well, I think.

The modern reanalysis is that those are two separate verbs.

But why did OFr and OSp put an and between king and dead? Did they already reanalyse as verbs? Jacque y mate is still heard in Spanish today, and we are not talking about South American tisanes.

Oh, it looks jactar does preserve both sense after all.

I wish the RAE were an historical dictionary, but it is not. So you cannot tell when a word entered the language.

Normally the -ct- goes to -ch-. pecho < pectus, hecho < factum

But modern reborrowing like actuar preserve it. For a little while: the Portuguese have started writing such words as just -t- not -ct-, because nobody anywhere really says the first -c- /k/ sound, whether in Spanish or Portuguese. But the Spanish still write it, so a supercareful speaker may enunciate it for you.

Checkmate question just hit the supercollider.

@tchrist I agree, and +1 for an.

@tchrist Ah, mat- as in kill, that makes sense!

It is not an affectation: it is simply how I pronounce it. The aspiration is wholly lost in that position.

3:58 AM

So do I.

It may happen in Dutch too.

Een hele mooie koe =~ Een-ele mooie koei.

One would be tempted to think jaquemate / xaquimate an Arabic–Spanish portmanteau, but in fact, the origin of matar is disputed.

Even when the syllable is stressed.

I think English may once have done that, but the Cockney-hate cancelled it.

So why is Jacque "king"?

Does chess/schaak mean "king"?

I thought it was Arabic or something?

Yes.

4:01 AM

@tchrist May have done what?

May have suppressed even stressed h’s at times.

Arabic. Watch:

jaque 1.
(Del ár. clás. šāh, y este del pelvi šāh, rey).
1. m. Lance del ajedrez en que un jugador, mediante el movimiento de una pieza, amenaza directamente al rey del otro, con obligación de avisarlo, y, por ext., a la reina, sin tal obligación.
2. m. Palabra con que se avisa.
3. m. Ataque, amenaza, acción que perturba o inquieta a alguien, o le impide realizar sus propósitos. Dar jaque. Poner, tener, traer en jaque.
4. m. coloq. Valentón, perdonavidas.
~ mate.
1. m. mate (‖ lance que pone término al juego de ajedrez).

@tchrist I don't know, must have been centuries ago, then.

Shah, really?

Is Shah Arabic? I thought it was Persian...

That is what they are saying.

Pelvi?

I thought Arabic had something transliterated to sheikh.

4:03 AM

Is that Persian?

Yes.

Wow.

pelvi.
(Del fr. pehlvi, este del persa pahlavi, y este del pelvi pahlawīg, parto2).
1. adj. Se dice de la lengua irania o persa media, particularmente en la época sasánida, y de lo que se escribió en ella. U. t. c. s. m.

Of a certain period, no less.

French?

Usually frase

But I see only one word.

4:04 AM

Ahh.

So then Spanish probably took its word for the Persian language from Arabic or something?

And they use perso too?

Looks like it. But persa is a normal word.

Yes.

Odd.

I thought it was fars- in Persian, actually.

Why is persa the language feminine? Lengua persa at one point?

p/f switch?

Farsi.

Pfeffer. :)

@tchrist What do you mean? How can it not be feminine?

Language names tend to be masculine.

4:07 AM

The p/f switch is not surprising, but then pahlawīg makes one wonder.

vasco, francés, chinés, italiano, catalán

It says la lengua.

In fact, those are all also masculine in French.

(Das) Englisch, die englische Sprache.

Even euskadi, Basque for vasco, is taken as a masculine.

4:08 AM

It's feminine if you use it as an adjective to modify lengua.

Right, yes, that is what I was wondering.

It works that way in all languages. It is basic agreement.

I think something else is happening. Look here

It seems defective. No masculine form given, even in the adjective.

U. t. c. s. => Úsase también como sustantivo => Also used as a noun

That’s the enclitic form of the impersonal se usa, like in Italian.

Well, reflexive used as a middle-voice.

Yes, you're probably right.

Now I am rifling through my brain trying to think of other nationalities that are feminine-looking like that.

4:12 AM

The substantice is also exclusively of the -a- declination in Latin.

Persae = the Persians, men and/or women.

Note that it is a masculine, however!!!

> 5. m. Cada uno de los firmantes de un manifiesto, favorable a la monarquía absoluta, que, en 1814, empezaba con la frase «Era costumbre en los antiguos persas...».

How about lengua franca?

Surely that wouldn't be lengua franco?

That one, sure.

No, you are thinking idioma franco.

