Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 January 7

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.

January 7

"Job" as a euphemism for faeces

When I was kid, my parents (and other adults of my acquaintance) referred to faeces as "job". It's not that the subject came up very often, but kids sometimes have accidents, and sometimes in toilet training and other educational contexts there's a need to refer to the actual matter excreted by the body. "Faeces" was, I suppose, too technical for kiddy use. "Pooh" and "poop" were considered too vulgar for my straight-laced upper middle class social stratum. "Crap" was unknown to me until I was a teenager. "Turd" was too vulgar, and also too specific - it had to be of a certain shape to qualify, whereas faeces does not necessarily assume such a shape. "Shit" was simply abhorrent (to the point that it was one of those words that could only ever be spelled out, never uttered as a word). The only word that was considered acceptable was "job", and it was also used amongst adults, not just when speaking to children. I'm trying to find where this word usage came from, but I can't find anything about it in the usual places. I'm guessing it's from "he did a job", therefore the thing he produced was "job". Any other suggestions? -- JackofOz (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm assuming you grew up just about as far from where I did as is possible, so it's amazing that we use a similar expression here in New Jersey. We don't call the stuff "job", like "Watch out, that diaper is full of job", but we do say "He did a job in his diaper." It's "to do a job", no variation possible. I've always thought it was very old, like from England old. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. This is the first that I've ever heard of "job" being used in this way. I have heard "He did a real job on his final exam" meaning that the subject did poorly on his exam. And for the geographical record, I grew up in the Midwest US and now live in the Northeast US. Dismas|^(talk) 01:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

See business - Wiktionary, definition #16.

-- Wavelength (talk) 01:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You got me wondering, so I went to the OED on line. Our "job" is there as definition 9, with a quotation from 1990 by American writer Nicholson Baker that includes the phrase "to labor out a small pebble of job so that it fell onto the toilet paper", which is the usage you report. My usage is there, too, as the usual one. The OED calls it "U.S. colloquial" and "euphemism", and it sends us to an entry under "big", "big job", saying that that is found "esp. in speech to or by children". The earliest citation is from 1892, and one from 1899 is from a word book of Virginia "folk-speech".

The reference to children leads me to believe that the expression stems from potty training, the mother praising her big boy for doing his big job so well. --Milkbreath (talk) 02:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, y'know. I like a little praise myself. Applause is optional. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 02:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I've used the expression "a big job" myself, although it refers to the effort, not the results. It was most often used in contrast with urination: "I have to use the bathroom, Mommy." "Is it a big job, or do you just have to pee ?". StuRat (talk) 07:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the main usage given by Milkbreath ("to do a job"), the Dictionary of American Regional English mentions "job" in the sense of "human excrement" in the works of Henry W. Shoemaker (1930, but referring to usage c. 1900), and also "job" as a verb ("If you eat green apples, you'll job and job and job till you die"). Frederic Gomes Cassidy, Joan Houston Hall (1985), in Dictionary of American Regional English, p 144, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674205197)---Sluzzelin talk 03:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

'Job' is well used in British English in this way, but we usually say 'big jobs'. I was educated at a catholic monastery school, and it always brought a laugh in class when we had to read the Book Of Job.--KageTora (talk) 06:10, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Good job answering Jack's question, guys. Take that however you want. ;-) Matt Deres (talk) 14:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I grew up in the New York suburbs, just across the river from Milkbreath's New Jersey. Since then, I have lived in Rhode Island, California, Germany, and Illinois. I have now lived in Massachusetts for about a decade. Like Dismas, I have never heard of this use of the word job in my life. I think that it is not common in American English. It may be an old-fashioned expression that lives on in some American families, and it may have a class dimension (I'm guessing upper class, since otherwise I should have heard of it). Marco polo (talk) 15:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

(I'm American.) My first encounter with related usage was in the safari park scene of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin: one grandchild says she needs to pee, and the other announces "I've done big jobbies!". —Tamfang (talk) 18:47, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

