Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 March 3

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March 3

can something be unlistenable?

I would think that something couldn't be unlistenable, it could only be unlistenable to. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 07:20, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Verbs converted to other parts of speech don't always drag along their full "valence"... AnonMoos (talk) 07:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

As a term it tends to be found in discussions of popular music, where language is not always at its most formal. But quality newpapers use "unlistenable" without "to", e.g. New York Times, London Telegraph. "-able" attached to a verb as a suffix often does not have the literal meaning "unable to do X" (see also "unreasonable", "unthinkable") so it can't be substituted for the verb in a straighforward way. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

"E" and "I" confusion

I speak English with a southern British accent and my real name contains the letter "E". Whenever I have to spell out my name, many people write "I" when I have said "E". Why is this? Astronaut (talk) 11:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Where exactly? I have a very neutral southern British accent and I've only had that problem when I've spoken to a Frenchman. In French eee is "I", rather than "E".  Omg †  osh  12:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Whenever I have to spell my name in French, it always comes out as "Peshep"... Adam Bishop (talk) 13:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe your pronunciation of the E (or the listener's impression of it) is affected in some way by the previous letter - what is that? Does the I give a plausible spelling of the name, or of something similar? AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Many english vowels are "reduced" in unstressed syllables, which can make it quite hard to distinguish among them. See Vowel reduction and Vowel reduction in English. This sort of reduction of vowels can vary greatly between accents and dialects, so without knowing either your specific dialect, or your actual name, it would be hard to directly analyze what is going on in this one case, except to note that it does happen a lot. --Jayron32 13:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe "whenever..." is an exaggeration.It never used to happen at all, but it has become a common enough occurrence now, that I watch carefully to see what they have written down and correct them if necessary. Often though, it is over the telephone. Only later do I find out they have written it down wrong, for example when the promised email doesn't arrive.I suppose it is possible they are not native speakers of English, but I would imagine that they would have quickly realised this potential problem. @Adam: Yes I know about French. When I lived in France, I had to learn to spell my name in French, so they at least had a chance to write it down correctly. Astronaut (talk) 13:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

See Spelling alphabet.—Wavelength (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I sympathise but have a different problem - when I say A people think I said I and the other way round. Apparently it's my Black Country accent. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm Australian. Americans do not understand the "o" sound in my name or the letter sound when I spell it. That confusion also makes it difficult to order a Coke. HiLo48 (talk) 21:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be an Aussie tendency to pronounce "o" as if it were spelled "er". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:41, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

And a more recent one that pronounces "o" like "eye" or "oy". When some people say "phone home", to me they sound exactly like they're saying "fine hime", and "I know" can sound like "I noy". There's a strong tendency among certain people to remain smiling at all times, with the lips spread permanently wide, even when saying the "o" sound, which is actually impossible. There's a lot that could be written about the Australian "o", because it's been in a state of flux for many decades and has yet to arrive at any sort of settled destination. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 06:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That might actually be what I'm hearing, combined with the British and Aussie (and American northeast) tendency to add a trailing "r" where there isn't one. So "no" might be "nire" or "noyr" something like that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Among us midwesterners, at least, there was a joke about JFK during the missile crisis, "quoting" him as saying, "We must get the Russians out of Cuber, with viguh!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Kukley, Milhey and Nizilon

These are the names of the three Martyrs of Vilnius (they took Anthony, John and Eustace as their Christian names). They are also identified as Kumets, Nezhilo and Kruglets. My question is: are Kukley, Nizilon and Milhey old Lithuanian given names? and, are Kumets, Nezhilo and Kruglets the Russian variants? Thanks. --Kenatipo ^speak! 21:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The Polish article refers to them as Kumec, Nieżyło, and Kruglec. The other set of names doesn't seem Lithuanian, they look like weird (who's Milhey?) anglicized versions of the Slavic names to me. Also, the three were sent to Vilnius from (probably) Moscow, so we don't even know if they were Lithuanian... 109.97.144.95 (talk) 14:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it's weird. I went to the Lithuanian wiki and searched for the names and got nothing. What I'm really interested in knowing is if they were Lithuanian. One source says they were fire-worshipping Lithuanian nobles in the court of Grand Duke Algirdas--he wouldn't be executing Russians, would he? The weird names come from saintpatrickdc.org which sources to (Benedictines, Coulson, Encyclopedia, Husenbeth). Milhey was John's given name according to stpatrickdc. --Kenatipo ^speak! 16:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess we'll have to wait for a Lithuanian person or some sort of expert to sort this one out... 109.97.144.95 (talk) 20:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

From the historical point of view, it seems unlikely that they were Slavic. Christianity was well established in Northwestern Rus by the time it came under the Lithuanian rule. Primary sources describe the martyrs as "fire worshippers, like others of their kin", a strong indication that they were ethnic Lithuanians.

However, they were converted into Eastern Orthodox Christianity and canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, and most narratives documenting this story are Slavic.

Based on what I could find so far, the most logical conclusion to me is that either these names are made up, or that "Kumets, Nezhilo and Kruglets" are "slavifications" of their real Lithuanian names.

I can't tell where "Kukley and Milhey" came from originally. They could be attempts to de-slavificate the names. They are present, as "Kuklej and Michlej", in "Dzieje starozytne narodu litewskiego" by Teodor Narbutt (1835-1841), and he may have gotten them from the works of Albert Wijuk Kojałowicz.--Itinerant1 (talk) 21:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

There exist several versions of their hagiography and only one of the Greek originals is saved, all the others are in Church Slavonic. So even they could be ethnic Lithuanians, their names from the Slavic sources - Кумец, Нежило, Круглец - seem to be Slavic. Kruglets is from the root of krugly "round, stout" + a diminutive suffix -ets. Kumets is from kum "godfather", which can also mean "a friend or a relative" + -ets. Nezhilo is from the root of nezhny "tender, gentle" as well as nezhit' "an evil spirit", -ilo is a common diminutive suffix. Their names can sound strange for us, but in those old times these folk nicknames were very common, even more common than Christian "official" names. The great bulk of Slavic (at least Russian) surnames derived from nicknames.
As for Kukley, Milhey Mikhley and Nizilon they are just variants, first two are written in Russian as Куклей, Миклей/Михлей. They look more strange for me though Kukley can derive from kukol which means both "a hood" and "agrostemma". Nizilon is most probably a hellenization/grecization of Nezhilo. Mikley/Mikhley looks like a diminutive of Mikhail (his another Christian name?). I suppose these variants came from some Greek text.--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 22:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all for your responses—they are helpful and informative. --Kenatipo ^speak! 23:18, 5 March 2012 (UTC)