Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 November 23

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November 23

What is this French velocipede invention in English?

The English translation ici is icky: "hubs wheel suspended (wheel radius)" for "la roue à moyeux suspendus (la roue à rayons)". Could someone provide a better one? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:45, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Is that not simply a "spoked wheel" Wymspen (talk) 10:05, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

French adventurer, explorer of West Africa and inventor of the wheel with suspended hub (spoked wheel). The title of viscount was created and granted by King Luís I of Portugal. —Stephen (talk) 10:35, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. Clarityfiend (talk) 15:08, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

However, note that our wire wheel article gives the credit to Sir George Cayley in 1808. Alansplodge (talk) 18:56, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Selective acronyms

How is it called when an abbreviated name intentionally resembles some notable thing or person, e.g. Hipparcos (High precision parallax collecting satellite) or CERES (Capacité de REnseignement Electromagnétique Spatial)? My impression is that it's a relatively recent phenomenon, possibly coming from the 1980s or so. Brandmeister^talk 14:03, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

This would seem to be covered in the "Contrived acronyms" section of our article on acronyms. (There's a blog on the topic if you're interested.) I don't know when they became popular, but acronyms themselves are a fairly recent phenomenon. Deor (talk) 15:02, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Hardly "recent" - SPQR, ΙΧΘΥΣ and INRI have been around for a couple of millenia now. Wymspen (talk) 16:03, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Those aren't acronyms, they're initialisms. See Acronym#Nomenclature. --Viennese Waltz 16:09, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Er, that section explicitly disagrees with you: The rest of this article uses acronym for both types of abbreviation.. Henry^Flower 16:26, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I know what that section says. Deor and I are using the word "acronym" in its correct sense, as stated in the article: "many dictionaries and usage commentators define acronym to mean an abbreviation that is pronounced as a word, in contrast to an initialism (or alphabetism)‍ —‌ an abbreviation formed from a string of initials (and possibly pronounced as individual letters)." --Viennese Waltz 16:54, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. The way you cited the article, it looked like you thought it supported your position. :) Henry^Flower 13:11, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

(Neighborhoods too, like Dumbo.) Bus stop (talk) 16:24, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

ΙΧΘΥΣ would seem to be the kind of thing the OP is talking about - SPQR and INRI would not (not because they're not pronounceable, but because they aren't a "notable thing or person") MChesterMC (talk) 09:20, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

In the past, acronyms (as well as other forms of playing around with letters) may have been more common in the Hebrew script, especially in Kabbalah. Perhaps this is where the concept originated and then spread to other alphabetic scripts, like Greek, Latin and Cyrillic? — Kpalion^(talk) 10:33, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

• I think you are referring to Backronym. -Arch dude (talk) 01:55, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Apparently, if you go to the Bible and pick letters from the text at predetermined intervals you get some astonishingly accurate predictions. Nostradamus predicted Hitler although he got the name slightly wrong - he foretold the coming of Hisler in the twentieth century. 86.134.217.94 (talk) 11:37, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

That's true for any sufficiently long text. After the popularity of the "Bible Code" books, when the claim was that the Bible was in some way special in this regard, similar "codes" were demonstrated in the Hebrew translation of War and Peace and the English text Moby Dick. Humans, given sufficient spare time and sufficient interest, can discover illusory "codes" in any text. - Nunh-huh 11:42, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

It's also easier to pull off in Hebrew, particularly in biblical-era Hebrew (or a more recent text written in the same style) rather than modern Hebrew since in the former: (i) vowels are not indicated, so several different words may be constructable from a given group of consonants and (ii) some of the letters double as numerals, so dates and other numerical items are easier to 'find'.

Contrary to the suggestion or 86.134.217.94, however, Nostradamus didn't make his predictions by the use of "Bible Codes" or anything similar: he experienced visions in a trance state, and described them in a deliberately ambiguous style; many have never been identified with any actual event, none were understood until after the events they purportedly and disputedly referred to, and a few "random hits" such as the "Histler" reference are mathematically inevitable in such a large corpus. {The poster formerly known as 87.81,230.195} 2.122.2.189 (talk) 15:44, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Are British people really referring to the same food products as Americans?

