Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 July 22

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July 22

The Mighty Thor

The Germanic god of thunder is called Thor in English, and Donar in German. So far, so good.

Now, 'Thor' in German means fool, as in the ditty:

Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser,

Bettler oder Kaiser?

Ob arm, ob reich, im Tote gleich.

(Who was the fool, who was the wise man, the beggar or the emperor? Whether poor or rich, in death alike.)

And the Marvel comics superhero, The Mighty Thor, must doubtless be published in Germany. But what is he called? Wouldn't calling him Thor cause snickering? Bitte, German comics fans, hilfe!

As an analogy, consider the Lone Ranger's sidekick Tonto. Apparently, in Hispanophone countries he is redubbed Toro, as 'tonto' means 'stupid'...Rhinoracer (talk) 12:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia page here has him as Thor. I believe there was a German auxillary cruiser and mortar of that name, so perhaps it isn't as humorous as it could be. - Jarry1250 ^{[ humorous – discuss ]} 12:52, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The word for "fool" is usually spelled Tor in German nowadays; the spelling Thor is quite old-fashioned. Moreover, it's a very old-fashioned word no matter how you spell it (the more usual word for "fool" is Narr). I doubt most German readers of Marvel Comics would have thought of the two words as the same. +Angr 13:06, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, he simply was called "Thor". The connection with fool seems to be very obvious but is simply not made.--Radh (talk) 13:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, thanks.

Though I think the Starman villain 'Mist' would hardly strike fear into German readers' hearts...speaking of Germans and comics, I'm a little lost as to why Uncle Scrooge is dubbed 'Dagobert' in German. In French, for example, he's called 'Onc'Picsou', which preserves the "stingy" connotation of 'Scrooge'in a way Dagobert does not. Oh, well.

Another comics superhero-renaming that went a bit awry: Wolverine is, in French, called "Serval". This is the name of a fierce little African carnivore, whereas 'wolverine' is the name of a fierce little North American/Canadian carnivore.

The problem was that the most common French translation of 'wolverine' is 'glouton', which also means 'glutton'. You can imagine how fearsome that would sound in English, let alone French:

"I'm the Glutton! I'm the best at what I do!"

...A pity the original translators didn't know the more fearsome name "carcajou"...at any rate, for the movies the French version just kept the English 'Wolverine'.

(Hmm, I'd like to read some Thor comics in German!) Rhinoracer (talk) 19:16, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you are ever near Mönchengladbach...One of the German translators of the Disney comics, Erika Fuchs, de:Erika Fuchs is an "icon" as we strangely like to say in Germany in her own right.--Radh (talk) 19:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The Germans would rather recognize Thor as a Norse god de:Thor than as the Germanic Donar. The Germanic equivalents to the most common Norse gods are taught in school long after kids have encountered the other names in popular culture. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 05:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Funny?

Why is this Norah Jones joke funny? At second 25 [[1]]--Quest09 (talk) 15:48, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

There's no joke as far as I can tell - she's just laughing in embarrassment at her difficulty in answering the question. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

@~29 sec "it's simple music for ... drum roll .. simple people" is a joke, I can't explain why jokes are funny, maybe the article joke does>83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't watch the video because I'm at work, but if that's the joke then it's funny because she's pretending to be the sort of jerk who would call her fans idiots, sort of satirizing them in a way. Making fun of jerks and snobs and all the other kinds of various kinds of awful people is a cherished theme in humor. It's also a little bit of a play on words, on the double meanings of the word "simple". Recury (talk) 18:08, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I recall someone (may have been Gary Larson) writing at one time that laughter is the brain's response to suddenly being taken in a direction it didn't expect, and (briefly) being thrown into conflict. Over the years I've come to more or less agree with this - with most things I find funny there is some kernel where the audience is expected to rationalize an apparent conflict. At the risk of over analyzing, the phrase "simple music for simple people" has several such conflicts. It plays off a standard trope of "*blank* *whatever* for *blank* people". It's a trite phrase that Nora Jones wouldn't expect herself to say. (But she did say it, so that's a conflict.) She thinks the trope is dopey, so she said the last part in a dopey voice. But again, Nora Jones doesn't expect Nora Jones to talk in a dopey voice in a 60 Minutes interview, so that's also a conflict. Finally, the term "simple" when used in the context of "simple people" is often a pejorative. Most people think of themselves as complex and nuanced, and would bristle as being classed as simple, especially since "simple" sometimes has connotations of "mentally challenged". These are all traits that you wouldn't expect Nora Jones to use to describe her audience (usually insulting your audience is a bad thing). The brain is temporarily thrown into conflict about why she said it, so it laughs. - These aren't big conflicts, or substantive ones, or even universal ones*, but then again, it's not a particularly funny joke. (*I surmise Andrew Taylor is ambivalent about Nora Jones and expects anything coming from her mouth to be the standard meaningless celebrity drivel - no conflict in rationalizing her words = no funny. Nora likely has a higher view of her own utterances, and thus experiences the conflict, resulting in her laughter.) -- 128.104.112.87 (talk) 18:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

What is a "gingo"?

