Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 11

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October 11

'Foot-perfect'?

What does 'foot-perfect' mean?Analphil (talk) 13:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

It is clearly a horse racing term, as the only relevant results in Google (this) and on Wikipedia (this) are all about horse racing. I don't know any details beyond that but the meaning seems to be pretty transparent. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's about horse racing. What I want to know is whether it simply means 'perfect' or has a meaning more than that.--Analphil (talk) 14:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe it refers to a 100% clean race (cleanly clear all jumps, hurdles, et al.), for example, competing for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, per the example above. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:31, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

How do I pronounce this name

Éva Nagypál I think it might be hungarian? Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.105.169.57 (talk) 16:15, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

It indeed looks Hungarian, which would make it pronounced [ˈeːvɒ ˈnɒcpaːl].—Emil J. 16:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Very approximately, in a non-specialist, ad hoc transcription, maybe something like "EH-vaw NAWD-yuh-pal". -- the Great Gavini 16:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

You've got one syllable too many. I never understood how these pseudo-English transcriptions are supposed to work, but it would be more like NOCH-pal or something.—Emil J. 17:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

And careful with "pal". It should not be pronounced like the English word pal. See Open front unrounded vowel for examples in various English dialects. The Hungarian "gy" is notoriously difficult to represent in these ad-hoc transcriptions. Best you have a look at voiced palatal plosive, or find some spoken clips online. Just for fun: "Nagypál" means Big Paul. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

(It's voiceless, on account of voice assimilation.) Spoken clips, that's a good idea: here's Nagy, Pál and Éva.—Emil J. 17:20, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

That is beautiful. I love the pronunciation for László Moholy-Nagy . Bus stop (talk) 17:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Politeness in English

• Can you say that a girl is "chubby", if she refers to herself as "chubby"?
• Do you say "nice to meet you" only when you were introduced to someone or can you say it when you met someone accidentally?
• If you meet someone by accident and want to greet him, but do not intend to stop, can you say "bye" or is it impolite?

--80.58.205.34 (talk) 16:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• "Chubby" is borderline—it may not be a good reference: use with caution. She may have referred to herself as being "chubby," but she may not appreciate having that descriptive term applied to her by someone else.

• Yes, I believe you can say "nice to meet you" under any circumstance that I can think of. It is just an all-around pleasantry, I think. It is useful in a wide variety of situations.

• I don't think "bye" is necessary if only meeting someone momentarily. "Hello," or that sort of thing, might be more ordinary. But I don't think there is any big issue here concerning "politeness." Of course, if you chat for more than a moment, "bye" would be normal. But no big deal with or without the "bye." Bus stop (talk) 16:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

On the final point, I think "bye" is inappropriate and abrupt. If I passed someone I knew in the street and the only acknowledgement I received from them was "bye", I think I would feel snubbed and worry that I might have offended in some way. In this situation there's usually a brief, hurried exchange as you pass each other, along the lines of: "Hi!" "Hi, nice to see you! Sorry, can't stop, I'm (going to miss my bus/late for work/whatever). I'll catch up with you soon." "OK, bye!" "Bye!". Or, in a more condensed form: "Hi, sorry, can't stop now, catch you later, bye!" "OK, bye!"

Oh - and "chubby"? "Darling, you're looking very chubby tonight" will not go down well. Even "cuddly" is borderline. Karenjc 17:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• 'Nice to meet you' would probably be used only when you meet a person for the first time. Thereafter, it would be 'Nice to see you (again)'. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Like JackofOz of...I would say nice to meet you when you've already previously met makes it sound like you don't remember the person, so i'd strictly only use it when meeting people for the first time (isn't their an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine gets all angry about this??). Referring to someone as chubby if they self-refer is , as Bus Stop says it's risky - I wouldn't risk it unless you knew them well and knew it was ok. I would never say 'bye' to someone as a greeting you just say "how's it going?" or something similar. I used to work at a place where you'd walk over a bridge to get to the city centre and every day i'd pass maybe 5 people on the bridge from my office that I knew (if not more), I figured that the shortest possible relatively polite conversation would be....Person X "Good?", person Y "Yes, you?", Person X "Good" (That's...'good' as in 'hi, how's it going?') ny156uk (talk) 21:43, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

