Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 August 19

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August 19

Cathy Jordan’s pronunciation

In the song Red Haired Mary, Cathy Jordan (of the band Dervish) sometimes pronounces the s sound in a peculiar way which – at least to my ears – sounds like sh [ʃ] (talesht, priesht, shleep vs. this). Is that a dialectal thing? It definitely seems deliberate (from other songs, it seems clear to me that she has no problem with a sort of pronunciation I’m more familiar with). Cheers ⌘ 03:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

I think you meant to link to Dervish (band) rather than to the religious mendicant! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.63.186 (talk) 12:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Hiberno-English mentions it as a characteristic of the dialects of West Ireland and South-West Ireland. Cathy Jordan is from County Roscommon, so in that dialect area. --Jayron32 14:42, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Translation of German "versetzt"

How would you translate "versetzt" in a phrase like "Die Stäbe werden versetzt angeordnet und im Boden verankert." (context made up for reasons of illustration …)? Thanks in advance for any assistance.--Hildeoc (talk) 21:06, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps, "arranged in a staggered way". Since the verb to stagger in the applicable sense (nr. 3 at Wiktionary) already means "to arrange" (in a particular way), versetzt anordnen together can be translated in one word as stagger.  --Lambiam 06:55, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Thanks a lot. Best wishes--Hildeoc (talk) 11:27, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

In an airplane the seats always are arranged in a one-behind-the-other scheme. In movie theatres however, often the seats are shifted (here german = versetzt) to allow a look between the heads of those persons sitting in front. --87.147.180.246 (talk) 21:54, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

If the offsets are by half the distance between adjacent seats, this may be covered by sense 3.1 of the Wiktionary entry stagger: "To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately".