Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 June 22

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June 22

the meaning of "warren"

The following is taken from Martin Amis's latest novel "Lionel Asbo": "So Des lived his life in tunnels. The tunnel from flat to school, the tunnel (not the same tunnel) from school to flat. And all the warrens that took him to Grace, and brought him back again." I am not sure about the meaning of "warren". Could you explain it for me. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 01:51, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

A warren is the underground network of tunnels that rabbits live in in the wild. --Jayron32 02:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Also originally when they were kept in protected areas of land supervised by a warrener Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:57, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

For reference, Wiktionary [1], and warren_(domestic). SemanticMantis (talk) 16:53, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

proud-chested bookcases

I can't find "proud-chested" in any dictionary. I wonder what it means in the following context: "But this: rank upon rank of proud-chested bookcases, like lavishly decorated generals." Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 04:15, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

It appears to be a nonce word and a pun.

—Wavelength (talk) 04:24, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see it as a pun, since a bookcase isn't a type of chest. More like a combination of personification and synecdoche. The bookcases contain books that the owner wants to display in the same way that a general proud of the medals on his chest might want to display them. First we pretend that it's the bookcases themselves that are proud of the books (personification). Now we might say that the general's chest, where he wears his medals, is proud (synecdoche), meaning that the general is. Combining both figures of speech, we are pretending that the bookcase has a chest where it is proudly displaying the books. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 05:26, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Brass knobs on a chest of drawers resemble brass buttons on a double-breasted uniform. (A bookcase might sit atop a chest of drawers.)

—Wavelength (talk) 05:47, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Frying in human fat

What is the proper verb in English that means "to fry [something] in human fat", or do only the languages of cannibal societies have words for such a thing? Enzingiyi (talk) 09:33, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, languages tend to only have words for things that happen in that culture. StuRat (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I have my doubts that that word exists in the English language. Also...do cannibal cultures have cooking techniques such as frying? Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about recipes in these cultures, but do they have things like frying pans that they could use to fry things in human fat? Bali88 (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

On a related note...are there words that mean to fry something in other types of fat? I mean other than just "fry"? Bali88 (talk) 21:33, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, I've been wondering that too. Imagine a language that had a word for "to fry in chicken fat" or "to fry in goat fat". CTTOI, that could probably give someone ideas for a conlang. Enzingiyi (talk) 01:09, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

If any language had that, I'd expect it to be French, as cooking seems so important to them. Of course, some languages, like German, seem happy to string many words together to make long compound words, so some version of "ChickenFatFried" might exist in a language like that. BTW, in English we have the "chicken fried steak", which isn't far off. StuRat (talk) 04:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

However, chicken-fried steak is not steak fried in chicken fat, it's steak fried in the manner of fried chicken. (And if you fry a piece of chicken breast in the same manner as chicken-fried steak, you get chicken-fried chicken, which sounds more redundant than it is.) I'm unaware of any single German word meaning "fried in chicken fat" or even "fried in lard" (which is more likely to happen); you'd just use the phrase "in Schweineschmalz gebraten". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

According to the lede in the article "The dish gets its name from the fact that the steak is cooked in oil that has already been used to fry chicken". Thus it would also contain chicken fat. Of course, it's possible it's prepared as you said in other places. StuRat (talk) 20:44, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I sometimes enjoy chocolate covered marshmallows for dessert after a main dish of chicken fried steak. Bus stop (talk) 23:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

South by Southwest

I was reading this thread and people talked about the name of the music festival South by Southwest. That brings me my long confusion about its abbreviation SxSW, which the word "by" seems to be abbreviated by the letter "x". As a non native English speaker I don't find it intuitive — is it a convention of using "x" to represent "by" when talking about directions? Fdsze (talk) 20:09, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

The word "by" is used in multiplication, especially when applied to calculating area; for example a room which measures three meters by four meters is often described as 3m x 4m, which would be 12m². In the U.S., standard-sized boards of lumber are described by their cross sectional dimensions, such as the ubiquitous two by four (that's a disambiguation page leading to other uses of "two by four", and in many the "by" is represented by "x"). The use of "x" as "by" is familiar in that context to native American English speakers. --Jayron32 20:27, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

NB, this use of "by" meaning "multiply" is not standard in other parts of the world. (Some) educated Indians speaking English will say "one by three" to mean 1/3! SemanticMantis (talk) 16:38, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't know about directions, but I'd take it as an extension of the use of the multiplication sign to mean "by" (see Multiplication sign#Uses, fourth bullet point). One often sees the letter x casually used to represent a multiplication sign. Deor (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Note also that "south by southwest" is not a real direction. Curiously, this came up a few days ago in another thread here, which will soon be moved to the archive here. The named directions in order from south to west are: south, south by west, south-southwest, southwest by south, southwest, southwest by west, west-southwest, west by south, west. (Different people disagree as to how to hyphenate or capitalize them.) Similarly the Canadian music festival North by Northeast, and the famous 1959 movie North by Northwest, are not named after real directions either. (And no, nobody in the movie flies north on Northwest Airlines either.) They're all just nonsense phrases combining different directions.