While we're on the topic of poo, when I was a child, it was called [ˈkiːkoʊs] in our family. I don't know how to spell it, as I've never seen it written down, but "keekoce" would do. Has anyone else ever heard this term, or is it another one of those words that is truly unique to a single family? —Angr 15:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Never heard of it. In my family, it was "bumpty", which I've never heard anywhere else. Marco polo (talk) 17:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If you lived in Germany, they have something similar to "business" = "Geschäft". And I'd go with Dismas on the "doing a job" thing (e.g. we put him on the potty to do his job) from the U.S., Washington State. Have heard it in the South, too. Lisa4edit76.97.245.5 (talk) 19:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for those lovely bits of information, everyone. You've all done a good ... er, thing. I guess it was just one of those 50s Australian Irish-Catholic things. I can honestly say I've never heard it since then. -- JackofOz (talk) 18:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Which, of course, gives a new interpretation to the term blow job. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Brown jobs is British naval slang for soldiers. DuncanHill (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Icelandic (?) poem

In an Icelandic detective novel, the protagonist is asked what Christmas presents he had received as a child and he replies that it was like in the old poem 'Candles and a Game of Cards' ..." (well, I have a German copy giving "Kerzen und ein Kartenspiel"). The reference was supposed to signify that his family had been poor, like everyone else at the time.

Anyway, my question: What poem is he referring to, and could someone give me a translation in English (and the original Icelandic text would be nice too, of course)? ---Sluzzelin talk 07:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No precise information, but I wonder whether it is connected with the second Christmas song on this page. According to a number of Web sites, candles and playing cards used to be traditional Christmas gifts for children in Iceland. Deor (talk) 13:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

See this page [1]. DuncanHill (talk) 17:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sounds like that's the one, "kerti og spil" corresponds well to "Kerzen und [S]piel". Note that 'kerti' can be either plural or singular. What's the author of the detective novel? Arnaldur Indriðason? Haukur (talk) 23:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift responses and links, everyone. How wonderful, it's a song, and you gave me the sheet music! I didn't think of googling "deck of cards" instead of "game of cards". I wouldn't call a Yule song a "Gedicht" (poem) in German. Does it have something to do with the Icelandic word for poem/song?

Yes, Haukur, it is from Röddin (Voices in English, Engelsstimme in German) by Arnaldur Indriðason. Duncan's link confirms my continental cliché of Iceland being a nation of readers, selling more books per capita than just about any other country in the world. (See also demographics of Iceland). I think somewhere in Islandhoch, Tagesbruchstücke, Sarah Kirsch wrote that one has to reach Iceland by boat, to understand how far out it is. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

If the original novel indeed had "kerti og spil," quoting the Yule song, it's possible that the German translator, unfamiliar with the traditional minimal gifts, slightly mistranslated what would be better rendered as "eine Kerze und ein Spiel Karten." Deor (talk) 00:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess I could look up the original if given the location of the occurrence in the story. Haukur (talk) 10:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If that wouldn't be too much bother, I'd greatly appreciate it, Haukur. The sentence, spoken by Erlendur to his daughter, occurs close to the middle (shortly before the exact middle) of chapter 21 (fifth day). I'm also curious whether the author calls it a poem or a song. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

On page 204 in the first edition (2002), we have this paragraph: "Flottari gjafir? sagði hann. Þetta var allt það sama. Eiginlega eins og í kvæðinu. Í það minnsta kerti og spil. Stundum hefði maður viljað hafa það eitthvað meira spennandi en fólkið okkar var fátækt. Allir voru fátækir í þá daga." It's clearly the one we've been talking about, "Í það minnsta kerti og spil" is a direct quote from that poem. The word used here is 'kvæði', which means "poem". I've never heard this recited, though, it's always sung. Haukur (talk) 14:28, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Haukur! ---Sluzzelin talk 15:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