What?

la lengua but el idioma

But they clearly use persas with los antiguos, so there is no possible gender question, except for why the hell they are doing that. :)

4:14 AM

So franca is an adjective and hence agrees with lengua in lengua franca, right?

Right.

Or whatever the word for French is.

The people are los francos.

No, the Franks.

French is the normal word.

los franceses

@tchrist Yes, as a substantive.

los francos are the Franks. lengua franca is the Franks’ language.

4:15 AM

Okay, then how about la lengua francese?

lengua francesa

Ah.

You are thinking Italian.

Well, that's what I meant.

Adjectives ending in -e have dual concordance. There must be some Latin reason for that.

4:16 AM

So if *perso had been a regular adjective, it would still have been persa in la lengua persa, right?

Yes, but not in los antiguos persas, for Old Persians.

Yes, the 3rd declension does not distinquish between m and f in Latin.

acre

@tchrist Of course, but here it was la lengua persa.

Acre?

Yes, perhaps. I just don’t like *perso being missing. I do not understand it.

4:17 AM

Ager is m.

But acre can be both.

It is like other Greek words on -ês.

Only in the absolute superlative does it regain an inflectional gender distinction.

acérrimo

Now you have -o and -a.

Or whatever the Greek ending for Pers... is. I think Persês?

That one I cannot help you on.

Does Italian preserve the Latin irregular superlatives like that?

cornbread ninja

4:19 AM

evening, gents

Well, “irregular”.

@tchrist Oh, I thought you meant the English word acre, from ager. Yes, acer is of the 3rd, superlatives however are always on -us/-a/-um (= 1st/2nd).

There are only like 8 or 11 of them. Portuguese has like 3 more.

@tchrist Most probably.

Italian certainly has -ssimo, so perhaps it has -errimo.

4:20 AM

(Comparatives are always of the 3rd declension as well.)

@cornbreadninja Yo!

cornbread ninja

:D

Facillimo, I don't know, probably.

Portuguese has that.

Spelt facílimo.

Spanish lost all the -ílimo versions.

Well, -imo versions.

@cornbreadninja Evening.

cornbread ninja

We just watched hex bugs race around the kitchen floor.

hexbug.com

the little toothbrush head-sized ones.

> Πέρσ-ης, ου, ὁ, heterocl. acc. Πέρσεα v. l. in Hdt.8.108, 109; voc. Πέρσᾰ

4:24 AM

Why does a 3rd declension adjective have a distinctive vocative?

So mostly of the poiêtês group, which is mixed 1st/2nd declension, that is, in this group the nominative singular is of the 1st but with an irregular -s stuck on, the genitive singular is of the 2nd, and all other forms are of the 1st regular. And Persês apparently has more exceptional forms.

I thought that was only in 2nd, like in Latin.

I see.

That is the heterocl. bit then?

@tchrist Well, that would be a regular vocative for the 1st declension, and I think the poiêtês group has it too. I don't know why they mention it. The accusative however is completely irregular, looks more like the 3rd.

@tchrist I think by heteroclitic they just mean irregular.

Oh. I thought it might specifically mean mixed declension, not just irregular.

Actually, perhaps the short vowel in the vocative is irregular.

@tchrist It is possible.

I don't know.

Oh, hmm, on second thought, they probably mean the 3rd-declension accusative in particular by "heteroclitic".

Because the 3rd is normally not mixed with 1st or 2nd.

So anyway, in Latin Persa = a Persian man.

I don't know about the adjective.

4:33 AM

Long vowel says ablative to me. Like in Latin 1st declension. No vocative change there. But now that I think about it, the borrowed cometes should be cometa in the vocative.

Maybe.

I never remember the Latin “rules” for what they did Greek loanwords.

@tchrist I believe the a in the first declension is long by nature in Greek.

I see.

Ah, here are the rules I never remember.

@tchrist Yes, I think that is regular, as in Greek.

> κύκλος, ὁ (Dor. ἁ, v. infr. 11.11), also with heterocl. pl. κύκλα Il., etc.

Here they call the switch between masculine and neuter endings "heteroclitic".

I see that.

> balnĕum, i. n. (in plur. usu. heterocl. balnĕae, ārum. f.

And between n. and f.

4:36 AM

See OED heteroclite, including citations.

I have seen it.

Doesn't tell you much about philological conventions.

It is just irregular then, not mixed.

Specifically as used in LSJ.

Why would they not use irregular then?

@tchrist I don't think so: of mixed nominal paradigms, I would say?

4:38 AM

I guess it means a noun with a screwy declension.

