Language desk
< October 29	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 31 >

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.

October 30 edit

AAVE Bible? edit

I seem to remember reading there was an old African American Vernacular English translation of the Bible that had been created to help witness to younger African-Americans. Does anyone know what this translation is called, or where I might find it online? Neon Merlin 02:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A Google search turns up the name "P.K. McCrary". Does that help?--Siva 03:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's hard to imagine: "So God, he bees axing Adam, 'Wheres you at, foo ?' " :-) StuRat 05:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe, "What up, lord, ya trippin'?" 惑乱分からん 13:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the Cotton Patch version of the Bible - Google turns up lots of references to it. It's probably not what you're looking for, but it's interesting. --Shuttlebug 18:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Siva's suggestion of P.K. McCrary pointed right to the Black Bible Chronicles. It seems unlikely that they will be available online, but you can check out the Aussie Bible instead. Lowerarchy 04:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Make nothing of it" edit

Im not from english speaking country,so I have a question about phrase "Make nothing of it".

If you saw the movie Pulp Fiction,you may remember when John Travolta say "make nothing of it" after girl thanked him on the cigarete.Funny thing is that I never heard anyone saying those words,neither on the movies,or where I was in England.

So,my question :Is it something that should be said after someone thank you for something? Or is it just something they made up for the movie?

I know its a pretty stupid question,but still I would like someone to answer me.

Thank you very much

212.200.200.65 03:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience as a native English speaker, "think nothing of it" is more common in the context you describe, e.i., as an alternate response to "Thank you". "Make nothing of it", on the other hand, as in "I can make nothing of it", is used to mean "unable to comprehend or analyze something productively". Although now that I think more, "make nothing of it" might have been an old way of saying "don't make a big deal about it", "don't be obsequious." However, "think nothing..." carries more or less the same meaning and is what one hears 90-95% of the time. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 03:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Another meaning is "don't conclude anything from it". For example, if someone notices that the German stock market goes down whenever it rains in Saskatchewan, that can't possibly be the cause, but just a coincidence, so you shouldn't "make anything of it". In the given context of immediately following a thank you, though, it's a modest statement, similarly to "aw shucks, it was nothing, really". StuRat 05:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot,I though it was something in the line of that.Another question connected to it:Is that phrase used in everyday language in USA,UK,Canada?? I mean,does people really use it,or is it more like "it can be used,but is not really used".Thank you again 212.200.200.65 06:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not something I (an American) can really recall hearing (although I could gather its meaning easily enough). "Don't mention it" or "don't worry about it" would be what I would probably say to get that meaning across. -Elmer Clark 06:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it's a bit less common than those other forms, in the US, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's rare. StuRat 07:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like an archaism. The two main characters in that movie sometimes spoke in an odd manner. -THB 02:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was supposed to take place in the 70's. I guess Tarantino might have taken inspiration to the dialogue from movies and other popular culture produced in that era... 惑乱分からん 13:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vietnamese syntax and translation help edit

I'm seeking Vietnamese translations (in any dialect) for the following; piecing together vocabulary words from various websites felt too reckless. Much thanks.

"Wasted poetry" "Abandoned butterfly" Wolfgangus 03:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Verbs of Elimination edit

Speaking of waste, why is it that we defecate/defaecate but not deurinate? Or why do we urinate but not fecate/faecate? JackofOz 05:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Who says I don't? DirkvdM 09:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would assume faecate would refer to the creation of faeces or at the very least, used to refer to that (and therefore defaecate would be kind of undoing it). Wiktionary's definition is to empty one's bowels of faeces so I would assume faecate on its own would just mean to fill them up (or again, used to mean that). Why urinate isn't a similar situation, I can't say. Maybe it used to mean the to fill your bladder up, and evolved into the same word, despite being. Somewhat similar to how personne in French means both someone and no one. - ^Рэд_хот^{(t • c • e)} 10:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The English language is like that, which is partly why it is so interesting. These are also words that we read and write but never actually say to anyone.--Shantavira 10:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's a fascinating language. But with great respect, telling me that the English language is "like that" is equivalent to telling me you don't know the answer to my question. There is a reason for everything, but we don't always know what the reason is. I'm hoping to discover the reason why one of these words starts with de- and the other doesn't, when they describe similar functions that are often carried out simultaneously. JackofOz 11:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Online Etymology Dictionary is useful for these sorts of queries - check out urine and defecate. Natgoo 12:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your question contains the assumption that all words should be formed consistently, which would require that a committee defines new words according to a strict set of rules. However, words are just made up, on the fly, by anybody and everybody. English, in particular, borrows words and rules from many different languages, so you frequently get inconsistencies, for this reason. StuRat 16:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "inconsistency" already existed in medieval Latin: defaecare and urinare. The latter verb is not attested in classical Latin, which had a deponent verb urinari, "to dive", "to submerge oneself"; hence, an urinator was a diver. --Lambiam ^Talk 16:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feces are "waste" or "dregs" (this meaning predates the meaning "excrement"). Fecation would perhaps be the precipitation of dregs or the generation of waste, which is quite different from the elimination (defecation) of waste or dregs so produced. Consistent with this interpretation, OED gives a sole citation for fecation: "1884 Syd. Soc. Lex., Fæcation..a term in the older chemistry for the separation of a deposit from a fluid." This line of reasoning is only so satisfactory, but if you accept that we think of the production & passage-through of urine as part of one single process, but we think of feces as possibly staying around quite a while before the act of defecation (the alternative being the pathological condition of "dia-rrhea" or "through-flow," which is exactly what urine does in a healthy person), you could get some mileage out of it! Wareh 20:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the contributions. Thanks. JackofOz 12:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese name edit