As has been mentioned, the poem is "Jólin koma" [Christmas arrives] by Jóhannes úr Kötlum. It was first published in 1932 in a book of poems about Christmas with the same name which has been immensely popular ever since. Jóhannes is not the first one to connect candles and a deck of cards as popular Christmas gifts, a simple search yields many such advertisements [2]. In Saga Jólanna [History of Christmas] by Árni Björnsson, it is stated that Jóhannes undoubtedly gets it right in this poem but suggests that children could not expect a deck of cards each but rather the siblings would get one together. Árni also says that a pack of candles must not be forgotten during the Christmas shopping. I don't know if anybody thinks this is relevant to the discussion of singular vs plural above. A few final notes: In the book there is no mention of a tune to sing the poem to but these days it is almost always sung as Haukur says. Of course candles and cards are not the only items which were given for Christmas in the early 20th Century. And to illustrate further the popularity of the book, the third poem in the book, The Yule Lads, fixed the number of Yule Lads and their attributes. Stefán (talk) 21:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Lexicon development during childhood

I am looking for some statistics on average lexicon development during childhood. Which language and country doesn't matter, and it could be something very simple, just like:
1 y o - xxx words
2 y o - xxx words
etc.
Anybody who can help me? Lova Falk (talk) 09:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

This might be of use: (http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/caselli-et-al-1995.html). I don't think it's exactly what you want but it's got a fair bit of info regarding lexicon development rates. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! It's a very interesting article that I can use in other contexts, but the children in your article are too young for my purpose. They are 8 - 16 months, and the ages I need are approximately 1 - 10 years old. Lova Falk (talk) 13:07, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You can find a checklist of language developmental milestones covering ages 0-5 years at this page, though few of them are actual vocabulary counts.

• 18-23 months: says 8-10 words
• 2 years: knows 50 words, says 40 words
• 4-5 years: says 200-300 words
• 5 years: understands 2000 words

- Nunh-huh 15:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

He didn't used to smoke

Why is this wrong? Kittybrewster ☎ 15:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Because the past tense is marked twice: once on "did" and once again on "used". Negating "He used to smoke" as "He didn't used to smoke" would be like negating "He smoked" as *"He didn't smoked" (a mistake I often encounter among Germans speaking English). —Angr 16:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

But "he didn't use to smoke" is OK, right? I know the most correct way is "he used not to smoke," but that's not too common, in American English anyway. Catrionak (talk) 17:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

"He didn't use to smoke" is correct. "He used not to smoke" is not common American usage and certainly sounds awkward to American ears. (I can't comment on British usage, but I suspect that that form is not common in British English either.) In spoken American English "He didn't used to smoke" and "He didn't use to smoke" have the same pronunciation. ("Used to" and "use to" are both pronounced [ju:stə] in informal speech.) Since "used to" is the more common form, it's easy to see how someone might make the spelling error in the negative form. Marco polo (talk) 17:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Wait a minute. That's not right, is it? "Use" is present tense and "Did not" indicates the past. Wouldn't it be more correct to say, "He never used to smoke (but now he does)." The real problem in the first sentence is the "did", not the "used". Matt Deres (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

They're both okay, but they can mean slightly different things. "He never used to smoke" means he does now (or at least strongly suggests it), while "He didn't use to smoke" is neutral on the question of whether he smokes now. —Angr 17:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The American Heritage Book of English Usage[3] says the following are correct:

We used to live in that house

You did not use to play on that team.

Didn't she use to work for your company?

