Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 December 28

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December 28

天生 = nature or disposition

I was looking up "Tian sheng" on Yabla Chinese, and I noticed that it meant "nature" or "disposition". That makes sense, considering that I've heard it used in sentences like "人家天生不会". That means people, by nature, cannot do. That just means that people need to learn to do something; they don't know how to do something naturally or without experience. However, in my head, I tend to picture that people are born with whatever the sky or heaven gives them, and whatever the sky or heaven gives them, that is what they have - and that may not be enough, because they still need worldly experience to live. However, I am concerned whether the "heaven" interpretation in this case is justified, as I am not sure what is the relationship between 天 (sky or heaven or day) and nature/disposition in traditional/ancient Chinese beliefs. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 00:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

自然 is nature in terms of "flora and fauna". 天生 is rather "inborn/inherent". 天 has Daoist connotations. Other expressions like 天性 or 天命 describe "God's will". 我的天啊 is "Oh my God" and 老天爷 is "Old Heaven Grandpa" (God). Heaven is located in the sky and the deities act like protectors. Nowadays, one of 天's meanings given in dictionaries is something like "natural". It may've derived from Daoism, but as with many other words, it has become so common that hardly anyone really thinks about the origin. But I don't really understand why you bring up the human greed for more. It doesn't fit at all. A mother can tell her child that no one is born with this or that ability and that you should work hard to achieve it. On the other hand, you can also praise someone as 天才 because a person is so talented, it's like you were born with it. --2.245.120.30 (talk) 17:57, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Heh-heh. I think at the time of making the original post, I was thinking of 升天 (which means "ascend to heaven"), because it sounded so similar to 天生, even though the actual characters are quite different. The homophonic quality probably made me conflate the two and thought of ascension to heaven + coming from heaven + inborn/innate into one. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 21:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Japanese 9, ku, and Chinese relationship?

I recently found out that the Japanese 9 is read as ku, which means suffering. Hence 9 implies suffering and is therefore unlucky. Interestingly, in Chinese, ku with the first tone means crying. With a different intonation, third tone, it means bitter, as in bitter foods. "Eating bitterness" is a literal translation meaning "to suffer". I am wondering if the Japanese actually borrows this concept from the Chinese, but because it's a non-tonal language, 9 and suffering sound alike, where they wouldn't be in Chinese. By the way, why is 9 pronounced ku in Japanese? Why did the Chinese writing system transferred but not the pronunciation? Or maybe SOME Chinese pronunciations got transferred to Japanese too? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 06:50, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

See On Yomi. Chinese pronunciations of kanji were brought when the kanji were brought, just from different parts of China and at different times, and also multiple times, which is why many kanji have multiple On Yomi. Also, 苦 can also mean suffering, even with the third tone in Chinese. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:21, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I meant when I said the literal translation of the original. It just means "to suffer" or "suffering". (There are no conjugating verbs in Chinese.) 71.79.234.132 (talk) 13:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

The very short answer is, exactly what you wrote: "SOME Chinese pronunciations got transferred to Japanese too."

Broadly speaking, when Chinese characters were borrowed into Japanese, as well as keeping the meaning they kept an approximation of the way they were pronounced in the variety of Chinese they were borrowed from, at the time they were borrowed. This reading of the character is called the "on'yomi", in Japanese 音読み. This is one reason why the sounds are similar and the associated meanings are similar in both Japanese and a lot of varieties of Chinese. It's the same with the number number four (四): its "on'yomi" is "shi", which sounds like a number of words associated with death (死). This didn't start in Japan. The association started in China. and when the character was borrowed into Japanese, the association came with it. Japanese existed before it borrowed Chinese characters. The "native" Japanese words for four are "yotsu", "yon", or "yo" which pre-existed the borrowing of Chinese characters. In the case of 四, it "native reading" or "kun'yomi" (訓読み) is "yotsu", "yon", or "yo". The word for an elementary school "fourth grade student" is 四年生. In Japanese, groups of Chinese characters are usually read with their on'yomi, so this would be "shi nen sei" (very similar reading of 四年生 in 普通话 (pinyin: sì nián shēng), you'll notice). Because of the taboo about pronouncing 四 as "shi" it is always, always pronounced "yon nen sei".

