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June 23

Shake versus nod

I've come to a conclusion about the words "shake" and "nod" in relation to one's head when reading those verb phrases in books. The conclusion is that if a character shakes their head, they're saying no and if they nod their head, it's a yes. Is this just my confirmation bias or is this pretty much standard? Looking at shake at dictionary.com seems to muddle the issue since it says that shake can be used for either:

a. to indicate disapproval, disagreement, negation, or uncertainty by turning one's head from one side to the other and back: I asked him if he knew the answer, but he just shook his head.

b. to indicate approval, agreement, affirmation or acceptance by nodding one's head up and down.

The part that seems confusing is that it uses the word "nod" in the definition for the approval portion. I'm not sure what references would be out there but I just wanted to maybe sort this out. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 00:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

In the circles where I have moved for the 60+ years of my life I have never heard the word shake used in the way described in Part b: of that definition. HiLo48 (talk) 00:15, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

See Nod (gesture), Head shake and Head bobble. I think dictionary.com is just plain confused. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:18, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I suppose any movement of the head could be considered a "shake", but we usually reserve it for the No gesture. People from South Asia certainly reverse the meanings - they do what we call "shake" when they mean Yes, and do what we call "nod" when they mean No. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:49, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Um, no (shakes his head). The South Asian 'yes' gesture is the 'head bobble' linked above. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:54, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Check. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:15, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I've often heard that Hungarians do it backward. Or am I thinking of some other Balkan nation? —Tamfang (talk) 19:34, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

In Hungarian, the order of surname and given names is reversed. Maybe you're thinking of that. I've never heard of any Europeans reversing the head shaking paradigm. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Head bobble says, "In Bulgaria, this is the equivalent of a nod meaning yes, whereas a quick nod up means no." Thinking of that, maybe? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, "shaking your head yes" is something I don't find out of place. The movement would still be an up-and-down nod, but the saying works fine. Without "yes" tagged to the end, though, it would assumed to be a left-and-right "no." Lsfreak (talk) 03:36, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"Londonese"

Finns use "the Londonese language" as a fancy way of referring to the English language. But is there really any distinction between the variety of English used in London versus the English language used in the United Kingdom in general? JIP | Talk 17:32, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of varieties of English used within the UK, some of them almost mutually unintelligible at the extreme - here's some links to the ones Wikipedia has articles on. The varieties spoken in London include Received Pronunciation, which is considered "standard" English, as well as lower-prestige varieties like Cockney and Estuary English, which use glottal stops for medial and final t's, drop initial h's, and pronounce final l's like w's, among other distinctive features. --Nicknack009 (talk) 17:54, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

You forgot about Rhyming slang. That having been said, it is unlikely that any of these differences will be noticed or considered significant to many Finnish speakers of English. "Londonese" sounds like a humourous term for English in general, for RP, or for British English in general versus American English, rather than like a term referring to London accents and varieties specifically. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The traditional London accent and dialect are sadly disappearing under the tide of Multicultural London English which is spoken by younger Londoners of all and any ethnicities, including those whose parents speak the finest Cockney. Alansplodge (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, MLE is certainly what I would think of on hearing the term "Londonese". In spite of the fact that I don't believe I've ever personally heard it in London (my last visit was in 1987). But, you know, there's Law & Order: UK, and sometimes it's the best thing showing in the gym. --Trovatore (talk) 21:26, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Some dictionaries define it as "cockney speech".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

JIP is perhaps over-generalising here about the Finnish usage. It's a humorous expression and perhaps somewhat old-fashioned (from the 70's?). "He is speaking London, I didn't understand a word." or as a compliment to a mate who knows a little bit of English: "So you can speak London, then". In this sense, the phrase refers to any variety of English, or any other language other than Finnish. --Pxos (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Quantitied

So I used this word on the Computing desk only to discover (via MSW Word Processor) that it isn't a word at all! I used it in the sentence "large-quantitied [ USB ] hubs..."; I changed it to "large-quantity" - so is that correct? Thanks! --Yellow1996 (talk) 18:10, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, "quantitied" appears in the OED, with a citation from 1606; but it is labelled Obs[elete] rare. So I would say it is a word, but you might choose to regard the 'obselete' bit as significant and avoid it. In any case ignore MSW's strictures, which are sometimes contentious. As to whether "large-quantity hubs" is meaningful - well, for me I don't know what you mean by the quantity of a USB hub, though it might be clear in context (my immediate thought was storage size, but what have USB hubs to do with storage?) So I would advise paraphrasing to make it clearer. But if the meaning is clear, I wouldn't object to "large-quantitied" or to "large-quantity". Others may disagree. --ColinFine (talk) 19:21, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

It's very common in English to add -ed to a noun when that noun is modified by an adjective. An example is large-footed, which gets over 8000 hits on Google Books, but my MS Word spellchecker doesn't like footed, either, because all the spellchecker knows is "foot is a noun and nouns don't get the past participle ending -ed". That said, the phrase large-quantitied only gets 10 results on Google Books—and most of those are typos or scannoes of large quantities—so it is at best very rare. I agree with ColinFine that it isn't clear what you mean by "large-quantitied/large-quantity USB hubs" in the first place. USB hubs having large quantities? Large quantities of what? If you mean USB hubs housing lots of ports, I'd probably go for "multiple-port USB hubs". Angr (talk) 20:44, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Here's the context. Luckily, I like to use archaic language from time to time; I'll just add "quantitied" to my list. Thanks, guys! :) --Yellow1996 (talk) 00:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"large-quantitied" → "numerous", if you want your readers to like you. Looie496 (talk) 15:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Not in that context. He wrote, "The large-quantitied hubs are generally geared towards companies, making the prices quite high", referring to hubs with a large number of ports. "The numerous hubs..." would mean something totally different. Angr (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"USB hubs with many ports are generally geared towards companies, making the prices quite high" is unambiguous as well as grammatically and idiomatically correct. You still need to provide a numerical definition of "many ports" such as "more than four" somewhere in the text. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

"Many-ported"? --ColinFine (talk) 13:33, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd expect to see "multiport" as the adj. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

June 24

Tidyman's carpet

What is a "tidyman's carpet"? I heard it used in an episode of A Bit of Fry and Laurie but haven't been able to find a meaning for it. All references on the web seem to direct back to the episode without explaining what a tidyman is. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 01:14, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

There's the International Tidy Man populating "Keep Britain Tidy" campaigns since the 70s, see for example this one from 1975. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so why does the litter figure need a carpet? Dismas|^(talk) 03:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

If you mean this, Tidyman's is being used as a brand. It's a carpet made by the Tidymans company. Rojomoke (talk) 04:10, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

…a fictional company, in case anyone needs that spelt out. —Tamfang (talk) 19:30, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Prinsengracht

The page Canals of Amsterdam presently glosses this place name as meaning "the prince's canal" and specifically named for the Prince of Orange - as a piped link to William the Silent. A Dutch colleague tells me that "Prinsen..." is plural. I don't know enough Dutch to recognize the possessive form for either a singular or plural noun. The Prinsengracht page in the Dutch Wikipedia seems to state that the name is for the Prince(s) of Orange as a dynastic title. Possibly there's a workaround here, that it's for any (or the current) Prince of Orange. However, I need to know: is "Prinsen" in the canal name singular or plural? -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I suspect Dutch is like German in that noun + noun compounds often take a "joint" which may look like a plural ending but doesn't have a plural meaning. In Berlin we have a Prinzenstraße and Prinzessenstraße, each named after an individual person, even though Prinzen and Prinzessen by themselves are plural. The German Wikipedia article is at de:Fugenlaut; another example there is Gänsebraten ("roast goose"), where Gänse is the plural "geese" even though an individual roast goose is just one goose. Angr (talk) 13:05, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Prinzessenstraße is an interesting case. There is indeed one in Karlsruhe-Durlach. It contains the genitive of Prinzess, an obsolete form of Prinzessin. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 18:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