When the real directions involving the word "by" are used (which is pretty rare nowadays) and abbreviated, "by" becomes "b", not "x", e.g. "SWbS". --70.49.171.225 (talk) 03:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually I think this is a real system -it is certainly one I was taught and is used for instance, "to face south by southeast" [2] in an article by a northwestern professor in the Journal of Geography. I expect this is another American English thing. Rmhermen (talk) 11:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, if such a "system" is used anywhere, it is not a "standard" used by some of the worlds largest/most historically prominent navies (USA and Royal/UK). Points of the compass has a complete sourced explanation. So I don't see how it can be a US/UK thing, unless our otherwise well-sourced and well-written article is in serious error. I myself am not convinced that a professor of geology cannot get it wrong! Seriously, though, "south by southeast" can be found in many places, but I am not convinced this makes it correct usage. If anyone can find an WP:RS for the standardized usage of phrases like SbSE, the should be added to our article. (Also, if SbSE is meaningful to you, what does it map to in our our article? SbE?) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:49, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I gave an explanation, in the thread you 70.49.171.225 pointed to, as to how someone could come to the conclusion that SbSE is a more "logical" name than SbE, and that indeed it would map to SbE. --Trovatore (talk) 22:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Excessive pride in one's culture

Is there a word for the way that humans seem to form excessive pride for custom's of one's own nation and/or culture, often when said customs are objectively trivial?

This might include taking pride in:

• Entertainment systems (PC vs. XBox, Mac vs. PC)
• Driving on a certain side of the road.
• Use of a certain measurement system ("we still use English standard units and we're proud of that")
• Sports culture ("I'm a Yankees fan", "my football is better than your football").
• Language (Linguistic discrimination, Linguistic purism)
• One's own nation (in certain circumstances).
• Race (black pride, La Raza, Irish pride)

It seems that this us vs. them thinking is everywhere I look, and yet I cannot find a word for it. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 20:48, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

First, I question your premise that pride in one's group is automatically "excessive". As regards your checklist, I wonder how things would work out if the rule was, "Drive on whichever side of the road you like." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:17, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I question your premise that the OP asserted that such pride never exists moderately. —Tamfang (talk) 22:49, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

"everywhere I look" does not indicate moderation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:58, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

The existence of something "everywhere I look" does not exclude the presence of anything else. I have the good fortune to live in a place that has trees everywhere I look, but that doesn't mean there are no bushes or squirrels. —Tamfang (talk) 04:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Nationalism--86.180.143.223 (talk) 21:19, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Chauvinism, jingoism, ethnocentrism, little-end vs. big-end (with reference to Gulliver). See also Editor war... AnonMoos (talk) 21:25, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, this much I can tell you: My dog's better than your dog. My dog's better than yours. My dog's better, 'cause he eats Ken-L Ration. My dog's better than yours. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:19, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you remember a line from "Satisfaction", in which Jagger says something about a guy "Who can't be a man, because he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:21, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it's more than just nationalism or chauvinism or whatever. It's "bias toward the familiar". Whatever the term might be for that. I could just as easily ridicule a statement like "we still use the Metric system and we're proud of that." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Blah, blah, troll, repetition, troll blah? μηδείς (talk) 02:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

BB, I'm quite familiar with the causes of it; I am not asking about those. I am asking if there is a word for it. The closest I can get at this point is "tribal mentality", "Lord of the Flies mentality," or something similar. I am betting that if English doesn't have a word, somewhere, that some language probably does. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 02:45, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Mere-exposure effect, for one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Meanwhile, define "excessive". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

"Myopic" comes to mind. Also "parochialism". Bus stop (talk) 11:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Parochialism does seem to fit. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:45, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

And presumably the polar opposite of "The idiot who praises / With enthusiastic tone / All centuries but this / And every country but his own." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:47, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

"Tribal mentality" as one word is tribalism. Is that what you're looking for? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:26, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Not quite it, but outgroup homogeneity is lurking behind many of your examples. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:35, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Granfalloon comes pretty close.--Shirt58 (talk) 06:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia itself would qualify. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:16, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

how about parochial pride? (sorry, Baseball Bugs, I thought I was helping, and didn't see your answer) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:59, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

It still works. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:21, 29 June 2014 (UTC)