It's interesting how people usually interpret the question "How are you?" in a literal way these days. Most times, the person asking has no interest in how you are, and responses such as "Good", "Well", "I've got a terrific headache" or similar are just wasted on them. Cf. the traditional "How do you do?", to which the appropriate response was likewise "How do you do?". It would have been considered quite crass to actually report on how you did or how you were. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 21:58, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

In response to the last question, it is always impolite to say "bye" unless you have said some version of "hello" first. That said, you do not have to say "bye" or any other version of "goodbye" after you've said a version of "hello". If you are in a hurry and feel a need to greet someone, you can just say "hello!" or "hi, how are you?" and keep moving. You don't really need to say anything else, as it will be obvious that you need or want to go somewhere. After they say hello, it is optional to say something like "See you later!" This is a little gentler than simply "bye" because it suggests that you want to chat but have to postpone that until later (whereas "bye" sounds a bit dismissive when it follows a greeting with no intervening conversation). Marco polo (talk) 00:46, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with everything everyone has said so far but would like to add a couple things. First, I would only ever use "Nice to meet you" when it was the first time I had ever met this person. Although, saying something like "It's been nice meeting with you" would be perfectly acceptable in a business relationship when a business meeting is coming to an end. And secondly, about the only instance I can think of where saying "bye" without first saying "hello" would be acceptable is when one person is obviously not able to stop for any sort of conversation. The relationship between the two should be friendly and it should be obvious that the person saying "bye" does not have time to stop. For instance, Person A is coming in to their workplace and person B is obviously leaving (they want to go home, they have their coat on, they're getting into their car, etc). If person B just responded with "Bye!" with a smile on their face (suggesting that they were happy to go home and leave work behind) then it would be fine and likely no offense would be taken by person A.

And as to the above comment about the TV show Seinfeld, yes there was an episode where Elaine occasionally runs into the same guy in her lobby but each successive meeting with him is more cold and distant. Dismas|^(talk) 01:08, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

As a British-english speaker I would say "It's been nice meeting you". No "with". 92.29.125.142 (talk) 10:28, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The expression "Have a nice day!" (HAND) can serve a dual purpose, for "Hello!" and "Good-bye!" simultaneously. Also, my Google search for "Salvē atque valē!" found http://www.haverford.edu/classics/faculty/bmulligan/acl/ACL_salve_eng.pdf.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

As a native speaker of US English, I can definitely say that I've never heard "Have a nice day" in place of "Hello". Dismas|^(talk) 15:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

As a British English speaker, agreed. "Have a nice day" is definitely a 'goodbye' phrase and saying it to someone as a greeting would be seen as an abrupt and therefore rude dismissal as a side-point, where are the tildes on an Aussie keyboard? I can't find them and so can't make a signature without them —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.186.241 (talk) 06:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's any such thing as an "Aussie keyboard". On mine, a Compaq, the tilde is the 1st character on the topmost row. Oh, have a nice day.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

See Keyboard layout. On a QWERTY keyboard, the tilde is generally next to the number 1. Dismas|^(talk) 10:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

On an American (ANSI) QWERTY keyboard, the tilde is generally next to the number 1. On a British (ISO) QWERTY keyboard, the tilde is generally next to the 'enter' key. I don't know which layout Australia generally uses: Jack's is apparently ANSI. 109.155.37.180 (talk) 18:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I can confirm that. It's next to the 1, and almost as far away from 'Enter' as it's possible to be. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:13, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! 150.101.201.116 (talk) 05:46, 14 October 2010 (UTC)