In fact, I was mistaken above: the street in Berlin is Prinzessinnenstraße. Angr (talk) 19:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Angr is basically right. Technically, 'Prinsengracht' could be understood as referring to multiple princes, while 'Prinsegracht' is definitely about a single prince. However, the 'n' that distinguishes the two is not pronounced, and in older Dutch it could also indicate a genitive instead of a plural. Many similar words exists in Dutch, and native speakers themselves are frequently confused about when to write an 'n' between two words. The rules are very complicated and do not just depend on singulars and plurals. Also, there have been several official spelling reforms in the last few decades that changed the rules. Without going into much detail: 'prinsen' is indeed the plural of 'prins', but the word 'Prinsengracht' is ambiguous as to whether it refers to several princes or just one. Historically, as you noted, it was named for the Prince of Orange. - Lindert (talk) 14:32, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

In English too (fairly closely related to Dutch) the only difference between the nominative plural and the singular posessive is an apostrophe; princes versus prince's, and to make a plural posessive just shift the apostrophe; princes'. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:44, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

(OP): Aha, but each of these is distinctive, having a unique significance. It's the ambiguity of a shared form that I (the hapless though not feckless, EN>HE translator) need to puzzle out. Still thinking this over. Thanks, all, for your input! -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:00, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The forms Prince(n)-, Keysers- and Heere(n)- are ambiguous, but the element Conincks- in Conincksgracht,[1] an alternative name for the Singel which dates from approximately the same time as the other three, is clearly not a plural. Iblardi (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I am dutch. The word "prinsen" is the plural of the word "prins". Also the other canal names are in plural (keizersgracht and herengracht). It is a general name and not named after someone in particular, it is mostly named after a certain status (prince, emporer or gentleman). I can only guess that it was named in plural in able to pronounce it easier, because the singular would be prinsgracht, keizergracht or heergracht, which really does not pronounce easy or makes sense. I hope this helps you. Take care, Jacqueline — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikijev (talk • contribs) 16:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, in modern Dutch. But (des) princen, (des) heeren and (des) keysers are perfectly normal genitive forms in 17th-century Dutch. Iblardi (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes and no. In modern Dutch (wikt:nl:prins), you distinguish only prins (singular) and prinsen (plural). Compare this, however, to New High German (wikt:de:Prinz), where the full case system is preserved and Prinz holds for the nominative singular, whereas Prinzen holds (for Prinz is a weak noun) for all other cases, singular and plural. This also was the case in Middle High German and there is little doubt it was the same in elder stages of Dutch. Philipp von Zesen in his Description of Amsterdam (printed 1664) mentions that the city was extended in 1612 and in between 1614 and 1618 houses were built along the Herren-Graft, wie auch die Keisers- und Printzen-Graften [2]. It is not clear from his description of the city whether the three ditches were built after 1612 or existed already before that time. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 18:18, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

The three canals received their names in 1614/1615.(See here, p. 67.) Sources from the first half of the 17th century spell these names both with and without the -n (Princengraft[3], Prince Gracht[4] etc.). Please note again, however, that in addition to the Heerengracht, Keysersgracht and Princengracht, there was also an adjacent Conincksgracht for some time during the 17th century (now the Singel), and that, unlike heeren, keysers and princen, which could be both singular and plural forms, conincks is unambiguously singular. Iblardi (talk) 19:20, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

English

Are there many people who understand English in non-English-speaking country ? 雞雞 (talk) 18:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It depends which country. But often, yes. Horatio Snickers (talk) 18:35, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is a map which might prove helpful. Matt Deres (talk) 18:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It also depends on what you mean by "many" and what you mean by "understand". Lots of people in most countries around the world understand the word "hello" and can say "My name is X." Fewer people can carry on a conversation in English. According to Matt Deres's map, every child in China is taught English. However, when I traveled to China last year, very few people there could speak or understand English. I think that the quality of English teaching there is generally not very good. That said, because there are 1.3 billion people in China, even if only 1% of the Chinese population can speak and understand English well enough to communicate easily with a native speaker, then 13 million Chinese people can understand English without qualification. You could say that there are many Chinese who understand English (even if 99% do not). Marco polo (talk) 19:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

School English in China, like pretty much every other school subject in China, is a rote learning exercise. You memorise long lists of words and conjugation tables and standard conversations, which you then regurgitate wholesale in an exam. The standard of instruction is also not high - decades of isolationist policies brought up a whole generation of teachers whose English were learnt second or third hand from an English speaker in the 1940s. Even national level exam questions contain grammatical errors or non-idiomatic usage. That said, people who have finished high school / gone to university would be able to understand your basic questions in English if both of you have the patience, and you speak formally and carefully, or perhaps write it down. And the quality of instruction is improving. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:16, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

• Isn't the answer that English is the most widely-spoken second language in the world? Although I wasn't able to find this, our English as a Second Language article being about language teaching. μηδείς (talk) 18:35, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I would say the most widely spoken second language is Mandarin, considering the fact that most people in China either speak different dialects of Chinese, or have their own languages (there are 54 of them, out of the official 56 ethnic groups in China). Plus, mandarin is not only spoken in China, it is spoken in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and in some other countries. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Those are usually counted as Chinese native areas, though--and even not discounting them I would not be surprised if English still has by far the most second language speakers. I just find it hard to believe its hard to find a statistic here. Maybe just English language? μηδείς (talk)

Yes, English language says 360 million native English (2010), 375 million 2nd language and 750 million as a foreign language. μηδείς (talk) 23:23, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

... whereas (if anyone is interested in the comparison) the Mandarin language has 955 million native speakers across northern and western China (this is taking Mandarin Chinese as a "language" by the Western definition - according to the definition used in Chinese linguistic circles, "Chinese" is a single language, so the distinction does not even arise). Our Mandarin Chinese article has no statistic on non-native speakers, so to cobble together an estimate, the population of China is about 1,344 million, which leaves about 389 million Chinese people who do not speak it natively. Adding on Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan and overseas Chinese people, you get to abut 460 million. The number is fuzzy and probably inflated: while there are many native Mandarin speakers in Taiwan and elsewhere, there are also large numbers who do not speak Mandarin at all. Even in mainland China, many people do not speak Mandarin at all. I am going to put a finger in the air and assume that the number of ethnically Chinese people within that number who either speak Mandarin natively or not at all is offset by the number of non-ethnically Chinese people outside China who learn Mandarin Chinese. On this basis, there are (i) probably slightly more non-native speakers of Mandarin than speakers of English as a second language, but (ii) speakers of English as a foreign language. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:52, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

June 25

Latin vs. Japanese

This enquiry might be too subjective to warrant a space here, but being optimistic, are Latin and Japanese similar? Do they share a lot of grammatic features (that English doesn't possess)? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 01:46, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

They certainly don't share any Genetic relationship. Latin and Japanese are likely about as distinct as languages can get from a linguistic genetic relationship. --Jayron32 04:38, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That's misleading, Jayron. A majority of English speaking linguists advise you can't track linguistic relations back that early, (No more than about 6,000 y.b.p.) in which case there are no grounds for saying how close or far the languages might be related over that horizon which we can't breach. They don't claim there is no genetic relationship, just that it is not provable, and the distance unquantifiable

But of those who do think deeper relationships can be found, there is a good consensus supporting a connection between the Eurasiatic languages, with Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Altaic, (with their m-/t- "me thee" pronouns and so forth) as some of its branches. It is controversial many levels, but most of those people accept that Japanese is a member of Altaic. That would mean that Latin and the other PIE languages (like ours) are about equidistant to Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Mongol, Japanese and others.

