Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 June 24

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June 24

Tidyman's carpet

What is a "tidyman's carpet"? I heard it used in an episode of A Bit of Fry and Laurie but haven't been able to find a meaning for it. All references on the web seem to direct back to the episode without explaining what a tidyman is. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 01:14, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

There's the International Tidy Man populating "Keep Britain Tidy" campaigns since the 70s, see for example this one from 1975. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so why does the litter figure need a carpet? Dismas|^(talk) 03:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

If you mean this, Tidyman's is being used as a brand. It's a carpet made by the Tidymans company. Rojomoke (talk) 04:10, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

…a fictional company, in case anyone needs that spelt out. —Tamfang (talk) 19:30, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Prinsengracht

The page Canals of Amsterdam presently glosses this place name as meaning "the prince's canal" and specifically named for the Prince of Orange - as a piped link to William the Silent. A Dutch colleague tells me that "Prinsen..." is plural. I don't know enough Dutch to recognize the possessive form for either a singular or plural noun. The Prinsengracht page in the Dutch Wikipedia seems to state that the name is for the Prince(s) of Orange as a dynastic title. Possibly there's a workaround here, that it's for any (or the current) Prince of Orange. However, I need to know: is "Prinsen" in the canal name singular or plural? -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I suspect Dutch is like German in that noun + noun compounds often take a "joint" which may look like a plural ending but doesn't have a plural meaning. In Berlin we have a Prinzenstraße and Prinzessenstraße, each named after an individual person, even though Prinzen and Prinzessen by themselves are plural. The German Wikipedia article is at de:Fugenlaut; another example there is Gänsebraten ("roast goose"), where Gänse is the plural "geese" even though an individual roast goose is just one goose. Angr (talk) 13:05, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Prinzessenstraße is an interesting case. There is indeed one in Karlsruhe-Durlach. It contains the genitive of Prinzess, an obsolete form of Prinzessin. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 18:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

In fact, I was mistaken above: the street in Berlin is Prinzessinnenstraße. Angr (talk) 19:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Angr is basically right. Technically, 'Prinsengracht' could be understood as referring to multiple princes, while 'Prinsegracht' is definitely about a single prince. However, the 'n' that distinguishes the two is not pronounced, and in older Dutch it could also indicate a genitive instead of a plural. Many similar words exists in Dutch, and native speakers themselves are frequently confused about when to write an 'n' between two words. The rules are very complicated and do not just depend on singulars and plurals. Also, there have been several official spelling reforms in the last few decades that changed the rules. Without going into much detail: 'prinsen' is indeed the plural of 'prins', but the word 'Prinsengracht' is ambiguous as to whether it refers to several princes or just one. Historically, as you noted, it was named for the Prince of Orange. - Lindert (talk) 14:32, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

In English too (fairly closely related to Dutch) the only difference between the nominative plural and the singular posessive is an apostrophe; princes versus prince's, and to make a plural posessive just shift the apostrophe; princes'. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:44, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

(OP): Aha, but each of these is distinctive, having a unique significance. It's the ambiguity of a shared form that I (the hapless though not feckless, EN>HE translator) need to puzzle out. Still thinking this over. Thanks, all, for your input! -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:00, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The forms Prince(n)-, Keysers- and Heere(n)- are ambiguous, but the element Conincks- in Conincksgracht,[1] an alternative name for the Singel which dates from approximately the same time as the other three, is clearly not a plural. Iblardi (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I am dutch. The word "prinsen" is the plural of the word "prins". Also the other canal names are in plural (keizersgracht and herengracht). It is a general name and not named after someone in particular, it is mostly named after a certain status (prince, emporer or gentleman). I can only guess that it was named in plural in able to pronounce it easier, because the singular would be prinsgracht, keizergracht or heergracht, which really does not pronounce easy or makes sense. I hope this helps you. Take care, Jacqueline — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikijev (talk • contribs) 16:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, in modern Dutch. But (des) princen, (des) heeren and (des) keysers are perfectly normal genitive forms in 17th-century Dutch. Iblardi (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes and no. In modern Dutch (wikt:nl:prins), you distinguish only prins (singular) and prinsen (plural). Compare this, however, to New High German (wikt:de:Prinz), where the full case system is preserved and Prinz holds for the nominative singular, whereas Prinzen holds (for Prinz is a weak noun) for all other cases, singular and plural. This also was the case in Middle High German and there is little doubt it was the same in elder stages of Dutch. Philipp von Zesen in his Description of Amsterdam (printed 1664) mentions that the city was extended in 1612 and in between 1614 and 1618 houses were built along the Herren-Graft, wie auch die Keisers- und Printzen-Graften [2]. It is not clear from his description of the city whether the three ditches were built after 1612 or existed already before that time. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 18:18, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