This follows because "she did not use" is the negative of "she used". --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 18:06, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I remember being told that "she used not to ..." is the "correct" form, but I've mostly ignored that advice. Although, I must say it has its uses, particularly if one is speaking in a deliberately bourgeois fashion, as one is, naturally, wont to on occasion. In the positive, I was also told that "she used to <verb>" is common and vulgar, and the more appropriate form is "she used <verb>". However, that was not from my English teachers but from my mother, who, with the greatest respect and love, sometimes told me things that, well, haven't stood the test of time, shall we say. I can't even report that I used say it this way, because I never once did. Sorry, Mum. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:10, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Where was it that "he didn't used to smoke" ? Was it where the "pews used to been " ? :-) StuRat (talk) 19:55, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Nitpick attack! "pews used to be", you "has-been" you. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Some list the lyrics to Alice's Restaurant as "pews used to be in", others list them as "pews used to been". I prefer the latter. If you know to correct me, you must have been where I've been, as a has-been. :-) StuRat (talk) 00:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

"He didn't used to smoke" sounds like perfectly normal everyday usage to me. It would be used to comment on someone who does now smoke. DuncanHill (talk) 19:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Duncan, Marco Polo pointed out that "didn't use to smoke" and "didn't used to smoke" sound almost identical. It doesn't matter which version we use when we're speaking, because they sound the same anyway, unless you're enunciating your words particularly clearly. But in writing, the only proper version is the one with "use". Compare: I used English vs. I didn't use English. We'd never say/write "I didn't used English", so we don't write "I didn't used to smoke". -- JackofOz (talk) 20:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I used to speak English, and I still do. DuncanHill (talk) 20:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank God. The underlying construction is "to use <infinitive>", but it only ever occurs in the past tense. It's not possible to use this construction to refer to something that's occurring in the present, or to something that will occur in the future. I can't think of any other similar case in English. Because of this unique (or at least very uncommon) property, "used to" is often seen as being a rigid expression. We often use it in response to questions: "Do you read novels?" - "I used to", which is short for "I used to read novels", where the "to" belongs to "to read", not really with "I used". But because these stray parts of different verbs become connected, we sometimes think of "used to" as being separate from either of its component verbs. So the thinking is that the negative must be "did not used to". But that's not how it is. "Use" is still conjugated exactly as it would be in any other construction. Thus, "I used <infinitive>" and "I didn't use <infinitive>". -- JackofOz (talk) 20:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

OED says this about use to in its various forms:

"In very frequent use from c 1400, but now only in pa. tense used to, with pronunc. (ju;st tu;, "ju;stU), and colloq. in did (not) use (or used) to: see also usen't, useter".

MW Third International (MW3I) does not explicitly say that forms other than used to are outmoded, and it does allow the infinitive, as in didn't use:

["Use"...] intransitive verb

1 a : to be in the habit or custom : make a practice of doing something : be wont <sit here by the window with your hand in mine ... both of one mind, as married people use -- Robert Browning> <he does not use to be last on these occasions -- George Lillo> <the black coachman, who had used to drive ... the carriage -- Marguerite Young> <patrons who used to do their banking on Friday> <use to have tallyho parties out on the ... pike when we were young -- Anne G. Winslow> <used you to beat your mother -- G.B.Shaw> b -- used in the past with to to indicate a former fact or state <claims the winters used to be harder> <isn't going to take as long as it used to> <didn't use to have a car>

Very probably there is a British–American divide here. I see that Marco Polo is a professional editor living in Boston, and that he allows the construction with the infinitive (not the present, note): " 'He didn't use to smoke' is correct." MW's Concise Dictionary of English Usage discusses the matter at its usual length, and concludes, in considering didn't use to versus didn't used to, that didn't use to is "the usual form in American English", despite the dissent of Garner (1998).

Note that the past-tense bias of used to is typical in semi-modals. Ought starts out as the past tense of owe, and no one would now use a present construction like *I owe to leave, or an infinitive construction like *I hate to owe to leave when I long to stay. Similarly for should (in the sense of ought) and would (in the sense of wished), which started out as past forms of shall and will, though both these have now come closer to expressing simple futurity (with British–American divergence in the finer detail).