Better examples of more distant relations would be Basque and Chinese (which some hold are related to the recently proven Dene-Yeniseian family), or the languages of Africa, SE Asia, Oceania, and the Americas which are all excluded from Eurasiatic. So, among the skeptics we have the belief that no measurement can be made, but among those who do believe a measurement can be made, most believe the Latin and Japanese are much closer to each other than either is to Basque, Georgian, Arabic, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Navajo, Quechua, etc. (To forestall nitpiciking, the Eurasiatic family view is criticized vehemently (as is the venerable Altaic) by the majority skeptic view in the US. But only on the basis of skepticism, not in favor of an alternate theory of relationships. There are also those who link Japanese to the Austronesian languages, rather than the Altaic.) μηδείς (talk) 18:37, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's only misleading in the sense that I can say that "I'm pretty sure that you and I aren't cousins" is misleading. Every human is the Xth cousin Y times removed to every other human on the planet, for sufficiently large values of X and Y, and that is unequivocally true. Likewise, it is beyond likely that every single language can be reduced to a language spoken before modern Homo Sapiens left Africa. The more interesting question is whether linguists can make a documented connection between Japanese and Latin, just as the more interesting question is to whether one can make documented family tree that reliably links the familial relationship between two people, not just speak in vague platitudes which, while unequivocally true, don't add anything to the discussion at hand. --Jayron32 20:34, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I think Medeis was just saying that there are other language pairs that are uncontroversially more distant than Japanese and Latin. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:06, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The short answer is yes, one can find more distant pairs. I have answered at length below. μηδείς (talk) 00:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The most blatant difference between Latin and English, from a grammatical standpoint, is that Latin is a highly inflected language, whereas English is whatever the opposite of that is, meaning that grammar is indicated more by word order and by grammatical particles than by inflection. Where you would put Japanese on that scale I'm not quite sure -- for example, one of the few Japanese words I know is watakshi, the first-person singular pronoun, and if you want to use it as the subject of a sentence you say watakshi-wa. But is wa a particle, or an inflection? --Trovatore (talk) 04:48, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I have never heard wa called an inflection, and I can't think of any reason why it would be useful to think of it that way. Also, strictly speaking wa marks the sentence topic, not grammatical subject. 86.176.209.18 (talk) 02:17, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

They share case marking and somewhat flexible word order (Japanese tends to be subject-object-verb, but in some grammatical contexts and some pragmatic contexts that order can be changed--it's called scrambling--; I believe Latin is also pretty flexible). Of course, countless other languages also have these same features. (For what is worth, this should probably be considered one similarity rather than two--case marking and free word order tend to covary, such that languages with case marking are more likely to have freer word order, whereas languages like English with little case marking are likely to have fairly fixed word order.) Some of the cases that are marked in these languages are similar (e.g., both languages mark accusative case and genitive case), whereas some are different (Japanese distinguishes between a nominative marker and a topic marker, which I think Latin does not do grammatically; Latin has a vocative case and I am not sure if Japanese does).

And of course they differ in many other respects. Latin verbs agree with their subjects (are conjugated for) in person and number, and Japanese verbs don't (I think?). Latin adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number, and case, whereas I think Japanese only agree in case. Japanese has a more complicated system of honorifics. If you look deeper (at particular structures, particular tenses or aspects, etc.), I am sure you will find very many more differences. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:05, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

In fact, from what little I know of both, you've basically hit the two major similarities. They both case-mark their nouns and they both have SOV as their basic word order. Even those are extremely superficial similarities; SOV is the most common word order, and case-marking is common over the entire Eurasian continent (and even then, their case marking has some noticeable differences, and Latin's word order is often more similar to English, for example preposition-noun, noun-relative clause). They also both have more complicated tense-aspect marking on the verb, but once again this is similar in a very superficial way. Basically what I'm saying is that you could say that, very broadly speaking, they share grammatical features... but at that level of "broadly speaking" you could say the same about nearly every pair of languages you picked, so you haven't said much of anything useful. Lsfreak (talk) 06:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Thesre's really not much in common between the Japanese particles (or postpositions) and Latin case endings. The Japanese particles are invariable, while the Laten endings depend on the morphological class of the noun. And while '(w)o' pretty much corresponds to an accusative particle, and 'no' a genitive, the others all have meanings which don't map to anything in Latin (or other IE languages). 'ni' is a sort of locative, but is not for the place where some activity takes place, which is 'de'. And 'wa' is a topic marker, not a subject marker. --ColinFine (talk)

In response to Jayron and others above, this is one topic on which I can take a far more than armchair opinion. Indeed, just today (an hour ago) I received Sergei Starostin's Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages in the mail. (It does not have an entry for Jap. otoo, but it does mention Proto-Altaic ačV- for older relative). The claim I took exception to is Jayron's "[they] are likely about as distinct as languages can get from a linguistic genetic relationship". Jayron's claim that they certainly don't share a genetic relationship is one you will hear from certain skeptics. But they don't actually mean no genetic relation at all. They mean no as of yet convincingly (to them) demonstrated relationship. And there are plenty of respected linguists who do say Japanese is related to Korean, that that pair is a member of the Altaic family, and that Indo-European and Altaic are related within Eurasiatic/Nostratic. There are plenty of people who are skeptical of Eurasiatic and many of Altaic, but there are absolutely no respectable or plausible offered alternatives to these families other than the principled agnosticism of those who deny deep-relations can be demonstrated at all.

That being said, the notion that Japanese and Latin are about as far apart as one can get is not only false on the historical and comparative evidence (See Roy Andrew Miller on Japanese, Joseph Greenberg on Eurasiatic, Michael Fortescue on Uralo-Siberian, Nicholas Poppe on Altaic), it's also false on a typological basis. One can't just say, "Are dogs and butterflies related?" without a context. The relevant question is, among dogs and cats and butterflies and bees and octopuses, which are most closely related to each other? With a few exceptions (such as the languages of the Caucasus, the Ket language, the Nivkh language, and Chukchi-Kamchatkan) {[Paleo-Siberian language]], from Turkey to Japan, agglutinating SOV languages with post-nominal case markers dominate. These languages were for a time classified as Ural-Altaic, which is now viewed as illegitimate in the way classifying all the hoofed mammals together is considered illegitimate--carnivores, it turns out, lions and bears, are more closely related to horses than the latter are to cows (e.g., Zooamata). These "Ural-Altaic" languages differ greatly in typology from most of the languages that surround them. Word-types and language types found include incorporating languages in the Caucasus, and isolating languages in the South East. Differences in phonology include (tones in the east, ejectives in the Caucasus. The Zulu language, with its clicks and noun- and verb- prefix agreement, and the very complex and "exotic" new world languages like the Navajo language and the Salish language dialects are quite unlike the Ural-Altaic type. It is in this much wider context that Latin has to be compared with Japanese.

Now, we know that it would be context-dropping to compare Japanese directly with Latin, given that we know Latin had earlier stages, and developed from the Proto-Indo-European language, which itself developed from pre-Proto-Indo-European (Pre-Indo_European, Winfred P. Lehmann. Oddly enough, it turns out that pre-Proto-Indo-European (P-PIE) was more like the Ural-Altaic type than classical Latin. It apparently had an SOV word order, postpositions, or loosely attached post-nominal case particles, and a lack of grammatical gender as such. P-PIE was much more like Japanese than Latin would become. Evidence like vowel ablaut may suggest PIE was a Ural-Altaic type language that took on a more inflected and grammaticalized form due to language contact with the highly grammaticalized languages of the Caucasus. P-PIE's root vowels seem to have been almost totally reanalyzed on a North West Caucasian type plan at some point. Not having studied Old Japanese directly, I don't want to attempt to describe it, but it certainly appeared closer to its Altaic roots.

All that being said, nowadays the two languages are quite different, and will not subjectively appear very similar, unless you are familiar with other languages from a broad world-wide range. They have fairly simple phonologies and similar vowel systems, both marking length in consonants and vowels. They both allow implied subjects/objects and verbs to be left unstated. Of course that really tells you very little, and while you can sorta guess at what Catalan would be like if you know French and Spanish, but had never heard it, knowing anything about Latin or Japanese would give you absolutely no idea of how to imagine the other language had you never met it. μηδείς (talk) 00:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Family name "Frautschi" = ?

Hello Learned Ones ! Do you know the origin of the family name "Frautschi" ? I think it comes from germanophone Switzerland (where it shouldn mean "little lady", I think... ), but on WP de I find only 3 russian names...In WP en, I find a female hochey player from Interlaken , along with an american scientist & a violonist...Thanks a lot beforehand. T.y Arapaima (talk) 08:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

It sure sounds Swiss, and there are several Frautschis in Switzerland, and some of them even have websites: Psychologist Christian, conceptual artist Chri and composer Franz. German speakers should tell you the etimology. No such user (talk) 09:07, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't find any reference on the meaning of Frautschi online (finding good German onomastic information online has stumped me before). My electronic Swiss telephone book gives 155 entries for Frautschi, most of them are located in and around Gstaad or Saanen in the Bernese Oberland.

The suffix -tschi is quite common in Alemannic surnames (Gautschi, Bertschi, Fritschi) and can also be a diminutive in Bernese dialect: "Meitschi" ("Mädchen" in Standard German) means girl (little maid), "Müntschi" means "kiss" (probably from "Muu" for "mouth", though "Muntsch" for a big kiss exists too, possibly as a back-formation).

