Not wishing to affront the chaste sensibilities of this community, I have confined my comments on the draft OED entry for the verb felch to this posting on my blog. Your comments and inquiries are most welcome there.

Hi there,

I need help please - I need to call somebody in Japan. Can you please translate the following into romanji, please? I can only read hiragana/katakana, not kanji.

Thanks so much in advance!!

Here goes:

1. Sorry that I have to call you this early.

2. Has the parcel I sent arrived?

3. Is Koji in?

4. I tried to call him, but he didn't pick up his phone.

5. I really, really need to talk to him. Please help me.

Those would be all. Thanks so much once again!

I realize that < ll > is pronounced differently in different countries where Spanish is spoken. I'm wondering whether -- within any given dialect -- it is always pronounced the same, no matter where it is in a word, or whether even within a given dialect < ll > might be pronounced differently from word to word (ie if the ll in 'calle' might be pronounced differently than the ll in 'llueve').

I'm traveling to (Buenos Aires) Argentina soon so I'm most curious about that dialect, but any information would be great.

Thanks in advance! Happy holidays!

 I've been studying Mandarin Chinese for two and a half years now through the Integrated Chinese series, but I don't feel as if I'm progressing very quickly in the language. I feel as if, after all this time, I should be able to read a newspaper article and be able to get at least the gist of it, but here my skills are stuck in recognizing only the characters every now and then and not actually understanding what's being said.

Does anyone have any tips on how to progress more quickly? Any recommendations for learning materials, perhaps?

I'm hoping this hasn't been asked before (this is my first post to this community, and I'm a little nervous,) but does anyone here know the difference between the German verbs 'zerbrechen' and 'brechen' (I'm not sure but I think I've seen this with zerfallen and fallen as well)?

In doing some informal rehearsing the other day, we were all saying things similar to this:

"First I say, 'In the name of our Lord, I, gordoom, promise that I will one day blah blah blah, by the faith that is in me.' And then you say, 'In the name of our Lord, I, dustthouart, in the form and manner wherein blah blah blah, by the faith that is in me.' Then the priest..."

Also found in this example from the BBC miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice:
Mrs. Bennet: "'My dear friend,' there now! 'Dine with Louisa and me today... la-di-da, la-di-da, la-di-da... as the gentlemen are to dine with the officers.' - Oh, that's unlucky! Still you must go and make what you can out of it."

Another use, commonly encountered in linguistic pursuits, is in filler for templates such as... actually I can't think of any in English right this moment, but I can think of some in Chinese, such as 以什麼什麼為主. In writing this would usually be 以......為主. Which is "take... as primary" literally, and would be said aloud as "take what what as primary." In English I would say "something something" for this kind of filler. In both languages, the "what what" and "something something" are said quickly and kind of blur together.

Another one of these "speech replacement words" in English is "yadda yadda yadda", from (I assume) Yiddish.

1. Is there an actual linguistic term for this phenomenon?
2. What words or phrases do people use in other languages for this purpose?

OK, I've been feeling kind of dumb about this, and wondering if I'm alone: until this year I had never heard that any Christians had a problem with using "X-mas" as opposed to "Christmas". Apparently it is seen as "taking Christ out of Christmas".

Am I alone in my cluelessness? Or are there places where it's not an issue? One explanation I read was that it only became a problem as fewer and fewer people were taught classical languages at school, but that's been the case for decades, so I'm not sure why it would suddenly be a big deal in the last ten years or so. Which is apparently the case, though like I said, it's news to me.

?




ETA: I should add that I do know that X-mas has been used for centuries, and that X is the symbol for the Greek letter Chi, first letter of Christ's name. What I was asking had more to do with how long it's been considered offensive and anti-Christian, presumably by people who have no idea that the X actually refers to Christ.

     Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates them - and good wishes to all the rest!
There's something I have been thinking of recently and I wonder if you could please help me find the right answer. Over the past years, I've noticed that characters in many English/American movies (or literature) are called Mr./Mrs., which is followed by the first letter of their name, often in a humorous way, for example in the movie 1776::
    T. Jefferson: "But I burn, Mr. A!"
    J. Adams: "So do I, Mr. J!"
Also, I noticed it also appears when a one character harbours romantical feelings for another one, such as Ms. Lovett who would sometimes call Todd Sweeney "Mr.T".
    Such form of address is certainly not popular in my native language (Czech) and even seems slightly weird to me, yet I really find it interesting, so can anybody please tell me a bit more about it? Are there more situations when you use it? Does it have a history? Does its origin come from some particular book or something else? Thanks! 

a question for commuters using regularly the underground (the tube, subway) in the UK, the US, Canada and other English-speaking countries. I wonder if there is a common question you'd use when travelling on a crowded train to find out if the person/people who is/are closer to the doors is/are going to leave the train at the next station or otherwise let you through? Can you think of any? Thanks in advance!

EDIT: if you have something to say about other means of transport (buses, trams, etc.), go ahead.

The etymology of 'yule' is said to be obscure. Any interesting theories on the origins of this term?

Hello, all! I just got into an argument about whether or not "pleaded" is a word and was ganged up on so badly that I need to find an answer!

Earlier, a few people and I were sitting around and the claim was made that "pleaded" is not a word. So, I figured I would look "plead" up in the dictionary, and sure enough "pleaded" is an accepted form of "plead." Somehow, it being in the dictionary was not good enough for these people!

I just read here that "pleaded" is the preferred form, however WikiAnswers is definitely not how I am going to resolve this argument.

