Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 November 25

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November 25

What does "button job" mean?

Form Absolution Gap,by Alastair Reynolds:

"He thought of all the he swift ways he knew to end the life of a sentient being. Those methods had their uses, too: mercy executions, button jobs."

I guess this is some slang term I'm unaware of. What does it mean? -- Q Chris (talk) 10:44, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm quite sure it means a hit job, but so far I've failed to find a source. Maybe others have better search-fu. 197.201.4.179 (talk) 12:57, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

The Urban Dictionary gives one definition of a "button man" as a hit man, so presumably a button job is one performed by a button man. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:58, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, the "button man" link is interesting, I'm sure it is that. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:55, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Alternatively (but maybe less likely), the phrase appears in the transcript of the inquest into Operation Flavius, the controversial military operation in which three members of the Provisional IRA were shot dead by the British Special Air Service in Gibraltar in 1988,

'24. Soldier F made no mention of a timer but stated that they were briefed that it was to be a "button job", that is, radio-controlled so that the bomb could be detonated at the press of a button'. [1]

Alansplodge (talk) 15:15, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

How similar is Russian and greek

How similar are the two languages? I know the russianalphabet is a heavily modified form of the greek alphabet so thats why I was wondering.YuriGagrin12 (talk) 18:32, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Russian is a Slavic language. Greek is Greek. Georgia guy (talk) 18:52, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Reading Indo-European languages will give you some idea about the relationship between the two languages. Remember however that alphabets (or other types of script) and languages are not wedded: any given language could be rendered in various scripts, the English language, for example, is usually written using the Latin or Roman alphabet with minor modifications, but one could if one chose write it in the Greek alphabet or for that matter in an artificial script such as Tengwar. (As a schoolboy, I used to do both, for amusement).

The Russian alphabet, aka Cyrillic, somewhat resembles the Greek because it was invented by Byzantine Greek missionaries in the 9th century for writing a Slavic language, subsequently called (Old Church Slavonic) which up until then had had no generally accepted written form. They (Saints Cyril and Methodius) had previously invented another script called Glagolitic for a similar purpose, and Cyrillic contains some elements from that along with the Greek ones. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.173.186 (talk) 21:15, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

You need to log in so it can be clear what edits are yours. Now, does Wikipedia have an article talking about using the Greek alphabet for English?? Georgia guy (talk) 22:05, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Georgia guy, I cannot 'log in' because I do not have a Wikipedia account (and do not want to get one for reasons I have explained several times over the past ten or so years I've been a regular here). FWIW, I have been "pseudo-signing" all my RefDesk and Talk page posts with my old fixed IP "{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195}" ever since Sky.com – who only provide dynamic IPs – took over my previous ISP. That, however should not matter to anyone: any post I make should stand or fall on purely its own merits, and I know how to indent appropriately. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.173.186 (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

90.208.173.186 -- Cyril and Methodius likely only invented Glagolitic. Cyrillic almost certainly dates to a little after their time. AnonMoos (talk) 05:40, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

If so (and I bow to your expertise), our articles on both scripts need correcting. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.173.186 (talk) 17:17, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't think so; Glagolitic script#Spread: "At the end of the 9th century, one of these students of Methodius…created the Cyrillic script"; Cyrillic script: "The script is named in honor of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Glagolitic alphabet earlier on. Modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by early disciples of Cyril and Methodius"... AnonMoos (talk) 20:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

For another example of similar alphabets not implying similar languages, consider that Basque, English, and Finnish are all written using Latin-derived alphabets, but all three are completely unrelated languages. --69.159.60.147 (talk) 07:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Here's a less cluttered family tree. Russian and Greek, while ultimately descended from PIE, are very distant. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:18, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

@JackofOz: Thank you! This is very helpful! YuriGagrin12 (talk) 21:23, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

• I can't speak to modern Greek, but the only real advantage of knowing one and learning the other, for a native English or Romance speaker, is that like Standard German, Ancient Greek (with four) and Russian (with six) cases in common use reflect an earlier common PIE state when bare nouns stood for what are often prepositional phrases in English.

The verbal systems are entirely different. Greek doesn't have a periphrastic perfect tense and Russian has basically only the present and perfect, ignoring aspect, which is a matter of prefixation (and some root suppletion) for the most part, while it is a matter of the augment, ablaut, reduplication, suppletion and desinence in Greek. Same with mood, it's periphrastic in Russian, synthetic in Greek. The single verb λύω (lúō) "I loose" (considered the most (some might say only) regular verb in Greek pedagogy) has well over 270 forms. But single Russian verbs have only six present finite forms in one of two conjugations; four perfect forms made from past participles exhibiting agreement for gender and number, not person; the infinitive, and four participles. μηδείς (talk) 02:38, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

The alphabetic similarity is way overplayed. Б Д Ж З И Н С Ц Ч Џ Ш Щ Ъ Ы Э Ю Я have (avoiding commentary on archaic/dialectal forms) no direct connection with Greek counterparts, and А Г Ε Κ Λ Μ Ο Π Ρ Τ Υ Φ only have five symbols confusing to those who know Latin but not Greek. μηδείς (talk) 02:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Please identify yourself. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:28, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

If you knew any Greek, you would know that no one wrote that post, Jack. μηδείς (talk) 02:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Like the Bard (whoever he was or they were), I have little Latin and less Greek. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:32, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Medeis -- you've kind of swept under the rug the lunate sigma, which for centuries was actually more common than the zig-zag sigma in writing the Greek language, and which is still used in religious abbreviations today (IC XC and so on)... AnonMoos (talk) 05:46, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I guess you missed the part where I said "avoiding commentary on archaic/dialectal forms"? Announcing you won't address esoteric matters not relevant to the specific question is not denying their existence. All communication requires economy, the downside of which is nitpickery. I am also quite aware that Cyrillic Ш likely originates in the Hebrew ש. Why not rap my knuckles for that omission? μηδείς (talk) 17:53, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

From some points of view, zig-zag sigma could be considered the "archaic" revival, while lunate sigma is the real result of the natural evolution of the writing system. Lunate sigma is not in fact "esoteric" when considered over the whole history of the Greek alphabet. AnonMoos (talk) 20:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

You know that and I know that, but in regards to the sophistication of the user's question, the misspelling of his username, the fact that his account is less than a week old, the availability of the articles, and the very high probability he was either referring to Attic or Modern Greek as taught to new learners, the point is esoteric in the literal sense "of interest to the initiated, as opposed to the layman".