In other words, while your assumption of "little lady" doesn't sound implausible at first glance, I couldn't find anything corroborating it. Names are often tricky, and it is easily possible that the etymology of "Frautschi" has absolutely nothing to do with "little woman". ---Sluzzelin talk 14:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Swiss Radio DRS has experts explaining the origins of Swiss German names as requested by listeners, and one can listen to a decent amount of them online here (in Swiss German) Unfortunately nobody seems to have asked for an explanation on Frautschi yet.

I did listen to the ones ending in -tschi, and it's a bit of a mixed bunch, though most simply seem to be nicknames of given names (or first names). Bertschi/Bärtschi from Berchtold, Fritschi from Friedrich, Dietschi from Dietrich, Rutschi from Rudolf, Witschi from something like Wighart. On the other hand, Bratschi is a nickname derived from an old onomatopoetic word for a clapping sound ("bratsch") and somehow "Bratschi" came to mean a fat, plump, talkative person. Gautschi is derived from the "Kawertschen", Christian money changers from either Southern France or the Piedmont. None of these examples come from the Bernese Oberland, but it does show that the etymology often is not that straightforward or obvious. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:12, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Only a guess: Frautschi or Frutschi in Switzerland might just be a Germanization of a Romance name "Frucci" (or vice versa). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 07:32, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot to all, my cup overflows ! I'm about to end writing the french version of Artur Artuzov, & was wondering how the son of a Swiss cheese-maker (WP italian says origini svizzero-italiane) could have become one of Lenine's flails among the White Russians, before being shot in the nap of the neck in 1938...True enough, a question on WP de Ref Desk might have helped, but more than once I've got more guffaws than useful answers from our neighbours, & I prefer to ask WP en Ref Desk Learned Ones.. BTW, you make me think that here (french Chablais , northern Alps, south side of "Geneva Lake", which we call "Lac Léman" in France) , where we've been submitted by Bern (1536-1569) , a dairy-cheese-house is called a "fruitière" ([5])

, this'd fit with a family of cheese-makers. But maybe some bulky, Shreck-like bernese (the kind usually hired away as Landsknechte) was once nicknamed "Little Lady" by his friends as a joke, & one of his grandsons went to Russia ...Thanks again Arapaima (talk) 08:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Traditional children's rhymes and songs

I was chatting with my young nieces and nephews (ages 9 to 13) over the weekend when the topic of traditional "playground" rhymes and songs came up. They knew "Ring-a-ring a rosy" and "Eenie meenie mynie mo" but not "Two little dicky birds" (excuse my spelling). Are some of these of rhymes and songs going extinct? Has anyone published serious literature on these types of songs? (Demographic info: I'm male, 45years old, white, English-speaking, South African). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dodger67 (talk • contribs) 08:32, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The classic work on this subject is this one, but it's rather old now (first published in 1959). As to whether these songs are dying out, the only song my 9-year-old son and his friends seem to sing in the playground is "Gangnam Style". Make of that what you will. Viennese Waltz 08:45, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Small world. My 7yr old niece also knows those but not Oranges_And_Lemons. (Demographic info: I'm male, 45years old, white, English-speaking, South African).196.214.78.114 (talk) 10:32, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I recall that there has been some serious research on nursery rhymes but I'm having trouble finding it at the moment. However, the Opie Book of Nursery Rhymes attempts to collect both the rhymes that are more familiar and their regional variants, and may repay some further reading on this. Iona and Peter Opie seem to have produced a fair amount of work on nursery rhymes. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:32, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd guess the version of Eeny, meeny, miny, moe that these children know isn't the same as the version I knew over 50 years ago, when we used it in the school playground as a choosing rhyme. Two Little Dickie Birds is perhaps more used between parent and very young child - I remember singing it with my own children - rather than being picked up from peers as part of playground culture. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:53, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I remember "Two Little Dickie Birds" being used by girls as a Skipping-rope rhyme. BTW That article has a useful template at the bottom. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:47, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Oops, sorry forgot to provide the obvious link: Nursery rhyme. And I forgot to sign too! Doh! --TammyMoet (talk) 11:26, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a bit of anecdotal evidence in this past reference-desk thread. Deor (talk) 12:28, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The word "mother"

Why is the root of "mother" an "m" followed by a vowel in so many languages - even totally unrelated ones such as Latin and Zulu? Is it because such a sound is one of the first that a baby is physically/neurologically capable of intentionally producing? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:02, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That would be what's known as a false cognate, and your suggested explanation isn't too far off from what some linguists have hypothesised. See Mama and papa. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:46, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! WP:WHAAOE. So my hunch seems to be confirmed, by at least some linguists. "Somewhere in a cave in the Geat Rift valley a gazillion moons ago, a homonid baby saw its mother and responded by smiling and making a repetitive "ma ma ma" sound - that sound became the word for mother." Offers for movie rights welcome! :) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Or, "many times in homes all over the world, hominid babies saw their mothers and responded with "ma ma ma". --ColinFine (talk) 13:45, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a humorous take on this at http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1581. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:31, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That cartoon really nails it down perfectly! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:36, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

ははは「はは」と笑っている！KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Google translate :( say that is: 'My mother is laughing as "mother"!'I don't get it!?!? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:59, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a pun. 'haha' is 'mother' in Japanese, and also means 'haha' (as in laughing). I was pointing out the fact that they have a different word. Some very small kids in Japan do use the word 'mama', but they soon grow out of it. Medeis says below that Japanese uses the word 'otoo' for 'father' (it's actually 'otousan'), but they also use 'chichi' and 'papa'. Never use Google Translate. It's mad as a bag of monkeys. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:16, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I omitted the -san ending because it's an honorific suffix. Isn't there a modern stand-alone form otoo with a long /o/? The form I am used to seeing in comparative works is with a long final o, but that might be a mistake or an older form. Unfortunately I cannot read Japanese, and good phonetic and transliterated sources in the Roman alphabet are hard to come by. μηδείς (talk) 23:12, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

It is actually pronounced as a long o, but is written with a u at the end, and never comes without the honorific suffix. To be honest, my theory is that it is cognate with 'otto', which means 'husband', and with 'otoko', which means 'man'. Due to the fact that the Japanese people are made up of three separate ethnic groups which came in thousands of years ago during the Jomon and Yayoi periods (one from Polynesia, one from Taiwan, and one from Korea), plus the Ainu, and the language is a mix of the languages they brought with them, I doubt that 'otousan' has any affinity whatsoever with Hungarian 'atya'. The only similarity is that they both have vowels and a 't' in them, which is hardly surprising considering the paucity of sounds a human mouth can make. 'Iraira' is Japanese for 'frustrated' - does this make the language close to Latin, with it's 'ira' (leading to our English 'irate')? Japanese 'itte' is the imperative of 'go', similar to Latin 'ite'. 'Anta' is Osaka dialect for 'you'. Does this mean it's similar to Egyptian colloquial Arabic? No, it just means there are similar words in different languages, which is bound to happen after thousands of years. We just happen to be lucky enough to live in a time where half a dozen words in Japanese resemble words from 6,000 languages across the globe. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:51, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Your additional comment ignores my post below, whose evidence you do not answer. I am not sure whether you believe Japanese is demonstrably related to any other family, but no one (at least not me) is talking about random comparisons of superficially similar words in uncritically compared modern languages. (You may have missed these detailed comments above on methodology giving links an references in the Japanese vs Latin thread.) Of course plenty such coincidences exist. Rather we are talking about roots that have been traced back to their protolanguages and which show regular sound correspondences between those languages. You haven't addressed this, you have pointed to the existence of a bunch of other stuff. I have given some cognates below, you can find scores more in sources like Fortescue that I have mentioned. (Oddly enough, Greenberg compares Latin ite (PIE *ei-, "to go") with various Uralic forms (Hungarian jöv-, Altaic aja- "go, walk", Proto-Eskimo ayu- "go further" and Old Japanese ayum- "to walk". So, itte may indeed be unrelated--but other comparisons are possible.) μηδείς (talk) 02:10, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

According to Daijisen, Otō exists. But if you ommit -san because it is a honorific suffix, the initial o- is also a honorific prefix. The Japanese term for "father" is chichi (titi) and toto was the childish form. Ototosama, with honorific prefix and suffix, later became otossan and from 1904, Otōsan came to be popular. And otoko (oto means "young", compare oto-me maiden) and otto are related; the latter was o hito 男人 (man person). But it seems they are not related to chichi and toto. --Kusunose 07:11, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

So you are saying the underlying form is :to"? What happens when o- is added o a vowel initial word? μηδείς (talk) 16:40, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I don't think o- is an integral part of the word. It is historically toto and tō in modern Japanese. I also like to note that oto in Old Japanese (modern otōto 弟) means "younger sibling". It is unclear if this is related to oto in otoko. While otoko stats oto have an etymological relation with a verb otsu, the entry for oto "youger sibling" does not have etymological information. As for honorific o- before a word that starts with o, it is just prepended. Oshie 教え "teaching" becomes Ooshie お教え as in Ooshie kudasai お教えください Please teach me. --Kusunose 09:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• There seem to be two things going on. It is plain that mater/pater, mother/father go back with regular sound correspondences to an Indo-European root just like other regular words. But it is interesting that both these words start with ma- and pa- like baby talk words in other languages. Apparently these words were "formalized" from baby talk with the addition of the -ter suffix at some point in Pre-Proto-Indo-European and now act as words of the regular lexicon.