What I am looking for is some sort of peer reviewed explanation for why and how "pleaded" became/is a word (because...the dictionary isn't good enough...?)

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

That jolly old elf Santa Claus may have gotten his name from Sinterklaas, a Dutch derivation for Saint Nicholas of Myra, but his wizened appearance, as well as a few of the customs and characteristics associated with Santa seems to stem from Norse traditions.

(Original Article or ( read more )

Demre, Turkey - South-west Turkey is home to the early Christian legend of St Nicholas. Nicholas is thought to have lived in the fourth century and was the Bishop of the ancient town of Myra. The town was part of the Lycian League and visitors to the nearby town of Demre can still find plenty of evidence of the region's ancient past. Myra was once located directly on the coast and according to legend St Paul set sail from here to Rome where he was martyred. The ruins of the early Middle Ages basilica on the edge of Demre are a reminder of the first burial place of Bishop Nicholas.

The remains of the saint have long since been removed and the sarcophagus in the basilica is empty. Nicholas's body was transferred to the basilica of San Nicola in Bari in southern Italy. When Muslim invaders occupied the region of Lycia the remains of Christian saints were spirited away.
Original Article or ( Read more... )

My friend posted a Facebook status saying that he was back in Southern California, which would be surprisingly early for winter break, and five or six of us have commented on it saying just "already??" Another friend posted "なにー？？" (which he and I are aware doesn't translate to "already??"), which got me wondering as to how to say "already" in the sense that we're using it in other languages. The direct Spanish translation would be "ya", and the Chinese translation would be "已經", but both don't have quite the same meaning as "already"; my friend who posted in Japanese said that "もう", similarly, sounds awkward, and my boyfriend added that "sudah" in Indonesian isn't the same, either. "なにー？？" and "真的??" capture our confusion but not the way we've basically been copying and pasting each others' responses.

How would you translate "already??" into other languages in a way that's both grammatical and felicitous (in the linguistic sense)?

I was looking at some Coptic Orthodox icons and on those of saints they say "piapostolos" and on those of archangels they say "piarchangelos" in Coptic letters after their name (so, St. Mark is Markos Piapostolos).

The apostolos and archangelos parts are pretty clear but does anyone know what the "pi-" means exactly? It's probably Coptic but since Copts mostly speak Arabic now, I guess it could be Arabic, too. My first guess would be something like "holy" but in all the other Afro-Asiatic languages I've heard the word "holy" for it is something like kadish/qaddash/etc...

(I've tried looking this up elsewhere, already)

Since my university doesn't offer any courses in modern Hebrew, I'd like to find a halfway decent teach-yourself book until I can find an actual class on it. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything on my own yet -- does anyone have any good recommendations for a teach-yourself type book for modern Hebrew? I'm fuzzy on the alphabet (both script and print) since it's been years since temple school, so anything that has a section on learning the alphabet is a huge plus, but not necessary. If anyone could recommend a good alef-bet workbook too that'd be great.

Thanks!

I'm looking to get another tattoo in kanji* (like the one in my icon! :) but I want to make sure I have the characters right.
*I'm still unsure whether this is "kanji" or something else. It's the supposedly mandarin chinese from the side of the Firefly class ship in Firefly/Serenity, the characters mean "peace" and "tranquility" which loosely translates to Serenity. I'd like something in the same language, but either Chinese or Japanese will do. Any non-english lettering will do, but I'm looking for something similarly picturesque.

I need another two-character tattoo so it balances. I want it to say "polyamory" or some variation on the theme. I was looking at "many" and "love" in kanji, but then I wasn't sure if using those literal translations together would form something like "giant slut".

So I'd like to know how "many" + "love" would translate, if there is a Chinese/Japanese term for consensual non-monogamy, and any suggestions for a two-character tattoo in the said theme. Any help would be appreciated :)

I've noticed something unusual about my friend that I can't quite put my finger on. She has a range of peculiarities in the way she structures her sentences; here are a couple of examples:

- Saying, "for I can take a walk" instead of what's normally, "so that I can take a walk"
- "Are you wanting to go?" instead of, "Do you want to go?"

There's a few more but I'm blanking on them--these are the most consistent though. Another thing I've noticed is her placement of the primary stress in a word sometimes differs to the pronunciation that a native speaker might have.
What makes me (and her, now that I've mentioned it) most curious is that she is a native English speaker, having been raised in a Southern Californian neighborhood with little to no contact with anyone who might have impacted her learning of the language in a significant manner.

Does anyone have an idea of what, if anything, may have caused these slight irregularities? Or was it just coincidental?

(she is descendant of a fully norwegian family, if that makes a difference).

I was reading this Time Magazine article about what to call this decade that'll be ending next Friday.

So what are your thoughts? What should it be called? For the life of me, I can't seem to choose one that I like. Though, I am leaning towards the "zeroes." While we're on the subject, the next decade will be called "the teens" right?

Also, I'm curious as to what the situation is in other languages... Does this problem exist?

I'm on a hunt, but it's going rather vaguely, so I thought I'd try to narrow my search and just suck it up and ask someone...

I want to buy German manga (comics in the Japanese cartoon style). There is one in particular that I'd want to buy, and it is written, drawn, and produced IN Germany (not translated from the Japanese). However, as I'm trying to continue my study of the German language, I wouldn't mind buying some German translations of other things as well.

So my question is this: Do any of you know of any specific sites from which I could order German comics? I'm looking for something based in Germany (for more variety), but by all means, if you know of one that's based in the US, the shipping savings would be appreciated. =^_^=;