I might have pointed out that Armenian is Greek's closest relative, and that Standard German is probably the closest to Russian outside the existing Balto-Slavic languages. I might even have thrown The Lord's Prayer in Old Prussian at him.

Again, when writing, one has to consider one's audience, its needs, and economy. One can't cover every base, or we'd greet each other in monographs and hold discussions by throwing stacks of library books at each other.

Tawe Nuson, kas tu asai an dangun.
Swintints wirst wajs emens.
Pereis twaja riki. twais kwaits andaseisin
Na zemei kai an dangun.
Nusun deininan geitin dais numans shandeinnan.
Ba antwerpeis numans nusun aushauints
Kai mes antwerpimai nusun aushautenikamans.
Ba ni wedais mans en perpandan.
Sklait izrankismans aza wargan.
Amen

Duck! μηδείς (talk) 23:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Lunate sigma had a very direct and immediate impact on the Cyrillic alphabet; none of that other stuff did. AnonMoos (talk) 00:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

None of which is bad to know, but it's still an archaic form that someone taking either modern or ancient Greek 101 would not come acrost until they had already learned first hand Greek and Russian actually aren't very similar. Why not complain, for example that Ц comes from the Hebraic tsade? You could simply have couched your comment as a helpful aside, rather than suggesting something was being hidden from the OP. In any case, these esoteric matters of orthography don't answer the OP's original question. -- 00:46, 27 November 2017 Medeis

It's not something which would usually come up in the first year of learning modern Greek or the first year of classical Attic Greek (though the first year of learning New Testament / Patristic Greek might be quite a different matter!), but it's something that a modern Greek-speaker who has even a little bit of interest in the history of his language (or just wants to be able to read the inscriptions in many churches/monasteries in Greece) would be likely to know, and it has quite a bit of relevance to the relationship between the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets (unlike all the other stuff you keep dragging in). The word "archaic" is a double-edged sword, since it wasn't all that long ago (in historic terms) that the zigzag sigma would have been considered more archaic than the lunate sigma... AnonMoos (talk) 01:47, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Your non-apologies (admitting most first year students unless they start in special contexts won't be familiar with the Lunate Sigma, then accusing me of "dragging" stuff in) are tiresome to no end, but par for the course. Are you capable of appearing brilliant without having to denigrate others, or did you skip that and go straight into Superiority Through Contempt 301? I really doubt the OP cares, and I don't, but have fun picking your nits. μηδείς (talk) 04:07, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all who responded! YuriGagrin12 (talk) 04:46, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

The Greek majuscules A B H I K M N O T Y X don't confuse those who use the Roman alphabet. P does: a Briton in Moscow seeing the word PECTOPAH above the door of a restaurant asked how to pronounce it. He was relieved to be told that it was pronounced "restaurant". 92.27.49.50 (talk) 15:47, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Given that modern Greek B, H, Y, and X are pronounced as "v", "ee", "ee", and "loch", (lots of ancient Greek vowels have fallen together as the "eeh" sound) there is room for some confusion in an untutored tourist. μηδείς (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I enjoy eating at pectopahs. μηδείς (talk) 23:08, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Don't you mean pectopahbi?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:16, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I'd expect Russian (and other languages of Orthodox Christianity) to have more borrowings from Greek than from Latin, for whatever that's worth. —Tamfang (talk) 07:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

@Medeis: My username is misspelled for security reasons, I was referring to modern greek and why wouldn’t I? Its like saying saying “ How do you say ... in English?” with the person responding old english or regular english? Also I am completly aware of all the articles about the two languages, I couldnt compare them myself and reasoned that since they are orthodox christian countries and the monks who invented cryllic were greek I wondered that. I wanted a speaker of the 2 languages to say how similar they are. Please do not refer to me as a layman. YuriGagrin12 (talk) 22:27, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

No problem with the user name, Yuri; after all, mine was chosen for anonymity. And a "layman" simply means a non-expert in the field, and I assumed you are not a comparative linguist. Hence the term is not insulting or inappropriate, unless you are a linguist?

As for the religious aspect, yes, you will find many technical church terms in Russian that come from Greek, but in a wider aspect Greek has not had the influence on Russian that Latin has had on English. Latin had the special place of being the lingua franca of the Celtic, Romance, Germanic and other western Christian groups even outside of religion, while Greek did not serve this purpose in the east.

Russian is much more purely Slavic in vocabulary than English is Germanic. So the relevant dimensions are: phonology; no more than most SAE languages; vocabulary, mostly religious; nominal; similar in that they have cases, but not very close in form as of today; verbal, quite different. Again, the consensus seems to be in favor of German, but even then, it's like saying Spanish is the closest non-Germanic language to English--not very much. μηδείς (talk) 21:22, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Modern Greek verbs are much closer toay to Russian ones typologically, in that there are now only the non-past and the imperfect tenses and their perfect counterparts made with the verb have plus a non-declining participle. Not quite the exact Russian counterpart, but much closer. See Modern Greek grammar. μηδείς (talk) 22:32, 1 December 2017 (UTC)