> νόος, νόου, ὁ, Att. contr. νοῦς, gen. νοῦ: Hom. uses the contr. form once, in nom., Od.10.240, cf. Hes.Fr.205 (Hdt. never): Trag. use contr. form, exc. in A.Ch.742 (iamb.), S.Ph.1209 (lyr.): Aeol. gen. νῶ Alc.Supp.9.1; acc.νῶν Sapph.ib.25.2; νόον Ead.70 (s.v.l.): heterocl. forms are found in NT and later writers, gen. νοός Ep.Rom.7.23, LXX 4 Ma.1.35; dat. νοί̈ 1 Ep.Cor.1.10, [Aristid.] Or.35(9).26;

Anomalous, it says later for people.

> nom. pl. νόες Ph.1.86, Plot.6.7.17, Dam.Pr.96; acc. pl. νόας Plu. Fr.7.27, Iamb.Myst.1.15, Ammon.in Int.243.3 (v.l.), Dam.Pr.103: Att. pl. νοῖ, acc. νοῦς, gen. νόων ib.122, dat. νοῖς ibid., is rare in early writers, as Ar.Fr.471, but freq. in later philosophy:

@tchrist Yes, and one that there is no accepted paradigm of, that is, there are "regular" sets of words that mix declensions.

Here again 2nd and 3rd declension are irregularly mixed. ^

> πῡγ-ή, ῆς, ἡ, heterocl. acc. πῦγα

This is the same as with Persês, more or less.

What does pyge(s) mean?

Rump, buttocks.

-ês is the genitive.

Or is it?

Hmm...

4:43 AM

Do we use that in anything?

Pygmalion?

I have a question about how to express the taste of French fries?

Don't tell me that it's delicious, lol.

Tasty.

Soggy.

Crunchy.

Salty.

Greasy.

Friday.

Friday?

Well, friedy doesn’t look so hot. :)

@tchrist I don't know, really.

I think -ês is mentioned because the genitive has an irregular accent?

They often give the genitive after the word in LSJ.

4:46 AM

Isn’t citation form always with genitive?

I want to express the taste of shrimp's head to my friends but I don't know how to tell them.

s3.amazonaws.com/foodspotting-ec2/reviews/1835499/…

Sucky.

It's like in the image I just sent.

Shrimpy.

Images show taste?

I have a content blocker. I only accept images in good taste.

@tchrist If any form, they usually give the genitive, yes; but LSJ don't always give any secondary form.

4:48 AM

No no, I want to use it to help me telling its taste.

And I don't know offhand how they indicate alternative forms.

It taste delicious a bit oily but it's tasty oily.

Good grease not bad grease. Dunno.

You know what I just noticed?

We but it in half and then grill it (the yellow part.)

No, I don't.

All our flavor-words are Germanic.

4:50 AM

Delicious?

Delicious and delectable are not tasty salty crunchy yummy. :)

Salty...is that Germanic?

I might let you sneak by with salt.

I was just about to say that.

But we don’t call it saline.

It could be either.

Or salacious.

4:51 AM

But Dutch has zout, so I think salt is Latinate.

I think it is the -y suffix that draws one toward Germanic words.

Although...

German -alt commonly becomes -out/oud in Dutch...

Greek hals, gen. halos.

That is the sex/hex thing.

There is a Greek prefix meaning sea that looks salty. Halia/o or something like that.

Haliaeëtus leucocephalus

God that word needs some diacritics.

Heh.

Yes, PIE s- often became h- in Greek.

White-headed Sea-eagle.

The Bald Eagle, to be precise.

4:55 AM

As PIE kw- became p/k/t. Or maybe just p/t.

Equus, hippos.

What, pick a random stop?

Depends on the following vowel.

Before i and e in a certain phase of Proto-Greek, it became t-.

Before o/a and couple other vowels, p-.

I wonder whether Aquila chrysaetos needs a diaeresis.

I do not know how many syllables it should have.

Uhh...

It depends.

Is it chrys- + -aetos?

Or is it chrysa- + -etos?

4:57 AM

Yes, but ae can be two things.

This is the problem.

No, probably chrys-.

Then 3 syllables, not 4, I guess.

> χρῡσ-άετος [ᾱ], ὁ, golden eagle, Ael.NA2.39.

Everything I know about Greek comes from taxa. :)

4:58 AM

So yes, two syllables.

Aetos is probably eagle.

Probably?

It is in Haliaeëtus.

That should be Sea-eagle.

It could be "sky-king" or "bird", hmm? I don't know this word.

The Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus Greek hali = salt/ocean, aeetus = eagle, leuco = white, cephalis = head) is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known sub-species and forms a species pair with the White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla). Its range includes most of Canada and Alaska, all of the contiguous United States, and northern Mexico. It is found near large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply and old-growth trees for nesting. The Bald Eagle is an opportunistic feeder which subsists mainly on fish, which it swoops down and snatche...