Even then, modern IE languages still have apparently new baby talk creations like mom and pop, as well as nana and dada and forms in other languages that are similar, but don't show regular sound correspondences. And meanwhile, forms like at(y)a and an(y)a seem to show an old presence from Latin atta/anus to Hungarian atya/anya to Japanese otoo for father. This might be evidence of an older case like mater/pater where baby talk roots were formalized and passed on with sound correspondences in an earlier language family. μηδείς (talk) 19:14, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

A recent paper argues that "mother" is one of a small number of ultraconserved words that is found in multiple language families and predates the prototypes of those language families. While the paper has come under some criticism and I'm not comfortable with all of its conclusions, it does seem likely that proto-Indo-European, etc., did not simply materialize from the void and that at least a few older words still survive in some form. Note that this theory is not inconsistent with the Dinosaur Comics theory just described; both could be factors. John M Baker (talk) 18:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

In response to KageTora, the comparison is not so facile. With false cognates like ire, from Latin ira, I would obviously want to trace back to PIE first (it goes to *eis-) and compare with the other branches of Altaic and Eurasiatic. No luck there. But as for comparing the words for father/elder male relative in other branches of Eurasiatic, to add to Latin atta, Gothic atta and the Japanese forms you've given, I'd look at Proto-Turkic ata- (Decsy), and Proto-Uralaic æc'æ, Aleut aðax, ProtoEskimo-Aleaut ataq, and Chukchi əɫəɣ, as well the less obvious Nivkh yvŋ (per Greenberg) and Kamchadal isx. These all point to a Proto-Eurasiatic *at(:')a-q, which fits very easily with otoo, otto, or otoko. Again, I am not really able to speak with any authority myself on the internal development of Japanese. (A parallel form, an{:')a-q, with optional lengthening and palatalization of the /n/ is found for words for mother in the same range of Eurasiatic languages.) μηδείς (talk) 00:39, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I will agree that 'mama' is common all around the world - the original question - but this is simply because this is the first word a baby, who has not developed the motor skills yet for real speech, will say, and generally this is referring to mother - the source for nourishment and food. This is why we say 'mammary glands' (I am glad I don't have 'pappary glands'!). 'Papa' or 'dada' come next. Do you notice they all have the same vowel, and repetitiveness? That is because that is all they can produce at that age. So, 'mama' becomes a sort of nickname for mother, and 'papa' or 'dada' becomes a nickname for father. Sometimes a baby will refer to himself as 'baba' (and the parents will too). This is because that is all they can pronounce. At that age, they have a limited number of consonants, and only one vowel - as in, opening the mouth. It's not surprising that so many languages have the same or similar word for 'mama'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:41, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

You do have papillae. μηδείς (talk) 03:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Aye, that left pap / where heart doth hop --Trovatore (talk) 00:57, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

In addition to the forms I quoted above in regard to Latin ite, Japaneses itte, there is also in the Aleut language ichaa, "go out!". ([Bergsland, Unangam Tunuganaan Achixaasix (Aleut Grammar), p. 30.) μηδείς (talk) 03:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

From etymonline: Farsi has bad in more or less the same sense as the English word, but this is regarded by linguists as a coincidence. The forms of the words diverge as they are traced back in time (Farsi bad comes from Middle Persian vat), and such accidental convergences exist across many languages, given the vast number of words in each and the limited range of sounds humans can make to signify them. Among other coincidental matches with English are Korean mani "many," Chinese pei "pay," Nahuatl (Aztecan) huel "well," Maya hol "hole." KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:13, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there are hundreds of such known coincidences. But the fact that they are coincidences doesn't disprove there are actual correspondences any more than the existence of false convictions means there are no actual murderers. Indeed, we couldn't say that Farsi and English bad are unrelated if we didn't already have a huge body of words such as Farsi Khoda and English God that we did know are related. The two bads don't show regular sound correspondences, and neither can be traced backwards into proto-Germanic or proto-Indo-Iranian to similar roots. (I think the Farsi term originally had an initial m-, but I don't remember for sure.)

None of this proves that every correspondence is false. Japanese has undergone a huge amount of phonetic simplification and change from proto-Altaic. So identifying correspondences is difficult. Miller provides a good number of them. For example, Japanese ishi ("stone") and the native English word thill ("plank") are cognates. Miller shows and Starostin agrees the Japanese word ishi comes from Old Japanese *dyisi which is cognate with Turkish tash. Within Altaic the -sh- comes frome a palatalized /l/. This Altaic form with the plain /l/ is found in Chuvash čol, Tungusic ʒolo, Mongolian čilaɣun and Korean torh. In Indo-European the root is *tel-, found in Latin tellus > tellurian and English thill or deal in the archaic sense of plank. The same root meaning igloo tile is found in Eskimo, čaligu-. These are actual deep and regular correspondences, not mere surface similarities. μηδείς (talk) 21:13, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

English has 'mare' (from O.E. 'mearh'), Mongolian has Mor', Chinese has 'ma' (from Ancient Chinese 'mar'), Korean has 'mal', and Japanese has 'uma'. Maybe these are all just loanwords. Words spring up all the time, by the people who make them, and trade with other groups, showing them new discoveries and technology. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:47, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what your point is repeating this. These warnings that false cognates exist are literally linguistics 101. Two of the most widely known are Latin habere "to have" which looks the same, but the latin is actually cognate with "give". Or Latin dies, and English day, which are also an unrelated pair. But these false cognates have been identified as false because we can identify the true cognates. The evidence given for cognates such as Japanese ishi and English thill (note they are not the kind of look-alikes you keep brining up) has to be addressed on its own. It's entirely beside the point to say, "yeah, but who cares about the evidence when we know there are known false cognates". That's the OJ defense, that's WP:OTHERSTUFF.

As for the Mongolian mor, Vyacheslav Ivanov discusses it with the English term mare, which originally just meant "horse", along with the Proto-Sino-Tibetan root *mraH in his paper Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian, and Indo-European. So it looks possible these terms are related, and not implausible given where the animal was domesticated.. Of course, to find out, you have to look carefully at the painfully reconstructed evidence. μηδείς (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I am quite aware of Comparative Historical Linguistics and the techniques involved. I am merely saying that I believe it is most likely that languages from separate language families developed through trade and commerce with neighbouring communities of speakers with other languages, and therefore words were swapped and borrowed, expecially for technological innovations such as your example for the 'thill', and mine for the domesticated horse. If these languages were related, we would expect closer similarities in more natural and basic things, like numbers, water, tree, sky, etc., plus, words are replaced over time. English no longer uses the Indo-European word *akwa, but uses 'water' instead. It's impossible to prove. Also, just a little question. Where did Miller get his 'dy' from in 'dyisi'? All Old Japanese words with the 'j' sound before 'i' still actually remain that way. Why did this one word lose it? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:51, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, according to the principal of uniformitarianism, we should expect that both borrowing and genetic relationships existed in the past, not only borrowing and random resemblance. We wouldn't expect that out of nowhere 6,000 years ago all these separate language families would have popped up without any genetic relatives. It's a rather broad task, but just as we can trace current languages to proto-families, we should also be able to compare proto-families and discern even deeper relationships.

