Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 October 14

I just installed a much better /usr/share/dict/words and I've been having fun grepping through it. It has five words with at least five vowels in a row: Aeaean, cadiueio, Chaouia, euouae, and Guauaenok. Aeaean of course refers to the island of Aeaea, Chaouia is a language, and euouae is a mnemonic for the vowels in part of a hymn, so I don't think it counts. Guauaenok appears to have an entry only in the Croatian Wikipedia, but it's safe to say it's either an ethnic group or a place. Cadiueio gets a lot of Google hits, but I can't find any that tell me what it is. What does cadiueio mean? —Keenan Pepper 06:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a tricky one. It looks Greek or Portuguese in origin, though. -- the GREAT Gavini 09:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Almost all hits are of pages filled with a random selection of words from /usr/share/dict/words. The rest is postings from people who have grepped for five consecutive vowels and are now wondering what the word means. I think it may be misspelling, perhaps of "caduceo".  --Lambiam^Talk 11:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A much better word with five vowels in a row is queueing. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a copyright trap. PsyMar (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

198.54.202.254 13:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)very recently i asked two questions. Being very novice I did not bookmark. Forgive me pleae and can you help?[reply]

The questions were: 1) Why do the English and Spaniards pronouce the "th" the way they do? 2) I learned in 1958 (makes me old..) a sonnet entitled "What is life" I rememeber the beginning... " iasked a man whose cheerfulness of mean, bespoke him well in the stream". What makes the seacrh impossible is that the author is Anonymous!

Again, very, very sorry. I will understand if you do not answer

Thanks a million.

L.J.Wessel van Leeuwen

I assume the phrase is "cheefulness of mien" as the other is mieningless, but googling either I came up empty. alteripse 14:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Number two doesn't seem to be a question, but as for 1), "th" in English is pronounced in that way because since thorn and eth disappeared under Norman rule, a replacement was sought, and "th" replaced the two letters. In Spanish, "th" is pronounced as "t" because "h" is silent and thus does not alter the sound (but "ch" is different). -- the GREAT Gavini 15:33, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just ask (goo books) : "The Book of Private Devotion: A Series of Prayers and Meditations By Hannah More" -- DLL ^{.. T} 17:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish th isn't like t because h is silent in Spanish. It's because the dialects that even have a voiceless dental fricative spell it with c and z. It seems intuitive to English speakers that th would have the sound value that it does, but it's pretty roundabout. See, when the Romans borrowed greek words, θ represented an aspirated /t/, which sounded to them like a t preceding an h. Later on, Greek changed and theta represented a voiceless dental fricative and so th was used for this sound in Germanic languages. See here for more info. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the user's presumed question about the origins of dental fricatives (English "th" sounds) in Spanish and English, they are unrelated. In English both the voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives were originally unvoiced (like the "th" in "think"). This was the original Germanic sound for what had been a dental stop "t" in Indo-European (English "three", Latin "tres"; English "thin", Latin "tenuis"). In this, English is more conservative than most other Germanic languages. Icelandic is the only other that preserves this sound.

As for Spanish, the voiced dental fricative is merely a variant (intervocalic and postvocalic) allophone of the voiced dental stop "d". The Spanish unvoiced dental fricative, which occurs only in some dialects, evolved from a dental-alveolar affricate (voiced or unvoiced depending on position), which in turn evolved from a palatalized Latin unvoiced velar stop "c" (pronounced like "k" in English). This Indo-European stop became a voiceless velar fricative in early Germanic, and later a voiceless glottal fricative. This is how Spanish "cien" is cognate with English "hundred". Marco polo 23:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you certain that both the voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives originally were unvoiced? In Scandinavian, initial unvoiced th has turned to t, and initial voiced th to d, so it doesn't seem to be a purely English thing... 惑乱 分からん 02:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where does this saying come from?205.188.116.134 14:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From et alii in Latin, it means "and others". Adam Bishop 14:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry again.... I am looking for the Sonnet itself. It definitely was cheerfulness of MEAN. We had to learn all about it for the M.U.L.O exam in 1958. The school no longer exists... I tried Google etc but no luck. The title was "What is Life", author Anonymous... Thank you for your time. Much appreciated.

Wessel

From an old edition of Hannah More Private Devotions , the poem is called What Is Life , and the verse you remember is :

I asked a youth , whose cheerfulness of mien

Bespoke him happy in this active scene

He told me 'twas a poets golden dream

And leaving me , rushed forward with the stream .

there are 4 other sections to the poem , all definitions of life from the point of view of others in different circumstances . There is also a matching poem , What is Time .

In the Joey Chestnut article, it states that Mr. Chestnut "trained for the 2006 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest by eating 40 HDBs in one sitting twice a week." - What is an HDB here? I'm guessing not one of these. --Dangherous 16:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hot Dog in Bread, possibly... 惑乱 分からん 17:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking Hot Dog something. Hot dog burger? --Dangherous 17:26, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is in the same article: "He set the American hot dog eating record on July 4, 2006 by eating an astounding 52 HDBs (hot dogs and buns)".  --Lambiam^Talk 18:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! Of course! *slaps forehead* -- the GREAT Gavini 18:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]