How would the names "Sato" and "Toshiko" be written in Japanese? I can see that in Katakana it would be along the lines of "サト" and "トシコ", but would the name usually be written in Kana, or would they use Kanji, which I don't yet know, for proper names? A BabelFish translation gives 佐藤 for Sato, but can;t find anything for Toshiko. La ï ka 21:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Names such as those are almost always written in Kanji. Names can be given different kanji for the same pronunciation as they can be pronounced in different ways in different contexts (unlike kana). I don't know exactly what the most common kanji compounds for Sato and Toshiko are, though. I can see them being written in hiragana in a personal letter or something, but certainly not in "daily life". EDIT: After running that kanji compound through JWPCE, it can be pronounced Kisato, Saiu, Satoa, Satoo (probably the one you're looking for!) or any other number of ways. There are about 200 entries for Toshiko alone - you're going to have to pick one :) --Wooty Woot? | contribs 21:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If it helps, the IPA for these would be /sɑːtəʊ/ and /tɒʃiːko/ respectively. La ï ka 21:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand, but because kanji can be pronounced differently in context (think English times a billion), there are a lot of different kanji for one pronunciation, and a lot of pronunciations for a kanji compound! Perhaps a context would be nice. Basically, if you're doing this in some sort of story or program where you have flexibility with the names, you can choose 智子 or 聡子 or whatever for Toshiko. The differences primarily reside in the meaning behind the first kanji - you can choose a pronunciation of "Toshi" with a meaning that you find fitting. Sorry for any confusion - kanji is like that, unfortunately, I much prefer kana. --Wooty Woot? | contribs 22:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well... direct googling result: [1]. In addition, for you convenience, quoted from this page (and most of them can be found in my ATOK),

トシ子
季子
歳子
寿子
十糸子
叔子
淑子
俊子
捷子
聡子 (Satoko reading is much frequent)
智子 (Tomoko reading is much frequent)
登志子
敏子
稔子
利子
plus, I believe there probably are hiragana names としこ and とし子

Note, however, any of Toshiko above is felt a name of middle aged or so woman, as of 2006 (at least so I feel). And you know they say "--ko" naming itself is not that familiar these days. --marsian 01:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Marsian has much more patience than me for writing all of those out. ~ko is indeed old - used to be almost standard for names but it's dying out now or so I hear. --Wooty Woot? | contribs 01:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

démerdes edit

Doews anyone happen to know what this word means? I believe it is french. ALso the word gesticules?

My dictionary says that démerdes is the tu (informal "you") conjugated form of to figure things out. According to my dictionary, it's a reflexive verb so I imagine you would see this in a context like tu te démerdes which means you figure things out for yourself. Gesticules is the tu form of to gesture. Philbert^2.71828 23:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not very good at French, though, so take that information with a grain of salt. Philbert^2.71828 23:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a good thing to say in extremely refined company. Se démerder literally means something like to manage to get yourself out of the shit, although in French it is not quite as strong as the English suggests. --Lambiam ^Talk 23:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I always use "crap" instead of "shit" for "merde". -THB 02:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merde means shit. Atleast that's what my old french teacher used to say. --The Dark Side 03:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My dictionary translates merde as shit. If it means crap then they don't have a word for shit because that's as vulgar as French excrement words get. Why were you taking an Old French class? Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So what do you people think "crap" means? --Lambiam ^Talk 06:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I always thought it meant "rubbish" until I read The Vicar of Nibbleswicke. --Kjoonlee 06:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think he meant an old "French teacher," an old person who taught French, or an "old, French, teacher," an old French person who taught classes. --Kjoonlee 16:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe he meant that the teacher used to teach him, instead of saying that he/she was old. --Kjoonlee 16:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just meant that merde is closer to crap than shit on the offensiveness scale. -THB 16:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So is there a word in French that is closer to shit on the offensiveness scale? I was under the impression that that was the top. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My impression has always been that body and bodily functions aren't as capable of being offensive in Europe as in the US, and perhabs UK. -THB 20:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kjoon was right. I meant old as in previous, former, past, étc. Honestly, Old French? Didn't anyone take French in school here? --The Dark Side 01:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I took it in college. Did I waste people's time with a lame joke? Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

Contents