Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 March 15

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March 15

Translation from Arabic:

وليس من الواضح ما إن كان هناك -في أي وقت مضى- صنف البلح

185.3.144.51 (talk) 12:26, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Arabic is not my mother-tongue, neither English. But, as I can translate the sentence, it could be something like this: "It is not clear if there was [dash!] at any past time [dash!]; The time class". The last (uncertain?) two words, «صنف البلح», mean: (a) kind of time/ date or (a) time class. Hamid Hassani (talk) 16:41, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The word بلح means a date of palm tree. HOTmag (talk) 18:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

So, is بلح an equivalent for نخلة التمر, as the Arabic WP says? Hamid Hassani (talk) 18:55, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

No, نخلة التمر is the palm tree, whereas بلح is the fruit of that tree, i.e. it's the date. HOTmag (talk) 19:04, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Ok, got it. Thank you. Hamid Hassani (talk) 06:17, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Ypsychwipsy?

Detail of German-language child's alphabet toy.

My wife bought this German-language child's alphabet toy at a thrift store. Most of the words used are obvious or Googleable but this one has stumped the machine. What does "Ypsychwipsy" mean? D Monack (talk) 14:25, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

No real meaning...it "toys" with the different pronunciations of "Y" and "i" in German, which can be pronounced differently or quite alike, depending on circumstances. Lectonar (talk) 14:27, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

So how would it be pronounced ? Yipsy-chipsy ? StuRat (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The first two Y's would be pronounced like German short ü (near-close near-front rounded vowel), the "ch" like the German ich-Laut (voiceless palatal fricative), the "w" like English "v", and the final "y" like the "y" in English "happy". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:19, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

üpsüch-vipsy? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:57, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The German Y is called Ypsilon (as in the Greek Upsilon), which is I think where the first few letters come from. There aren't really any other German words starting with Y, which is why they went for nonsense (the only suitable (i.e., probably known by a five year old) word for a children's toy I could find in Duden was Yak, and if you wanted to stretch the meaning of "suitable", Yeti, Yoga, Yorkshireterrier and Yucca. Less suitable ones include Yakuza, Yoni and Yuppie). Smurrayinchester 16:32, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

It is of note that all these have initial pre-vocalic Y's that represent the consonant usually represented with the letter J in German, while in the poster's example, the first Y is apparently meant to represent the short vowel usually represented with Ü, like the initial and pre-consonantal Y in Ypsilon does, and like the inter-consonantal Y in Hymne does.

My German is weak, but could it have been meant to consist of two rhyming parts Ypsy-chwipsy /ʏpsi-xvɪpsi/? Note that /ʏ/ and /ɪ/ (as well as /yː/ and /iː/) are considered to rhyme in German poetry, and note also that while German has no words beginning with chw-, the German Wikipedia does have some articles on German and Austrian people surnamed Chwalek, Chwalla and Chwatal (these surnames originate from Czech or from some other Slavic language). --Theurgist (talk) 23:26, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

After giving this some more thought, and speaking it aloud many times (much to the dismay of my colleagues in the office), I think the creator of this word was no German. The word as printed is very awkward to pronounce, whereas "Ypsyschwipsy" with the additional "s" sounds much more smoothly, and would be spoken like "üpsischwipsi" (notice the "ü" at the begining for the pronounciation of the "y", and the "i" at the end for pronounciation of the "y", which goes back to my original statement...). Moreover, Schw...is very common in German. Lectonar (talk) 13:03, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Google finds an "Ypsischwipsi" here. I assume it is a joke name starting with Y and whose pronunciation starts with something that sounds like "ypsilon", unlike the Y in the standard example Yvonne. —Kusma (t·c) 13:14, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

And of course we have Yps (comics)...ah, sweet youth. Lectonar (talk) 13:25, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Glad-eyed

In Susan Townsend's Adrian Mole books, Adrian writes that everyone in his class sings Gladly my cross I'd bear as Crossley, my glad-eyed bear because Mr. Crossley is glad-eyed. What does "glad-eyed" mean? JIP | Talk 18:09, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I think it means their eyes look like they are glad. That is, they are happy. (Not sure why their eyes would show that versus, say, their smile.) StuRat (talk) 18:19, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

And not to be confused with "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:29, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

A famous mondegreen, but JIP's version takes it further, into spoonerism territory. Is that a "greenspoon monderism"?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:24, 15 March 2016 (UTC)-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:24, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

AFAICR such a Mr. Crossley really exists in the context of the books, so Adrian isn't making all this up. But it might be that Townsend invented the character of Crossley just to get Adrian to mention this mondegreen-spoonerism hybrid. JIP | Talk 23:39, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I think it's a reference to a fact I heard on QI recently, that smiling is more sincere when done with the eyes, as it is involuntary. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 00:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The term "glad-eye" is rather old-fashioned UK slang, meaning "to look seductively at". The American phrase "give someone the eye" is analogous. There was a comedy film The Glad Eye made in 1920, which gives an idea of the phrase's antiquity. Tevildo (talk) 08:52, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Tevildo has it. Nothing to do with eyes making him look glad, it's that Crossley appears to look seductively at some of his pupils. DuncanHill (talk) 13:57, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

In that case, he should be arrested. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 14:09, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

If he taught a Lamaze class, I wonder if his pupils would be fully dilated. StuRat (talk) 16:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be something of a conceit on the part of Townsend, as User:JIP suggests above, since the "Gladly the cross-eyed bear" joke is much better known than the hymn it parodies, which has sunk into obscurity. The hymn in question is called "Keep Thou My Way" and was written by one Fanny Crosby, who also wrote patriotic songs during the American Civil War. The last verse of the hymn, goes: "Keep Thou my all, O Lord, Hide my life in Thine; / O let Thy sacred light O'er my pathway shine; / Kept by Thy tender care, Gladly the cross I'll bear / Hear Thou and grant my pray'r, Hide my life in Thine." According to this forum, it was sometimes reproduced as "Gladly the cross I'd bear" which would make the joke better. The likelyhood of 1970s British schoolchildren knowing several verses of an American hymn that doesn't appear in any modern hymn book, much less knowing the tune for it, seems infinitely improbable. Alansplodge (talk) 00:12, 17 March 2016 (UTC)