Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 August 14

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August 14

Banned keywords on Chinese Internet/servers

Is it true that the Chinese government has recently imposed new restrictions on certain Chinese "keywords" being included in online Internet content (especially for advertising)? Are you aware of such recent restrictions, and what do they entail? Thank you.

New restrictions are being introduced all the time. Please see List of blacklisted keywords in China, and the first link under "Further Reading" which is constantly updated with the latest news.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:12, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

If you care to visit the Linguists' blog Language Log and search their archives, you'll find extended and informed recent discussions of this topic. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:39, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

"Hard cheese"

When and how did "hard cheese" change from simply meaning a category of cheese to become an expression that apparently has nothing to do with cheese?

As, for example, in this note from the Language Desk Archives four years ago: "Portuguese does that too, of course. However, according to Portuguese orthography, qü and gü are used only in Brazil, and not even always there, and according to Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990, qü and gü are to be abolished in BP as well, with the result that spellings like que, qui, gue, gui will be ambiguous as to whether /k ~ g/ or /kw ~ gw/ is meant. No problem for native speakers of course, and it's one less letter for them to have to worry about (will it free up a key on Brazil computer keyboards?), but it's hard cheese on foreigners learning the language, who will lose a pronunciation hint in the spelling. +Angr 11:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, CBHA (talk) 17:21, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the phrase, but apparently it's from BrEng. Here's three discussions of the matter [1] [2] [3]. The consensus seems to be that it's metaphorical, coming from the notion that it is unfortunate to find that one's cheese has gone hard. It basically means "bad luck." SemanticMantis (talk) 17:27, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly, some of the best regarded cheeses in the world are "hard cheese". --Jayron32 17:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it possibly is military-related, in which soldiers were given cheese as part of their rations. A big block of cheese would be shared out. If you ended up with the hard cheese from around the edge of the cheese, this was your bad luck. However, this might be complete folk etymology. Barney the barney barney (talk) 17:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the term "stiff cheddar" from growing up in Australia in the 1950s and 60s. The term involved the ideas of bad luck and no sympathy. Don't know how it came to mean that. HiLo48 (talk) 17:51, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I suspect it's just a derivative of "hard luck", which is a common expression expressing resigned sympathy. What else can be hard? Cheese. So it becomes "hard cheese". --Nicknack009 (talk) 21:40, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

According to my old copy of Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, the expression is first recorded as Royal Military Academy slang in the 1890s (especially applied to hard luck at billiards), so there does seem to be a military relation. He calls hard cheddar a "humorous variant", and I suppose stiff cheddar is a further variant. Deor (talk) 21:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The earliest cite in the OED is from 1876 (Isabella Banks in The Manchester Man (novel)), so there might be an earlier origin in northern England. "Hard cheddar" is first cited from 1931. Dbfirs 05:44, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

My (admittedly less reliable) link above [4] gives a usage from 1837, in a collection of plays called "The Acting National Drama" SemanticMantis (talk) 15:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I missed clicking that link. The meaning seems to have gradually changed from the dried-up dairy product to hard times to hard luck during the 1800s. Dbfirs 07:42, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Spanish

The phrase on the pedestal

I don't like the way the online translators (Google, Babelfish, Prompt, etc) translate "Hidalgo, en el nombre llevamos la Independencia" into English. Particularly, I'm not sure whether hidalgo here is the Mexican state of Hidalgo or a nobleman. The article would welcome the correct translation, thanks. Brandmeister^talk 20:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

"Hidalgo took the name Independence" does seem a bit odd. "Hidalgo" likely refers to Padre Hidalgo. It seems like it should be "Hidalgo, in your name we claim independence." But a native Spanish speaker could do better. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The name "Hidalgo" in this case refers to Hidalgo (state), which is where the city of Pachuca is located (and where the monument stands). The correct translation would be: "Hidalgo, in the name we carry independence". Regards.--MarshalN20 ^Talk 03:04, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

"The correct translation" into which language? Sorry, but "Hidalgo, in the name we carry independence" isn't any variety of idiomatic English known to me. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:29, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

My translation: Hidalgo, in the name, we brought/bring independence.--Jondel (talk) 05:28, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

"Hidalgo" refers to the Mexican state, which is named after the Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla that Bugs mentions above. The official name of the state is actually Estado Libre y Soberano de Hidalgo or "The Free and Sovereign State of Hidalgo"; the name "Hidalgo" represents the independence won from Spain through the Mexican War of Independence and is a source of great pride for the residents there. The inscription has no punctuation and is in all caps. "Llevar" also has the connotation of "to convey". To me it reads more like Hidalgo: en el nombre llevamos la indepencencia or "Hidalgo: in the name (i.e. by that name), we convey independence".--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:51, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

That makes sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

My Spanish is poor, but having read the discussion as an English-speaking editor, I might suggest "Hidalgo, we bear independence in our name" or "Hidalgo, we carry independence in our name", which I suspect has something of the tone of the Spanish motto. Marco polo (talk) 13:15, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if the sense of the motto could be that the hidalgo class (the lesser nobility, like Don Quixote) had more independence than the lower classes? --Trovatore (talk) 21:54, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Of all the suggestions above, I think "convey" reads the best (yet is still lacking -- perhaps there is no ideal translation). Please note, though: the inscription in Spanish has the 'I' of "Independencia" capitalized, in reference to events of The (Mexican) Independence which WT mentions above, yet it has been changed at the article to lowercase in both Spanish and English. El duderino ^(abides) 22:22, 15 August 2014 (UTC)