• British crisps look like American chips.
• British chips look like American French fries.
• British pudding looks like an American cake or solid pastry. American pudding has the consistency of highly viscous yogurt or glue.
• British biscuit looks like an American cookie or cracker.

But are British people and American people really referring to the same food product? What about brand names? Will that be used instead of the generic names of food? Are Oreo cookies called Oreo biscuits in Britain? What about fruits and vegetables? Are British people and American people talking about the same fruits and vegetables when they say the names? Is an American's visualization of a cucumber the same as a British person's idea of a cucumber? Is an American cherry the same as a British cherry? Is an American watermelon the same as a British watermelon? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 16:56, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, they are. And you forgot "British scones look like American biscuits". The terms have evolved in American English. For example, Nabisco was founded in the 19th century. Notice that their product line includes cookies and crackers - but not biscuits as we Yanks currently use the term. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:09, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

We (now) have cookies in the UK, different to biscuits. Cookies are usually larger (and more expensive), seemingly hand made, often available recently baked on the premises in stores or from stalls, often with a chewy centre and a rough crumbly texture. "Biscuits" in the UK are typically smaller, more regular in consistency, and factory-packed. Oreos would be classed as biscuits, but as we Brits know they are American they may well be branded as "cookies", I'm not sure. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:16, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

And British chips generally do not look like American french fries, as I understand them. British chips are generally larger and made from cuboids of real potato - French fries are small and thin, and available in KFC, McDonalds and the like (but certainly not from your local chippie). Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:23, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Colloquially, in the UK, the word "pudding" can refer to any form of dessert, with or without any pastry. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:24, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

And of course, some of our puddings would be very surprising desserts indeed. DuncanHill (talk) 23:18, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Here is the food section of a rather nice blog written by an American linguist who lives in Britain. Thincat (talk) 17:34, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

So in answer to the original question, no the British products are not the same as the American products - with the exception of "pudding" in some cases: we get rice pudding, semolina pudding and sago pudding which are. "Pudding" is another name for the course that follows the main course in a two-course meal. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:16, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

True, but British crisps and American potato chips seem to be much the same. Some British manufacturers actually call their crisps "chips" to give them an air of exclusivity, but we all know that they are just expensive crisps really. Tortilla chips are tortilla chips however. The use of "pudding" can confusingly also refer to meat products, steak and kidney pudding is a sort of meat pie with a suet exterior, black pudding is a type of sausage and haggis is poetically referred as "Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!". Alansplodge (talk) 18:41, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

... and cucumbers aren't quite the same (probably!).[1] Thincat (talk) 18:53, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

"Published from 1706 through this year"

In 1711 in poetry, the above expression is used. But what exactly is meant by that? If that's too trivial, please excuse my ignorance, but I'm not a native speaker, and prepositions can sometimes be difficult in English... Hoping for your understanding [and an explanation],--Hubon (talk) 19:52, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Until I checked, I was thinking it meant it has been published regularly ever since 1711, right up till the present time, i.e. for 205 305 years. But then I checked the source and I see it was published between 1706 and 1711. Hence "this year" in this context means the year the page is about, 1711. I've changed the text to make this unambiguous. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:00, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much! In addition, I took the liberty of making a "to" out of the hyphen – hope that's fine with you. Regarding that, was the "through" a mistake now and actually supposed to be a "to" or can, in fact, "through" also be used in this context?--Hubon (talk) 21:14, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

@Jack: Is it still 1916 where you are?

Living in the past is fun. You get to endlessly reinvent everything. I recommend it.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:49, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm reading The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by "Claire North"; you might enjoy it too. —Tamfang (talk) 03:30, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

@Hubon:

• through X = up to and including X
• Y through X = from Y to X, both inclusive

One can often see "through" shortened to "thru", e.g. on road signs or credit cards ("VALID THRU SO-AND-SO").

--Theurgist (talk) 01:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

It may be added that this use of "through" to mean "up to and including" is mostly American English. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 03:12, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I really didn't know that before! Best,--Hubon (talk) 13:50, 24 November 2016 (UTC)