Does that start an explanation? NB: the real experts will reply in a few days or so. A real expert has already arrived. Peter in Australia aka --Shirt58 (talk) 09:21, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

It's actually 'yo nen sei' KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 15:37, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh bloody hell. KageTora, you've now given me over 9,000 flashbacks to all my Nihongo 101, Nihongo 201, and Nihongo 301 assignments, where the batsu-s were rather more frequent that the maru-s or even the sankaku-s --Shirt58 (talk) 11:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Just doing my job, mate, just doing my job KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:03, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I will agree with the fact that 'shi' is avoided. In fact, many buildings in Japan do not have a 'fourth floor' (even though there obviously is one), and apartment owners avoid naming any apartment with the number 4 (Example: I lived in a two story apartment block, with four apartments on each floor, and I was in No. 105 (1 signifies the floor, 05 signifies the apartment). My neighbour was 103. 'Ku' is sometimes also avoided. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 14:40, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I believe the aversion to using "4" has waned over the years, especially when it comes to buildings and apartment numbers. Step into the elevator of pretty much any high rise these days and you have, in my opinion, more of a chance of seeing a "4" than not so there are plenty of buildings with "4th floors" and rooms/apartments ending in "4" these days. (Example: I've worked on the 4th floor of a few different office/government buildings over the years and have been in schools/condos with classrooms/apartments ending in "4". I actually lived, about 20 years ago, in apartment numbered 204　and I've also seen similar numbering in hotels, etc.) - Marchjuly (talk) 07:34, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

"home is where the heart is"; "home is where you hang your hat"

Hi,

Aren't the above two proverbs literally the exact opposite of each other? 212.96.61.236 (talk) 10:57, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The first expresses fondness for home in general, the second expresses disregard the particulars of the specific home under consideration. They each address different points relating to home. I don't think they would be opposites. Bus stop (talk) 11:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The word 'literally' is often misused. The literal opposite of "home is where the heart is" is merely "home is not where the heart is".

I heard recently that the use of 'literally' to mean 'figuratively' has become somewhat accepted; it literally makes me explode. Igor the facetious xmas bunny (talk) 12:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The whole point of the word "literally" is to distinguish it from "figuratively". But as I'm sure someone will point out, language evolves. Someone will probably also point out that it is usage that defines terms. Therefore I am literally (figuratively) confused. Bus stop (talk) 12:24, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