> ἀετός, Ep., Lyr., Ion., and early Att. αἰετός (v. fin.), οῦ, ὁ, eagle

@Robusto Thanks for posting that, I had no idea I was being talked about there.

5:03 AM

Must to bed.

Same here. Boa noite.

1 hour later…

user19161

6:32 AM

@tchrist The eagle looks very nice.

9:58 AM

0

Q: "You really take the biscuit!"

is their an american version of "You really take the biscuit!" As in taking the last biscuit ie its incredulous how selfish you are. PS: How do you post answers on this site?

Nota bene hoi post scriptum.

10:36 AM

Hi @Reg are you there? Can I ask you for a favour?

You can ask. Whether you will receive is up for debate.

Haha. May I ask you for a quick translation into Russian?

Two short sentences?

I guessed as much.

Bring it on.

Hello, my very dear friend. I hope you have fully recovered from your recent illness.

The friend is female, if that makes a difference.

It does, I was about to ask.

Mkay so what's with the "very dear", is this a very close friend?

10:39 AM

Umm, yes, I'd say so.

Okay.

Wow this is harder than I thought. Normally I'd have my wife to cross-check but I'm at work.

Don't worry if it's too much trouble. I could always write it in English; I would just like to bring a smile to her face.

I'm mostly having trouble with the first sentence. It just doesn't translate well.

It doesn't have to be literal.

What would you say to a very dear friend who had been convalescing?

For starters, I would never call them "friend", much less "very dear".

That's something you would do if you lived in the 17th century.

10:43 AM

OK, umm, but there must be a way of saying "dear friend" that can be expressed in the vocative case?

Sorry, I didn't want to cause you trouble. I thought I was asking something easy.

I'd either drop it completely or go for a personal term of endearment that has been established between us at that point.

Otherwise it's stilted at best, and a parody of Pushkin at worst.

I shall probably combine it with a sentence fragment in Arabic, so it's always going to sound a bit stilted.

It will end up being something nice and simple like "Assalamu alaykum, мой дорогой друг"; but in the feminine vocative, however that is done.

Anyway, let me get the second sentence behind me. "Надеюсь, что ты полностью выздоровела."

OK, thanks.

@DavidWallace "моя дорогая подруга" would be the female variant, though the masculine is often used for women under poetic license.

10:48 AM

Umm, is there "from your recent illness" somewhere in there, or is it implicit?

It's implicit. Wouldn't really work otherwise.

OK, that's wonderful. Thank you so much for your time, Reg.

I wish there was the slightest chance I would ever be able to return the favour.

@DavidWallace you could actually start with that.

I mean, isn't that how they do it, say "assalam aleikum" as a greeting and then "aleikum assalam" as a valediction?

Not quite. Both are both.

I see.

Well.

10:50 AM

"Wa alaykum assalam" is the normal response to "Assalamu alaykum".

Just for the sake of completeness, the "Hello", at any rate, would be "Здравствуй".

So it's a first/second thing.

But what I'm having trouble with is the "dear friend" part, as I outlined above.

Oh, yes, I knew Zdravstvuy. I use that often.

(So assalamu alaykum is roughly "peace to you", and "wa alaykum assalam" is roughly "and to you peace").

It actually is a good fit in this particular case because literally/etymologically it means "be of good health".

10:52 AM

Ah, yes, I knew that.

At least, in Bosnian, "Zdrav" is "healthy" - so I figured that was the root.

How have you been, anyway, Reg; it seems like ages since we've talked here.

So yeah. I guess that's about as far as I can get without cross-checking with my wife. (Whose Russian slowly starts deteriorating as well.)

( Have a "?", which I omitted from somewhere in that last sentence)

@DavidWallace so how did the New-Year greeting work?

Like a charm!

Thank you again.

Ah. Very good.

NP.

I was genuinely curious.

10:56 AM

I have always wondered what that is like - to have one's native language slip away from one.

I guess I should move to a non-Anglophone country and find out.

I have been known to provide missing Bosnian words in my wife's speech (sorry ex-wife's speech) when she forgets them. But it feels odd to do so.

Well I've been through it the whole nine yards. I pretty much forgot all of Russian at one point in my life. Had to reacquire what I have now.

That blows my mind. I can't imagine being unable to use English.

By which I mean, I can't imagine MYSELF being unable to use English.

And not just active; passive as well was slipping away.

I mean, I would read a book and I would suddenly not understand certain words.

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