We can't exactly pick a bunch of a priori expectations, like deeper stocks having obvious sets of counting numerals. Indo-European is actually unusually advanced in having a fully developed decimal system. Most recognized families such as Uralic and Eskimo-Aleut do not. Nevertheless, the number two, which is one of the best preserved words in all languages according to lexicostatistics, does have cognates of the PIE *duwo- in the Altaic *t_iubu with reflexes in Turkish, Mongolian, Manchurian, and Korean. Besides "one" and "two" there is also a root *log that shows up in many of the Eurasiatic languages meaning count or full count. It shows up in the Greek and Latin roots for logic and select. It shows up across Siberia meaning "to count" or "ten/full count". But the point is we have to compare the evidence and let it show what it does in full context.

As for the word water, it is not only traceable back to standard proto-European, but it is also found in Proto-Uralic *wete- and Finnish vesi as well as Turkic õd- wet, and Tungusic udun "rain". See (Starostin):

• Finnish: vesi (gen. veden) 'Wasser'
• Estonian: vesi (gen. vee)
• Mordovian: ved́, väd́ (E), ved́ (M)
• Mari (Cheremis): wǝt (KB), wüt (U B)
• Udmurt (Votyak): vu (S G), vu̇ (K)
• Komi (Zyrian): va (S P PO)
• Mansi (Vogul): üt́ (TJ), wit́ (Kū), wüt́ (P), wit (So.)
• Hungarian: víz (acc. vizet)
• Nenets (Yurak): jīʔ (O), wit (Lj.)
• Enets (Yen): biʔ (ɣɛŋ. bīroʔ) (Ch.), biʔ (ɣɛŋ. bidoʔ) (B)
• Nganasan (Tawgi): bēʔ (gen. bedaŋ)
• Selkup: yt (Ta.), üt (Tur.), ü̆t (Ke.), öt (Ty.)
• Kamass: bшHittite: watar n. (r/n), dat.-loc. weteni (Friedrich 249-250)
• Old Indian: unátti, undati `to flow, spring (as water); to wet, bathe', udaká-, loc. udán(i), gen. udnáḥ, instr. udnā́ n. `water'; samudrá- m. `sea, ocean', anudrá- `waterless'; útsa- m. `spring, fountain'
• Avestan: vaiδi- f. 'Wasserlauf, Bewässerungskanal'
• Armenian: get `Fluss'
• Old Greek: hǘdōr, -atos n. `Wasser'
• Slavic: *vodā
• Baltic: *wan̂d-ō̃ (-en-es) (2), *un̂d-ō̃ (-en-es) (2), *und-a- n., *und-[a]- m.
• Germanic: *wat-an-, *wat-ar- n.

(Other Italic: Umbr utur, abl. une Wasser (Celtic: *udeskjo- ? > OIr u(i)sce `Wasser'

• Albanian: ujɛ Wasser
• Russ. meaning: вода

Cognates like these can hardly be expected to be the result of borrowing. Of course, in other cases, we will expect borrowing, such as with the word mare, Old English mearh "horse". That word has the following reflexes in Indo-European and Altaic.

• Turkic: *bura (?) The correspondence Altaic M > Turkic B is regular, the word means sacrificial beast.
• Mongolian: *mori
• Tungus-Manchu: *murin
• Korean: *mằr
• Germanic: *márx-a-/*marg-á- m.; *márx-i- c., *márx-iō(n-)/*marg-iṓ(n-) f.
• Celtic: Gaul acc. markan (Paus. X.19), Marco-durum ON; Ir marc `Pferd'; Cymr march `Pferd'
• Chinese: 馬 *mrāʔ horse.
• Burmese: mraŋh horse, LB *mhruŋx.

In this case, the Altaic forms, lacking the final guttural, cannot be assumed the source of borrowing into PIE or Sino-Tibetan. The Chinese tradition that the horse came from the Western barbarians implies the word *marH was borrowed from the steppe as *mraH before the Altaic and Indo-European (and the Chinese and Burmese) people separated, with the final guttural being lost in Altaic, just as it would be in English, and the root reduced to ma in modern Chinese according to regular developments within that language.

You can't do historical linguistics by deciding ahead of time what cannot be known. The evidence points to "ma" being created over and over again, as well as words like mother and an'a

• Hittite: hanna-s `Grossmutter', (but also anna- c. 'Mutter', Tischler 24) Lyk χñna `Großmutter' (Tischler 145)
• Armenian: han `Grossmutter'
• Old Greek: acc. anōn (Larissa, inschr.); annís = mētròs ḕ patròs mḗtēr Hsch.
• Baltic: *an-iā̃ f., *an-ī̂t-ā̂ f.
• Germanic: *an-en- m., *an-ō f.
• Latin: anus, -ūs (OLat -uis) f. `altes Weib'
• Altaic Meaning: mother, elder sister
• Russian meaning: мать, старшая сестра
• Turkic: *ana / *eńe
• Tungus-Manchu: *eńi-
• Korean: *ǝ̀ńí
• Japanese: *ánái
• Saam (Lapp): vi̊øńńe (oa) (T), vuǝńńe 'Frau des älteren Bruders'
• Mordovian: niz-ańa 'Schwiegermutter' (E), ańaka 'ältere Schwester' (M) (?)
• Udmurt (Votyak): ańi̮ 'Hanfgarbe' (J)
• Komi (Zyrian): e̮ńe, e̮ńa 'Schwägerin (Brudersfrau, Mannesschwester)', uńe 'Tante', ońa (VU) 'Schwiegertochter (Frau des Sohnes), Schwägerin', ? ań 'Schwiegermutter (der Frau)', (V P) ań 'Frau (V); Mutter des Mannes (P)'
• Khanty (Ostyak): ăńǝki̮ (V), ăńǝχǝ (DN), ȧ̆ńǝχi (O) 'Frau des älteren Bruders; Stiefmutter'
• Mansi (Vogul): āńī (TJ) 'Frau des Vaterbruders', uńńǝm (LU) 'meine Tante', ɔ̄̈ń (KO), āń (P), āńēkoa 'Großmutter mütterlichseits', ōńi, ōń (K) 'Tante', ā̊ńi̊' 'Schwägerin' (N)
• Hungarian: ángy 'des Gatten Schwester; die Frau des (älteren) Bruders; des Onkels oder Großonkels Frau; des Vetters Frau; die Frau eines jeden älteren Verwandten', ? anya (anyát, anyja) 'Mutter, dial. Schwiegermutter'
• Nenets (Yurak): ńeje (O) 'jüngere Schwester der Mutter'
• Selkup: ońa (TaU), ońo (Ty.) 'Frau des älteren Bruders'
• Sammalahti's version: FU *an'a

being inherited over and over again in language history. The simple answer "it is always chance resemblance" is the least helpful one. μηδείς (talk) 23:34, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Millions of Ural-Altaic users like this.

misplaced modifiers

I need to know which usage is correct: "The forbidden substances, which increase the mass of Hb include..." or "The substances forbidden to increase the mass of Hb include..."121.247.79.53 (talk) 10:36, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The first is definitely wrong. If you precede "which" by a comma, that means you're treating what comes next as a parenthetical clause, and parenthetical clauses must both start and end with commas. That is, Hb should be followed by a comma. On the other hand, if it was not your intention to have a parenthetical clause - and comparison with the 2nd sentence suggests it was not - then the comma should be removed. It's the difference between restrictive clauses and non-restrictive clauses. As it stands, the 2nd sentence is grammatical. As it stands, the 1st is both ungrammatical and ambiguous. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:03, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your notes on clauses, but my question was about the modifier 'forbidden', should it come before 'substances' or before 'to increase'?121.247.79.53 (talk) 11:10, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That would depend on the context, please point us to the full text. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:28, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

As a simple adjective, it comes before, like almost all adjectives in English: "the forbidden substances". If it is the introductory word to a longer modifier, it usually comes after: "the substances forbidden to minors", "the substances forbidden in the home", "the substances forbidden by law". The latter examples can all be restrictive (without parenthetical commas) or non-restrictive (set off by commas).

However, in your example

• "the forbidden substances, which increase the mass of Hb, include" restricts the discourse to those substances which are forbidden, and comments that they increase the mass.
• "the forbidden substances which increase the mass of Hb include" restricts the discourse to those substances which both are forbidden, and which increase the mass. There is no necessary connection between increasing the mass and being forbidden, though I think there is an implication that they are connected.
• "the substances forbidden to increase the mass of Hb include" is grammatical, but has quite a different meaning, which I do not think you intend. It picks out, from all possible substances, including those that increase the mass, just those substances which are forbidden to increase the mass.