If home was literally where your heart is, that would mean it's wherever you are at the time (assuming you keep your heart with you at all times), which is pretty much identical to being wherever you hang your hat. StuRat (talk) 03:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I have self-collapsed comments here which might be useful to some, and which reflect upon a discussion that has arisen here several times in the past, but which have no real relevance to the OP's question. Snow talk 23:47, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The thing is, those who have a problem with this development often appear to be as confused about the semantics involved in the new usage as they seem to perceive others to be confused with regard to the old usage. And this is not a case of an idiomatic development that evolved in some obscure manner that we can't track; the cause of the transformation here is really rather self-evident, and yet, as with most cases of linguistic prescriptivism, it goes almost completely un-noted whenever the inevitable discussion about the new use arises, outside of formal linguistic study. This change has indeed evolved from the word taking on a second meaning, but that meaning is not, as has been suggested here and elsewhere, an antonym to its original usage; that is, literally does not now mean "figuratively" in any sense, even though it is sometimes utilized in figurative statements. Rather "literally" has a use in the English language which has arguably been its primary purpose for a good long while: emphasis. It's the interplay between this pragmatic value and the explicit meaning of the word that has led to the current ambiguous state of affairs and strong feelings on its "proper" usage. Observe: "He could have taken literally any chair at the table, but he chose to take the one that he knew I wanted!" What's going on here is that people (even intelligent people with a good command of semantics) have begun -- without conscious effort, as is often the case with semantic adaption of a word to new purpose -- to treat "literally" as a linguistic marker that means (variously, in different contexts) "very", "quite", "just", "exactly", and so on, but which doesn't necessarily occupy the syntactic positioning that any of these terms normally would -- which explains its appeal, since it can then be used in certain statements which would otherwise have to be much longer or awkward in attempting to convey the same basic meaning. Now, in a statement like the one above, there really isn't any conflict between the traditional, explicitly understood dictionary definition of the word and its pragmatic value. The difference of opinion on the word's proper usage derives from the fact that some people have begun to prioritize the word's pragmatic function over its explicit meaning and thus use it even in figurative contexts. This starts in ambiguous contexts: "She is such a literal bitch." Here "bitch" has two possible meanings (the original one of a female dog and the newer one of an objectionable person), but the newer meaning is often perceived in contemporary contexts to be as established as (or indeed, much more prominent than) the older, so even those who are particularly anal about the explicit use of "literal" are unlikely to object and assert "Actually, by using the word 'literal', you are implying that she is a canine, not an objectionable person." But then the usage also proceeds to uses that are more explicitly in conflict with its original meaning: "I need to exercise my dog more: he's literally gotten as a fat as a cow!" This is the point at which advocates for the original and stricter application of the word begin to get rubbed the wrong way. Of course, the situation gets even further muddled by the normal linguistic process of omitting parts of a statement, such that even statements like the first example above, where there was no conflict between the original literal utility of the word and its new pragmatic function, can still become problematic in this regard: "Mikail could have taken literally any chair, but he chose to take that one!" / "Mikail could have taken literally any [other] chair [at the table], [and I wouldn't have minded,] but he chose to take that one [which he knew I wanted]!" Here, if we ignore the obvious additional information that is meant to be assumed from context (but which are not outwardly spoken), we again end up with a conflict, which some can't seem to help but dwell upon, between the pragmatic usage and original explicit meaning of "literal": Mikail presumably could not have taken literally any chair in existence. But we make these kinds of omissions as a matter of daily linguistic practice. If we weren't capable of assuming these elements from context (in a practice sometimes known as a "null formation") most every statement we ever made would be several times longer than it is, needlessly taking up a lot of time and effort and making the cognitive load of parsing the (more convoluted) speech of others much heavier. There are two things to note here which are of value in coming to grips with this usage. First off, it's not a new corruption of the original meaning; people have been using its emphatic function in defiance of its explicit one for centuries. Second, on some level or another, almost everyone who uses the word in this manner seems to be at least partially aware of the conflict between uses, because whenever we observe someone using the word for emphasis, it takes on phonetic stress. Try this: say these two statements aloud to yourself. "The word 'cool' has two meanings: one which means literally cold and a figurative one, meaning suave or impressive in a relaxed sense." "I'm literally hungry enough to eat a horse." Notice that in the second sentence you (almost certainly) stressed the first syllable in "literally"; it's a common feature of language that our brains often make us stress grammatical features that are used for emphasis rather than explicit semantic value. So, long story short, by all means, be a little irritated by the secondary usage if you must (there's nothing wrong with wanting some firm meaning to words, really -- that's just human nature). And honestly, I'd be lying if I said that the usage doesn't bother me just a little every once in a while, just because the practical usage sometimes is so glaringly in conflict with the explicit meaning of the word, when used by someone who doesn't seems cognizant of how they are baiting debate. But be aware that no one is actually saying that "literally" and "figuratively" are actually interchangeable now. They are just leveraging the aspect of emphasis for practical purpose. And while a child might benefit from having the literal meaning of literal pointed out to them (just so that they are aware), I find that insisting to adults that using the word in an emphatic manner is never proper is very much usually worthy of an eyeroll. Snow talk 23:47, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Language evolves, usage defines terms... Well, it depends on the purpose towards which the language evolves, and from which usage. There are creative eras in the history of a language, and there are declining eras too. Akseli9 (talk) 13:00, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

"Home is where you hang your hat" is an old expression from a time when people nearly always wore hats in public. At home, you can ease back on that formality. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Non-native speaker here:

• "Home is where you hang your hat" = "Home is wherever you're comfortable enough to take your hat off" = "Home is wherever you feel at home" (possibly several places).
• "Home is where the heart is" = "Home is the place you emotionally identify as 'home'" = A unique place. Somewhere from where you may have been displaced, and are longing for.

Correct? If so, two very different concepts of what constitutes 'home', but not exact opposites. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Sure, and not really even so very different. I'm thinking of a line from a Billy Joel song, "Wherever we're together, that's my home." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:36, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. 'Where I hang my hat' is just wherever you feel comfortable being. It's basically referring to the fact that many people in the old days were travellers, going from place to place to try and eke out a living. It still happens now, and the phrase is still used, but as a term to express one's own lifestyle, and comfortability with that lifestyle. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 00:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

She for ships, he for aircraft?

I have sometimes listened to communication between airplanes and air traffic controllers in English. When referring to a third party (aircraft), they tend to use the pronoun he as in "Stand by Delta 24, American 557 is still on the runway and I don't know what his intentions are." I thought that this is common because the airline pilots are mostly males, but might they be referring to the aircraft with the use of "he". --Pxos (talk) 19:29, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Our gender in English article states that aircraft, along with ships, are sometimes referred to as 'she' - though it doesn't cite a source. That certainly accords with my personal experience. See here [1] for an example of such usage: "Our Mk.V Spitfire is one of the most credited historic aircraft left anywhere in the world with an impressive SEVEN confirmed kills. EP120 was built at the Castle Bromwich factory where she was probably test flown by the legend that was Alex Henshaw..." AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

