Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 January 4

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January 4

In the three-thirty?

Hi,

While tralslating Dick Francis' Under Orders, I encountered the sentence as follows:

"Gone is the time when you could sidle up to a bookie with a hundred thousand in readies to stick on number two at Cartmel in the three-thirty."

It's about horse-racing, and the speaker tries to say that to bet in large cash is no longer possible.

I don't understand what 'in the three-thirty' means.

Please help. --Analphil (talk) 12:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The race at 3.30pm I think, but I'm not an expert on horseracing. 95.150.24.247 (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. They just omitted the word "race", at the end of the sentence. StuRat (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm almost certain that that is the case. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:17, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

And I'm completely certain. A typical race meeting in the UK (whether at Cartmel Racecourse or elsewhere) will have a race every half hour, identified by the time at which it starts.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Generally, however, the time comes first, followed by 'at' + [race course]. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

"The 3:30 [race] at Ascot" is no different from modern-day corporate-speak: "I have my regular 9:30 [meeting] with George, then a 10:30 [meeting] with the IT guys. After that, I'll be free to see you". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 18:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

"Out of my brain on the 5:15". Mod, perhaps, but not necessarily modern. --LarryMac | Talk 18:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Nope, not new at all. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Tangential: In the United States, on the other hand, we refer to races by their ordinal positions in the day's program—"the third at Aqueduct", "the ninth at Hialeah", etc. Deor (talk) 20:11, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

"Dem Deutschen Volke"

This inscription can be found on the Reichstag (building) in Berlin. But I'm unsure about the first part. As the caption to the photo in the linked article states, the slogan can be translated To the German people or For the German people. Presumably, therefore, there is an implied Zu before the "Dem". But if that's the case, why did they leave out the Zu? Why not just say Zu Dem Deutschen Volke? --Viennese Waltz 20:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

There is an implied part, but it's not "zu". "Gewidmet" ("dedicated") would be a likely candidate. "Dedicated to the German people" uses the dative case in German, without the preposition "zu": "dem Deutschen Volke gewidmet"---Sluzzelin talk 20:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) So you are asking "Why not insert an unnecessary word into our German because English speakers don't have a dative case, and so cannot conceive of using it?" I don't quite grasp the significance of "just" in your question. --ColinFine (talk) 20:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

There's an entire article on the inscription's history on German WP by the way (de:Dem deutschen Volke). When the text had been decided on, the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger apparently made fun of it, because the German people supposedly already were the contractors and owners of the building, and the newspaper thought it was odd for the contractors and owners to dedicate the building to themselves. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

German works differently from English. The way to say "the German people" in German is das deutsche Volk. German has what is called grammatical case, which exists in English only for some pronouns (such as he versus him). The expression dem deutschen Volke is das deutsche Volk recast in the dative case. When translating a dative phrase such as this into English, we often insert a preposition such as to or for. These prepositions are not needed in German because the change in case does the same job that the prepositions do in English. Marco polo (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Marco polo has explained it very well, and see also German grammar#cases. The (confusing) example there, "Der Tisch gab dem Tisch(e) den Tisch des Tisch(e)s", would be "The table gave the table the table's table" in that word order, using an indirect object without preposition, but it would require the preposition "to" in English if the word order were changed to "The table gave the table's table to the table", while the German dative still wouldn't have a preposition, even if positioned at the end: "Der Tisch gab den Tisch des Tisch(e)s dem Tisch(e)." (which is odd but, not incorrect). But I guess you could never say "We dedicate you this building" in English. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

• Also, see the previous question about this Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 25#Dem Deutschen Volke. DuncanHill (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)