Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 April 22

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April 22

Han Seung-yeon

I need an english heading to put as a ref title for [1] on the above article, can someone help me please? I can't make anything from the google translation on this one. Thanks--Jac16888 ^Talk 00:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

It might be "Hongryeol Lee and Bora Keum star together as a couple." or something like that. --Analphil (talk) 22:25, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Good enough for me, thanks--Jac16888 ^Talk 22:16, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Gathering Blue

I need a few, accurate sources so I can expand the article of the book Gathering Blue, since I do not have the book available right now. (The language section does mean Language Arts, right? Or does this belong in misc.?) --96.242.163.228 (talk) 19:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Try the Resource Exchange project at WP:LIB RudolfRed (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Name of Burma in Burmese

Could someone please tell me what part of the ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် (The Union of the Republic of Myanmar in Burmese) means just "Burma" or "Myanmar"?  Liam987  19:41, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

မြန်မာ is Myanmar (Burmese pronunciation: [mjàɴmà]). Angr (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The Burmese spelling of Burma/Myanmar has always been မြန်မာ [mjəmà], even when the country's official English name was Burma. It's the English name that's been the issue. Hybernator (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Names of Burma explains the issue. --Soman (talk) 21:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.  Liam987  06:37, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

We call Deutschland "Germany", and Hellas "Greece", and Misr "Egypt" and Bharat "India". What's the big deal about calling Myanmar "Burma"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:30, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

The governments of Germany, Greece, Egypt, and India have never formally requested that their countries be called Deutschland/Hellas or rather, Ellada/Misr/Bharat in English. But the governments of Burma and Ivory Coast (for example) have formally requested that their English names be changed to Myanmar and Côte d'Ivoire, and those requests have been honored by the UN and by many (but by far not all) mapmakers, encyclopedia writers, journalists, etc., in the English-speaking world. Personally, I still say Burma because I don't think the current government of Burma has enough legitimacy to formally request its way out of a wet paper bag, but that's just me. Angr (talk) 07:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire is French. This being an English-speaking country, we tend to pronounce Côte d'Ivoire exactly the same way we pronounce "Ivory Coast". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:15, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

But only because it was originally called "Ivory Coast" and that's entered our consciousness. If it had been "Côte d'Ivoire" forever, that's what we'd be calling it. Just like "Costa del Sol" (never "Sun Coast") or "Costa Rica" (never "Rich Coast") or "Puerto Rico" (never "Rich Port"), or "San Francisco" (never "St Francis") ... you get the idea. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Precisely. Those various names arose through customary usage, not through some language nanny telling us we have to call them something else or they won't play with us anymore. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The Czech Republic has requested that they be called "Czechia" in English, but no one calls them that  Liam987  12:19, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I've been employed in an archive of Liberian materials lately; I've noticed that their post-1985 newspapers use "Ivory Coast" far more than do American sources from the same time period. I guess when you're next door to them, you become much more accustomed to their old name than you do if you're on another continent. Nyttend (talk) 02:22, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's a New York Times article from this past fall.[2] Note that they call it "Ivory Coast" and have the French in parentheses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"dressed better than the street"

Translating McDermid's The wire in the Blood, I've found the sentences as follow:

'Not much of a family, you ask me. His dad, called himself an engineer, but as far as I could see, all that meant was he had an excuse for disappearing at the drop of a hat for weeks on end. Mind you, it wouldn't surprise me if he earned a bob or two. He was always dressed better than the street, if you get my meaning. Never spent a shilling on the house or the wife and kid that he didn't have to, though.'

I don't understand what 'dressed better than the street' means. Please help.--Analphil (talk) 22:20, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

To this native English speaker and resident, despite not recalling having heard the exact expression before, it immediately suggests that the man in question dressed in perceptibly newer and/or more expensive clothing, and perhaps also in a slightly "higher" social class style, than the other residents of the street he lived in.

I gather that the work is set in a fictional Yorkshire town of "Bradfield" (suggesting a mashup of Bradford and Huddersfield, like J. B. Priestley's famous "Bruddersford"): in such industrial towns (like the nearby Halifax I lived in for a time), particularly before large scale immigration and modern social mobility, a given street would tend to house people all of a very similar social and economic class, and often mostly working in the same industry, so anyone varying much from such a street's standard would stand out. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.158 (talk) 23:02, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I got it. Thank you.--Analphil (talk) 23:05, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The "if you get my meaning" that follows tells us that the writer is deliberately saying something in an unusual way, and expecting us to have trouble understanding it. I think "better than the street" means "in a way that looks nicer than most of the things you see on the street". Looie496 (talk) 00:14, 24 April 2012 (UTC)