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 22:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

As a British English speaker "He didn't use to smoke" looks correct, as does "He used not to smoke". The latter sounds a little formal and dated to me but I would not be surprised to hear it. As it has already been pointed out "He didn't used to smoke" would sound just the same as "He didn't use to smoke" when spoken normally but looks wrong when written. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew

Several synagogues in the USA are named "Rodef Shalom", including the landmark Rodef Shalom Temple in Pittsburgh. What does this mean? I know "shalom" means "peace", but being curious (and not being one who understands Hebrew) I consulted a lexicon of the Hebrew Bible to see what "rodef" means; the only thing I could find was רדף, which the lexicon says means something like "persecuted" or "pursued". Is this what it means, "Persecuted Peace" or "Pursued Peace"? I ask because it seems a rather unlikely name, and I know I could have guessed wrongly at the actual Hebrew spelling. Nyttend (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I followed your link and then went to the external link "Rodef Shalom website". In their "History" section it says, "Sometime between 1854 and 1856 (probably in 1855) Rodef Shalom Congregation (Pursuers of Peace) was established by a group of congregants who left Shaare Shemayim." This is what happens when you fool around with a non-Indo-European language. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Rodef (רודף) is a Qal active participle of the abstract consonantal root "r-d-p". See triliteral root for some insight into these concepts. However, rodef is singular, so that the translation is "pursuer" (not "pursuers"). "Persecuted" would probably be raduf (רדוף). AnonMoos (talk) 20:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Rodef is the verb's conjugation in the present tense (m.sing.), but also the command form (m.sing.). See the citation from Psalms, below, for the particular context. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:00, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, CoCeC type forms (where C-C-C are the three root consonants) are only analyzed as "present tense" in terms of late Rabbinic Hebrew and modern Israeli Hebrew. In Biblical Hebrew, CoCeC forms (such as rodeph) are active participles, and sometimes agent nouns. It's somewhat controversial as to whether Biblical Hebrew even really has morphological "tense" inflections at all... Also, the singular masculine imperative form is rədoph. AnonMoos (talk) 01:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Per my daughter, who teaches remedial Hebrew (caveat: neither of us know the grammatical terms in English): nirdaf (נרדף) i.e. the "passive" verb form (Nif'al) is used for "persecuted" whether or not the agent is specified; it indicates the recipient of an action. E.g. "the Gypsies are a persecuted people (עם נרדף; am nirdaf);" "the Jews were persecuted (נרדפו; nird'fu) throughout Eastern Europe." Compare the adjective form you suggested, raduf, used for a description: "haunted house [literally, "house ghosts-haunted"] = bayit raduf ruxot (בית רדוף רוחות). -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I already read much of their website (and the website of at least one other Rodef Shalom), so I guess I just missed this bit. I'm familiar with the idea of the trilateral root, but I don't know much about how it works, except that different meanings are often signified by a change in vowels. Thanks again for the explanations! Nyttend (talk) 20:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The name comes from Psalms 34:15: "Seek peace, and pursue it" (transliterated: ba-QESH sha-LOM OOVE-rod-FE-hu). As with any translation, context is significant. With Hebrew in particular, prior to consulting a dictionary, it's advisable to check (or even surmise) whether the source is biblical vs. modern Hebrew. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the last word "ve-rod-FE-hu"? —Angr 16:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry! You're absolutely right, Angr, and there it is in the external link I provided. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

French "out of office"

I received an automated "out of office" email from a French Canadian today which began: "Je suis à l'extérieur du bureau ..." Is this really an accepted way of saying "I'm out of the office"? It struck me as odd, like it was almost a word-for-word translation of the English. In fact, doesn't it kind of mean, "I'm outside the office" (as in, "I'm currently standing outside the building where my office is located")? Just curious. Dgcopter (talk) 20:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It means exactly what was intended, as far as I can tell. It may well be that the expression is a calque of the English. "Hors du bureau" would have been an alternative, and pas au bureau "not in the office" would have worked too.Joeldl (talk) 22:20, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