The three canals received their names in 1614/1615.(See here, p. 67.) Sources from the first half of the 17th century spell these names both with and without the -n (Princengraft[3], Prince Gracht[4] etc.). Please note again, however, that in addition to the Heerengracht, Keysersgracht and Princengracht, there was also an adjacent Conincksgracht for some time during the 17th century (now the Singel), and that, unlike heeren, keysers and princen, which could be both singular and plural forms, conincks is unambiguously singular. Iblardi (talk) 19:20, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

English

Are there many people who understand English in non-English-speaking country ? 雞雞 (talk) 18:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It depends which country. But often, yes. Horatio Snickers (talk) 18:35, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is a map which might prove helpful. Matt Deres (talk) 18:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It also depends on what you mean by "many" and what you mean by "understand". Lots of people in most countries around the world understand the word "hello" and can say "My name is X." Fewer people can carry on a conversation in English. According to Matt Deres's map, every child in China is taught English. However, when I traveled to China last year, very few people there could speak or understand English. I think that the quality of English teaching there is generally not very good. That said, because there are 1.3 billion people in China, even if only 1% of the Chinese population can speak and understand English well enough to communicate easily with a native speaker, then 13 million Chinese people can understand English without qualification. You could say that there are many Chinese who understand English (even if 99% do not). Marco polo (talk) 19:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

School English in China, like pretty much every other school subject in China, is a rote learning exercise. You memorise long lists of words and conjugation tables and standard conversations, which you then regurgitate wholesale in an exam. The standard of instruction is also not high - decades of isolationist policies brought up a whole generation of teachers whose English were learnt second or third hand from an English speaker in the 1940s. Even national level exam questions contain grammatical errors or non-idiomatic usage. That said, people who have finished high school / gone to university would be able to understand your basic questions in English if both of you have the patience, and you speak formally and carefully, or perhaps write it down. And the quality of instruction is improving. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:16, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

• Isn't the answer that English is the most widely-spoken second language in the world? Although I wasn't able to find this, our English as a Second Language article being about language teaching. μηδείς (talk) 18:35, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I would say the most widely spoken second language is Mandarin, considering the fact that most people in China either speak different dialects of Chinese, or have their own languages (there are 54 of them, out of the official 56 ethnic groups in China). Plus, mandarin is not only spoken in China, it is spoken in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and in some other countries. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Those are usually counted as Chinese native areas, though--and even not discounting them I would not be surprised if English still has by far the most second language speakers. I just find it hard to believe its hard to find a statistic here. Maybe just English language? μηδείς (talk)

Yes, English language says 360 million native English (2010), 375 million 2nd language and 750 million as a foreign language. μηδείς (talk) 23:23, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

... whereas (if anyone is interested in the comparison) the Mandarin language has 955 million native speakers across northern and western China (this is taking Mandarin Chinese as a "language" by the Western definition - according to the definition used in Chinese linguistic circles, "Chinese" is a single language, so the distinction does not even arise). Our Mandarin Chinese article has no statistic on non-native speakers, so to cobble together an estimate, the population of China is about 1,344 million, which leaves about 389 million Chinese people who do not speak it natively. Adding on Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan and overseas Chinese people, you get to abut 460 million. The number is fuzzy and probably inflated: while there are many native Mandarin speakers in Taiwan and elsewhere, there are also large numbers who do not speak Mandarin at all. Even in mainland China, many people do not speak Mandarin at all. I am going to put a finger in the air and assume that the number of ethnically Chinese people within that number who either speak Mandarin natively or not at all is offset by the number of non-ethnically Chinese people outside China who learn Mandarin Chinese. On this basis, there are (i) probably slightly more non-native speakers of Mandarin than speakers of English as a second language, but (ii) speakers of English as a foreign language. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:52, 28 June 2013 (UTC)