For a discussion on the cultural aspects of this, see "It's Not an Airlane, It's My Baby" by Kent Wayland, in Vehicles: Cars, Canoes and other Metaphors of Moral Imagination, eds David Lipset & Richard Handler. [2] AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

• His in the OP's question is referring to the pilot, not the airplane, which do not have intentions. See Enola Gay. μηδείς (talk) 20:07, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

"Does not". Nobody expects the Grammar Inquisition. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:47, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. My keyboard needs to be pounded into submission actually to register keystrokes in the qwerty, asd, and bnm areas. When a word is misspelt but still okay by spellcheck I often miss it. μηδείς (talk) 18:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that the answer is so obvious. Listen to this recording on YouTube. If I am not mistaken, the pilots are twice referring to a kite as he/him in addition to using the word "traffic". So it may be a custom to talk about all other aircraft as he/him for the sake of clarity. --Pxos (talk) 02:45, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The first use of "him" in the video is referring to looking for the other nearby aircraft (i.e., pilot) in that video, which he then mention he sees (the aircaft, not the kite) and 2/3 of the way through the pilot of DL94 refers to the kite explicitly as "it". μηδείς (talk) 18:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

who is "we"

why do some people, esp. from the Indian subcontinent, say "we" instead of "I"? I notice that alot on programming and EE forums. Is there no distinction between 1st pers. sing. and 1st pers. plural in some Dravidic languages or is it a Victorian English thing (hardly) or why? Sorry if this is waicisst, if it helps, I'm a Joo. Asmrulz (talk) 23:37, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you have some specific examples? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:48, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22how+do+we%22+site%3Astackoverflow.com

PS I now realize it may also be the indefinite 3rd person pronoun, similar to "one" or the German "man." In this case, I can sort of see how people come up with "we", but it still irritates the f sounds odd Asmrulz (talk) 00:23, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Asmrulz -- In some forms of spoken French, on comes close to replacing nous, apparently... AnonMoos (talk) 04:25, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

"On" actually replaces "nous" most of the time in spoken French, to the extent that it replaces "nous" also in written French. Akseli9 (talk) 06:04, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

(EC)UK speaker here. How do we know that these speakers in the link you gave are all Dravidian language speakers (specifically)? I think they (whoever they are) were using 'we' to include themselves in the set of people they are asking questions to. It's fairly normal, really. Like, you might be trying to operate a coffee machine, for example, and you'll say to your girlfriend "Right, how do we do this?" despite the fact there is only one of you operating it. If it irritates the 'f' out of you, then do something about it. E.g. stop talking to people and get off the internet, become a hermit, and have no contact whatsoever with people who don't talk like you. Or, deal with it. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 03:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• In some cultures (Java and Minang in Indonesia, from my experience), using the first person singular is less polite than "we" (Java) or one's own name (Minang). Something similar may apply to India, but that's not my area of expertise. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

In the examples cited, it may be suggesting that the speaker's problem is not unique. —Tamfang (talk) 07:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, agree with the above. It is a reasonable assumption that one person's experience is similar to another person's experience. One can either include others in one's comments or one can speak for oneself. Bus stop (talk) 08:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

A number of cultural critics have observed that people in Asian cultures are raised with a less individualistic, more collective mindset. With we, a person can imply "I and others like me", whereas Westerners may be more likely just to speak for themselves. This is just a cultural difference; neither orientation is wrong. Marco polo (talk) 15:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• I often use we rather than I or you to avoid sounding abrupt or rude: "We (i.e., I) try to let the OP find the answer in the source himself, rather than giving it to him directly" or "We seem (i.e., you) to be confusing egoism and egotism." μηδείς (talk) 17:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

True, nurses or doctors may ask you "How are we today?", to which I usually answer, "Well, I'm fine (despite being sick, which is why I'm here), but I don't know about you." KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 10:37, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

In many South Asian languages (not just Dravidian, but also Indo-Aryan), the first person plural can be used instead of the first person singular as a polite way of speaking about oneself. The usage of "we" is meant to show humility (one does not set oneself apart from the rest of the group). At least judging from the usage in Hindi and Tamil, this kind of usage of the first person plural might actually be more common in Indo-Aryan / North Indian languages than in Dravidian / South Indian. You can find many examples if you check Category:Hindi-language films for movie titles beginning in "hum" (the non-scientific transcription of Hindi ham "we"). Furthermore, many South Asian languages (most Dravidian languages, but also some Indo-Aryan) distinguish between inclusive and exclusive "we". In these languages the inclusive "we" is considered polite. --93.204.85.129 (talk) 19:23, 31 December 2014 (UTC)