What does "gingo" mean in Italian? I heard it in an Italo-disco song called "Gingo", by Robby Bienvenuto. The lyrics were about the singer being known as "Gingo" everywhere he went. To an American it sounds like "gringo" or "gigolo". Interestingly, Fiat had a concept car called the "Gingo", which it renamed as a second-generation Panda, but the song probably predates it by a decade or two. It Italy, what does it mean to be nicknamed "Gingo"? Squidfryerchef (talk) 16:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

According to Allmusic.com the song is called "Gringo". Google finds a lot of hits on Roby Benvenuto Gringo as well, and this has a nice picture of the cover of "Gringo". Tonywalton ^Talk 16:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Great song too. If anybody knows where the Fiat Gingo came from I'd like to hear about that too. Squidfryerchef (talk) 16:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I often suspect car model names are purely chosen because they make a pleasant sound - we have Justy, Elantra, Mondeo; as "real words" we have Cherry... Tonywalton ^Talk 17:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

And just think of the Nissan Fairlady. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:04, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

There's probably a thesis (or at least some very expensive marketing consultancy) in there somewhere, about names that end with a vowel or at least whatever linguists call a vowel-oid sound like 'y' (Justy, Impreza, Elantra, Mondeo, Fiesta) and ones that don't (Golf, errrr.... name another one) and the way it's changed over the years (in the UK in the past there have been Humber, Victor, Zephyr, Corsair). An interesting study! Tonywalton ^Talk 23:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I suspect some car makers deliberately choose words that don't mean anything - after models like the Mitsubishi Pajero (Pajero was reputed to sound like a Spanish expletive) and the Opel Corsa ("coarser"), they started to get a bit more careful about picking names. And the Mitsubishi Carisma was widely ridiculed - according to car magazines it was noticeably lacking in charisma! AJHW (talk) 13:10, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

They do, I read an article on advertising and it was mentioned. They have lists of made up words so that they can avoid problems like the one that occurred with the Vauxhall Nova. - X201 (talk) 13:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

You're thinking of the Chevy Nova, and it never happened. +Angr 13:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Vauxhall Nova on this side of the Pond. Tonywalton ^Talk 16:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

But no matter how careful the makers are, some names just don't travel. Karenjc 18:18, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Kia may have made a slight booboo with the Kia Soul, I suspect. Tonywalton ^Talk 16:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Why is that? I don't get it... TomorrowTime (talk) 19:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I always wondered why Ford Motor Company had a line of cars named after porn magazines - Ford Fiesta, Ford Escort, Ford Sierra, and so on. I was wondering when the 'Ford Girls Next Door' was going to come out! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:24, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

And on another hand, I wonder why Cadillac Escalade has a name so similar to those of a bunch of Ford models. —Tamfang (talk) 04:39, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Vis publica

In the course of improving the Affray article, I've come across the latin legal term vis publica. I'm hoping to add a definition of this to List of Latin phrases: V, but I've been unable to pin down a decent definition of it. Literally I believe it means "violence or force against the public", and in legal terms vis seems to be extended a bit to cover "crime" as well. The Encyclopedic dictionary of Roman law gives a lengthy treatment of it here, but that doesn't clarify it enough, at least to my mind. From that, I'd hazard a summary definition as "violence, or other crime, against the people in general, or against the state". Does anyone have a better definition, ideally from a legal dictionary? -- Finlay McWalter Talk 17:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Google also suggests simply "public violence", but I don't think we can use a simpler definition without remembering the different meanings of "public" and "private" in Roman law. "Public violence" would be a crime that disrupts the state; one random person assaulting or robbing, or sometimes killing, another random person, for example, would normally be vis privata, and the victim (or his relatives in case of murder) would have to initiate legal proceedings. In modern law this sort of "vis privata" is more of a public matter, since the state can intervene, arrest, try, and imprison someone, which was not usually the case in the ancient (and medieval) world. (Hmm...I'm not sure I'm explaining this well...the link you gave does a much better job.) Adam Bishop (talk) 06:00, 23 July 2009 (UTC)