As a French person that's not something I would ever say or write, sounds like a clumsy translation. Equendil Talk 13:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC) (For clarification, I am refering to "Je suis à l'extérieur du bureau", not Joeldl's answer above). Equendil Talk 02:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, French person, that's good information, but you've stopped short of telling us what a real, live French person would find idiomatic. What would you say or write? --Milkbreath (talk) 14:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I was answering the question quite literally. "Je suis absent pour le moment" ("I'm away at the moment") is widely used on answering machines and would probably do the trick for an automated email answer as well, assuming the location from which one is away is not particularly relevant. Equendil Talk 23:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

"Je ne suis pas au bureau" or "Je suis absent" would be more idiomatic. In the Canadian federal bureaucracy, a lot of terms poorly copied from English ("calques de l'anglais") are used, even by native French speakers. French speakers will often do most of their work in English and this will come to influence their syntax and word choice in French. --Xuxl (talk) 16:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah yeah, Canadians and their French translations. My favourite one is a bottle of Zippo lighter fuel which I bought in Toronto. It carries a prominent bilingual label saying "Lighter Fluid / Un Fluide Plus léger". — Emil J. 12:21, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

On many cheap products (particularly those made in China), the French translations are done by machine (or non-French speakers using French-English dictionaries). results are often unintentionally hilarious, but "Canadians" are usually not to blame. --Xuxl (talk) 15:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've often seen "Je suis absent[e]" in such emails, but it's often extended to "Je suis absent[e] jusqu'au 12 janvier" (or whatever). Xn4 (talk) 12:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

My favorite example of bad French was total filet poids for total net weight (on a can of nuts, i think). In a similar vein I once saw a cleaning(?) product which assured me it was caja fuerte (safe). —Tamfang (talk) 18:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call this bad French, but blatant [ab]use of a dictionary or worse, reliance on machine translation. Any commercial outfit doing so is saving money by not employing professional translators who make their living getting it right. So goes the economy, so goes the language?-- Deborahjay (talk) 08:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Franglais? ~AH1^(TCU) 01:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Arabic

Could someone provide the transliteration for this piece of Arabic: "Gaza Massacre (Arabic: مجزرة غزة‎)"? Thank you in advance. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 21:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

There are several possibilities, but I would probably go with majzarat ghazzah... AnonMoos (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It is correct except for the first vowel of the first word, thus mejzarat. --Omidinist (talk) 05:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, "e" and "o" are not normally used as modern linguistic transliterations of short vowels in Classical Arabic. AnonMoos (talk) 09:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are right; mijzarat would be more precise. --Omidinist (talk) 11:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The dictionary I use lists the non-construct pronunciation as majzara, which is also the standard "place-where" derived noun pattern (whereas mijzara would be an "instrumental" derived noun pattern). AnonMoos (talk) 13:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In the Larousse I use, majzir is slaughterhouse, mijzarat is massacre. I will see if I can find more evidence. By the way, YouTube has a lot about it these days, with pronunciation! --Omidinist (talk) 15:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

---

Where can a layman read up on Semitic derivational forms? Semitic root is a start but I want more, more! —Tamfang (talk) 05:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a perhaps somewhat useless mastery of a number of trivial facts in this area, but I don't really know of one source to direct you to that would be somewhat in depth, yet wouldn't be too technically linguistic, or focus too narrowly on the particularities of one specific language (which would often require being comfortable in reading that language's alphabet). AnonMoos (talk) 10:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Maybe Gotthelf Bergsträsser's Introduction to the Semitic Languages: Text Specimens and Grammatical Sketches (ISBN 0931464102). I haven't looked at it in at least ten years, so I'm not sure how much space is devoted to non-concatenative morphology specifically, and obviously it's not up-to-date with the most recent research results and theories, but I remember it as being a nice gentle introduction to the Semitic languages in general... AnonMoos (talk) 11:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Semitic roots? You'll love this! See parallel and explanatory material here.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 11:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)