This is unlikely partly because "forbidding" is normally something you do only to animate agents: you might forbid somebody to use a substance, but not normally forbid a substance to do something (though some people are happy with "forbidding a substance to be used")

• "the substances, forbidden to increase the mass of Hb, include" is even more unlikely: it designates all the substances you might be referring to, without limiting them, but comments that all these substances are forbidden to increase the mass. --ColinFine (talk) 14:00, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

121.247.79.53: as Roger Dodger pointed out, this would be easier if you would show us the whole sentence (or, better yet, several sentences of context). rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:33, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed explanation Colin Fine, I think your second explanation answers my question, still if someone wants to know the whole sentence here it is, "The substances and methods forbidden to increase the mass of Hb in sports include RBC transfusion, Hb infusion, chemical agents that stimulate the EPO gene receptor and misuse of drugs activating endogenous EPO expression."110.234.77.134 (talk) 05:30, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

How do we correct an error in a definition?

In the Oxford Dictionary, US English, the definition of a "thole pin" noun- "a pin, typically one of a pair, fitted to the gunwale of a rowboat to act as the fulcrum for an oar." This is incorrect in that it is not the fulcrum. TarbabyJohn (talk) 18:34, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

You'd have to contact the Oxford Dictionary people. This is Wikipedia. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:46, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Our article on rowlock states When a boat is rowed, the rowlock acts as a fulcrum, ... I fail to understand why this device, be it called thole pin or rowlock, does not act as a fulcrum. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:05, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is wrong. If the rowlock is the fulcrum then the water is the load and the purpose of rowing is to move water. Unlikely. The rowlock is the load and the fulcrum is in the water. 81.151.158.160 (talk) 21:11, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That's a perfectly acceptable purpose, from the point of view of the rower, since moving water in one direction will move the boat in the other direction (by Newton's third law) Dbfirs 08:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

No. The oar pivots on the rowlock and extends beyond it in either direction. Relative to the oar, the rowlock and boat do not move, but the water does. So it is indeed the fulcrum. Mingmingla (talk) 16:02, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

According to our article on Rowing (sport), "the blade fixed in the water is the fulcrum". According to Basic Physics of Rowing either point of view is correct, depending on which frame of reference you are using. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

According to Lever, the fulcrum is the pivot point, i.e. the oarlock. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:05, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Just corrected the formatting. 64.201.173.145 (talk) 21:39, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

June 26

Chavacano

Ano ang chavacano ng pangungusap na "tagarito ako"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.14.5.200 (talk) 06:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Google Translate gives (Tagalog): "What chavacano the sentence "I belong here"?" Itsmejudith (talk) 12:41, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

And I have now learnt that there is a Chavacano language. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

June 27

Meaning of "You took my freak"

I was watching a Bart Baker video on Youtube (I know, I have bad taste!) and one of the lines in the song is "You took my kid's freak!". This is said at 2:21 in the video by an angry dad to Bart (who is playing the part of PSY in the song). It's obviously something he (Bart) shouldn't have done, since a cop is holding a gun to his head (he has been placed under arrest!). I haven't got this line wrong since there are subtitles. What does "You took my kid's freak" mean? Thanks everyone! 59.167.253.199 (talk) 03:07, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

The line is actually You took my kids freak. Notice that there is no apostrophe ('), so it's not 'my kid's freak' (the freak belonging to my kid), but 'my kids [,] freak' (they're my kids and you are a freak). See greengrocer's apostrophe. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 05:12, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

That makes sense :-) Thanks Mike 59.167.253.199 (talk) 11:40, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

German speakers, what do the Jerry soldiers say to and around the lost Yankee G.I. in this scene?

I couldn't find any subtitled versions, as hard as I tried. You see, this hapless Private gets so lost and doesn't know what he's doing in his retreat that in an attempt to run away from the Germans, he literally runs straight INTO one.

Also, would it have been appropriate to shake his head at whatever the first thing was that the German alpha-soldier told him? --70.179.161.230 (talk) 08:28, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

The first thing the German alpha-soldier says is to tell him to put his hands up. Then when the guy shakes his head, he repeats the command in a shout. They also ask him (or each other) whether he has any cigarettes on him. The last thing they say is "pig American" (as someone notes in the youtube comments). --Viennese Waltz 08:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, though may you also provide a bilingual transcription of what everyone says? --70.179.161.230 (talk) 17:49, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

'Kensington' as adjective

Chambers English Dictionary has a strange adjectival definition of Kensington as "interested exclusively in artificial city life and material values". Now, I can understand where this usage might have come from, since Kensington is one of London's snobbiest districts, but I've never come across it myself. So how common is this adjectival use? I don't have access to the OED, which might give some quotations, so if anyone here does I'd be grateful to hear from them. Thanks, --Viennese Waltz 16:16, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

My 2nd-ed. OED lists only an attributive sense of Kensington that denotes the speech supposedly charateristic of the district. It also has Kensingtonian, with quotations that also mostly relate to speech patterns but one of which ("a truly Kensingtonian drawing-room" from 1958) suggests an extension to other aspects of hoity-toitiness. All of the quotations are from the 20th century, mostly from the second half. Deor (talk) 17:52, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Future nostalgia

Is there a word in any language for feeling nostalgic for the experience or time that you are currently going through? A kind of future or pre-emptive nostalgia? FreeMorpheme (talk) 22:27, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

It wouldn't be nostalgia if if was current. Nostalgia is usually vaguely pleasant, if I'm not mistaken, so "contentment", maybe? Mingmingla (talk) 02:06, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Wow. There was a line in the first season of Remington Steele, where Pierce Brosnan said he felt a "reminiscent foreboding". I laughed for a week. μηδείς (talk) 02:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a line from a Carly Simon song, "These are the good old days." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I think Ralph Reader got there first with "These are the times we shall dream about, / And we'll call them the good old days...". Alansplodge (talk) 20:15, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Or Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote, in "The Admiralty Spire":

Katya and I also would have liked to reminisce, but, since we had nothing yet to reminisce about, we would counterfeit the remoteness of time and push back into it our immediate happiness. ... [T]hanks to a vague inspiration, we were preparing in advance for certain things, training ourselves to remember, imagining a distant past and practicing nostalgia, so that subsequently, when that past really existed for us, we would know how to cope with it, and not perish under its burden.

and in the story "A Guide to Berlin":

I think that here lies the sense of literary creation: to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern in the far off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket of today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade.

I have a whole sheaf of quotations on related themes in my commonplace book but, alas, no single word to describe them. Deor (talk) 21:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

This is the time to remember / 'cause it will not last forever. Billy Joel. I always feel that way in early summer. --Trovatore (talk) 21:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Mono no aware is very similar to the "pre-emptive nostalgia" you are describing. --Dr Dima (talk) 21:06, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

June 28

Cyrillic help (Mongolian)

What is the cyrillic for the title of this image? File:Watercyclemongolianhigh.jpg - I want to add a description in Mongolian for this image

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 02:01, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

It would be "Bajgalijn usny ergelt" in a rough transliteration, (Байгалийн усны эргэлт) where "j" stands for the y sound of English, and "y" is a vowel close to "i" in Jewish. (Looking at the article on the Mongolian language it seems unlikely the vowels written as и and ы have the same value as in Russian, but that's based on standard Russian. I don't know if Mongol has its own transliteration. See Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet. μηδείς (talk) 02:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you WhisperToMe (talk) 11:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Ы is [ɨ] in Slavic and [ɯ] in Turkic and Mongolic languages, as the article says. There is a phonetic difference, but AFAIK there is no phonematic difference: a language usually possess only one close unrounded phoneme which is not front: either /ɨ/ (central) or /ɯ/ (back). All /ɯ/s from Turkic, Mongolic, and Korean languages (regardless of original writing system) are mapped to ы when transcribed to Russian. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I do believe you are correct ы should reflect a center or more back vowel. But Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet has it and и both with the IPA /i/ value. μηδείς (talk) 16:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Mongolian language #Phonology confirms that there are no non-front close unrounded vowels; then, I wonder why they included ⟨Ы⟩ to their alphabet at all. But I’d not trust the Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet article if only because it lists [i] for ⟨Й⟩ which is an obvious mistake. ⟨Й⟩ never means anything but /j/, and [j] exists in the language. Russian Wikipedia agrees that Mongolian ⟨Й⟩=/j/. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:37, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

as's

If someone duplicated the word "as", and I want to say "I think you have too many as's there", then how should the word "as's" be correctly written? (I am not asking for suggestions about how to reword the sentence to avoid the issue.) 86.146.105.187 (talk) 17:05, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's article on Use–mention distinction has a little bit on such usages, but does not expressly deal with how to handle pluralizing the mention. It does, however, cite Strunk and White as discussing how to handle the use-mention distinction, so perhaps a style guide like that may have good guidance. --Jayron32 17:26, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

• (OR) Too many ases or too many "as"es will work. The hyphenated form without the e looks too much like a possessive. μηδείς (talk) 18:46, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I think you meant apostrophe, not hyphen?? 86.146.105.187 (talk) 18:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I might probably use "as"es, but your as's also looks ok to me. I don't have any usage guide to back me up, that's just my intuition. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:56, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I meant apostrophe, and I prefer "as"es as probably the least confusing option. μηδείς (talk) 23:41, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

From English plurals#Plurals of letters and abbreviations:

• The plural of individual letters is normally written with -'s: there are two h's in this sentence; mind your p's and q's; dot the i's and cross the t's.
• Some people extend this use of the apostrophe to other cases, such as plurals of numbers written in figures (e.g. "1990's"), words used as terms (e.g. "his writing uses a lot of but's"). However others prefer to avoid this method (which can lead to confusion with the possessive -'s), and write 1990s, buts; this is the style recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style.

Avoiding that method leads to asking what would be the standard plural of as, if it were a noun denoting an object, say. And that’s a problem because, as far as I’m aware, there are no singular nouns ending in a single –s, except words of Greek origin such as kudos, ethos, chaos, etc, or Latin such as abacus, modus, etc, which are either not pluralised or take a foreign plural (ethos -> ethe or ethea; although Wiktionary allows chaoses). So we have no model, and thus any proposed solution is bound to offend some readers. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

The word 'gas' comes to mind, plural 'gases' (or 'gasses'). - Lindert (talk) 21:08, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Also bus, where buses versus busses seems to be a pondial difference (the latter plural can also mean "kisses"). --Trovatore (talk) 21:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Trust you two to shoot me down in flames so rapidly.  :) But still, I think "ases" poses a problem. Even within a context it looks weird. And that, I'm sure, is why some folk prefer "gasses" and "busses" to gases and buses (me, I reserve "gasses" for the present tense 3rd person singular of the verb "to gas"; the plural of the noun "gas" is simply "gases"). Also, "as" is unique in that it ends in a -z sound, so any plural should sound like /azzez/, and you just don't get that from "ases". It's a shocking conundrum. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

As (almost) always, there's a previous thread on the topic—one which you yourself initiated, Jack: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 April 7#Plural of the noun "gas". —Deor (talk) 21:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

And there it is: Roman coins to the rescue. I hang my head in shame, and go off to learn my irregular Basque verbs. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:37, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, while complex, Basque verbs are pretty regular, like English with just a few basic irregular helpers and then compounds that form very regularly, like English "am speaking", "is speaking", "are speaking", etc. It's the Georgian language which is the killer. Swear Satan speaks fluent Georgian. μηδείς (talk) 01:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I've just had a look at Georgian verb paradigm. Eeurrgh. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 04:09, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Back to the topic, the French seem to have solved the pluralisation of "as" admirably, in a way that would appeal to minimalists. They even made a movie about it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:59, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

English Grammar. Two hyphenated words in one sentence.

Is there another way to write the sentence, "Race-based and gender-based affirmative action has been a hotly debated topic for years."? Is it acceptable to write, "Race- and gender-based affirmative action..."?

66.56.248.132 (talk) 22:52, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is acceptable. See Hyphen#Suspended hyphens (version of 15:12, 18 June 2013) and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens (version of 14:32, 27 June 2013), sub-section 3, point 7.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

(EC) :I don't see a problem with the original, but if you want to lower your word count, you could use "Race/gender-based" or "Race and gender based". I would not choose your alternative, as a word with a hyphen after it just looks odd. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

See WP:/.—Wavelength (talk) 00:15, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Odd-looking or not, "race- and gender-based" is correct. 86.146.105.187 (talk)

Yes, IP 86 has it right, the two terms are parallel, the first bare-assed hyphen implies the understood term. Ellipsis may be relevant. μηδείς (talk) 00:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The bare hyphen is even more common in German, with their compound nouns, but I agree that it works in English too. If someone wants to avoid it, he or she could write "affirmative action based on race and gender" or "...on the basis of race or gender". Lesgles (talk) 07:15, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, nouns have gender — people have sex. Without the first hyphen, you have no way of showing in print that this is a zeugma. In speech you certainly say "race and sex based affirmative action". But in writing, you need to clarify — is it affirmative action based on the combination of race and sex? Is it race, as a standalone word, and then sex-based affirmative action? Or is it the zeugma: Race-based affirmative action and sex-based affirmative action considered together? For the last possibility, to avoid repetition, the "bare hyphen" after "race" is mandatory. --Trovatore (talk) 09:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Gender identity would certainly argue otherwise - people may have a gender that differ from their sex, and people do get discriminated against especially when their gender differs from their sex. 64.201.173.145 (talk) 21:38, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

June 29

Dictionary tabs

In some older large (as in onabridged) dictionaries, there are tabs marking where each letter begins going down the right side, with acetate-like tab and the letter written on it to mark the start of the A-section, the B-section, all the way to the Z-section and missing paper chunks in the previous letter's pages leading up to that tab. What are these tabs called? Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk) 04:03, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Higher-class dictionaries have little rounded fingerholes cut into the edges of the paper. Whenever I've encountered tabs extending beyond the edges of the paper, they were added by a previous owner of the book (not part of the book as first published)... AnonMoos (talk) 04:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thumb index. - Karenjc 06:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

"knowing beans about"

What is this phrase supposed to mean? Blah blah knows beans about yada yada. Does Blah blah know a lot or a little about the subject? How about "There is not a single library in town that carries this book, let alone a subject librarian that knows beans about this subject,"? Sneazy (talk) 13:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

It means 'to know nothing about' something. The second sentence doesn't make sense. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:07, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but that's wrong -- you missed a "not" in the link you cite. To "know beans about" something means to know at least a little bit about it. The second sentence means that there is no librarian who knows even a little bit about the subject. Looie496 (talk) 14:51, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

My mistake. I will leave the link in for future reference. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:34, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

In addition to the standard phrase "not to know beans (about)", the Dictionary of American Regional English notes the variants "not to know beans when the bag's open", "not to know beans from butter", "not to know beans from a bull's foot", "not to know beans from barley", "not to know beans from peas", and "not to know beans from buttons". On the general topic of beans as a byword for worthlessness, see here. Deor (talk) 14:48, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

In an affirmative sentence, would one ever say someone "knows beans" about something except in a sarcastic way meaning they know nothing? (The original sentence about librarians is different because of the overall negative sense.) 86.160.87.176 (talk) 17:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely, There are many colloquial English phrases where the negative and positive mean exactly the same thing. "I can hardly wait." and "I can't hardly wait." have identical meanings, as do "You know shit about..." and "You don't know shit about..." as do "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less". These phrases are all understood idiomatically to mean "I am eager", "You don't know about..." and "I don't care", in both the affirmative and the negative. These are pretty well understood in most American English dialects. There are some dialects that have even more convoluted idioms, such as the phrase "So don't I..." in New England English, which is understood to mean "I do too...":[6]. While that one is a bit local to New England, the other constructions are pretty well understood colloquially across America. --Jayron32 20:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Someone should have explained it to Michael Curtiz, who famously exploded: You people, you think I know fuck nothing. I tell you: I know fuck all. --Trovatore (talk) 21:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Can someone explain "let alone" used in my first sentence of this topic? Sneazy (talk) 17:00, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

That's a bit difficult. It basically means that what follows it is even farther from reality than what comes before it. For example, "You want me to pay ten dollars for that?! I wouldn't give you ten cents, let alone ten dollars!". Or, "There isn't even a bicycle in that village, let alone an automobile." Looie496 (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)