Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 December 16

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 16

Help with Japanese needed - image description

Hi! At ja:NARUTO -ナルト- 疾風伝, a description in Japanese is needed for File:Viz Media HQ marquee.JPG - The file is of a marquee promoting Naruto Shippuden at the Viz Media corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California WhisperToMe (talk) 01:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

[[ビズメディア]]サンフランシスコ本社に掲げられたNARUTO -ナルト- 疾風伝の看板 Oda Mari (talk) 05:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Oda Mari! WhisperToMe (talk) 19:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, how would you say "Watch it on Disney XD" in Japanese? (Disney XD is a television channel)

WhisperToMe (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Literal translation is [[ディズニーXD]]でご覧ください. But thinking about promotional phrases often used in Japan, "ディズニーXDで放送中" might be possible translation. It means "Now on air on Disney XD". Oda Mari (talk) 06:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I'll use the latter translation WhisperToMe (talk) 22:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Spanish translation help

For wholly unprofitable reasons, I'm translating a collection of Zen koans into Spanish. One of them concerns a master making a "feast in the joss house", a metaphor with the same basic significance as "casting pearls before swine". Joss statues are surrounded in incense, but they smell nothing. In the same way, the master's wisdom is wasted on those pharisaical Buddhists who cling to superstitious ancestor worship and lack true understanding. The trouble is, I can't find a tidy translation of "joss house". I've encountered only one previous translation into Spanish of this koan. The translator uses "casa de incienso", a satisfactory circumlocution, since the metaphor hinges on the futility of the incense. However, purely out of linguistic curiosity, I still seek a direct Spanish translation of "joss house" or simply "joss". (A word with an Iberian pedigree, I believe.) Though the term might be obscure and restricted to sinology or anthropology, I would still like to know it. Might I even get away with "casa de joss" or something? Any suggestions would be welcome. LANTZY^TALK 07:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Joss house indicates that it's a small temple or shrine, so maybe that will lead somewhere. Although I must say that unless you happen to know what a joss house is, it doesn't make sense in English, either. I also question the "pearls before swine" comparison, but that's a separate issue. Seems to me there's a more direct metaphor, about doing something for the "benefit" of those who have no capability of using it, but I can't think of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

As Bugs said, "joss house" is not a usual English term. Could you give us the term in the original language? Perhaps someone here can give you a more apt English translation that you can then convert into Spanish.

The page Joss house is confusing. For one thing, it opens with the word "Shenist", which seems to be a neologism composed of the Chinese shen, or gods and spirits, and "-ism". It is not a common English word and does not make much sense taking into account the alleged Chinese meaning either. I can only guess, etymologically speaking, a parallel with theist.

In any case, "joss house" seems to be just a rare, local colloquial translation of the Chinese character 庙, which simply means "temple" in common, every-day English. If you could give us the original Chinese or Japanese for your koan, someone here will be able to confirm whether it is better translated as "temple". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Complicating matters is that "joss" is apparently a corruption of Latin-based words for God, such as deus. That would be Casa de Dios in Spanish, but that doesn't really capture the point of the original slogan - which I'm still confused about where you're seeing equating statues with superstitions - although that might be somehow obvious from the slogan in its original form, in which case translating it without adding a paragraph of explanation could prove challenging. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:10, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

On your point about incense - the translation of joss in "joss house" as incense is incorrect, at least according to the explanation given in our article about joss house - using "joss" to mean incense is a secondary borrowing. "Joss house", as "place of worship", came first, and "joss stick", as a name for the incense burned at / before such palce of worship, derives from joss house. Thus, deus -> joss -> joss house -> incense burnt at joss house -> joss sticks (incense).

I'm leaning towards the view that "joss house" here should be translated simply as "temple", unless the original Chinese or Japanese (or whatever) text suggests otherwise. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Searching Google Books in Spanish is pretty fruitful. It turns up some old dictionaries which translate joss-house as "templo para ídolos chinos". This book seems to use the spellings Joss and Yos. You may want to have a look at the other results as well. Lesgles (talk) 09:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I was thinking that yos might be hit upon as a transliteration. Presumably it's an import from English, rather than from Portuguese. LANTZY^TALK 09:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Huh, I thought "joss" was relatively well-known in English. Evidently not. In light of that, it's a bit surprising that the original book, The Iron Flute by Nyogen Senzaki, used the term in preference to something like "idol house" or whatever.

As noted above, "idol house" might convey the meaning better. As far as "joss" is concerned, the only one I had ever heard of was Addie Joss, but I doubt there's any connection. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Joss (or joss sticks) meaning incense is quite well known, but "joss house" certainly isn't (except, it seems, in certain contexts like Macau or the wild wild West).

"Temple of idols", from the Spanish quoted above, seems more natural than "idol house", and conveys the necessary meanings of 1) a temple, and 2) the presence of idols, which I think is crucial to the meaning of the koan you quote. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Googling "bad joss" gets 15,000 hits. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd never heard of a "joss house" until I went to Australia - one is a tourist attraction in Bendigo in Victoria[1]. Alansplodge (talk) 09:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I have never heard of "bad joss". What does it mean and what dialect of English does it come from? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hell's Kitchen

While reading about this programme I noted in the second paragraph the term "...presently running" is used. Please not that the word "presently" refers to "soon." The actual expression should be "...currently running."

David J. Cottrell, M.Ed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.8.225.53 (talk) 14:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Presently can mean "soon" or "now."[2] That said, I don't see any reason not to make your suggested change. In the future, please feel free to make corrections wherever you see fit. --Onorem♠Dil 14:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, presently means "now" but it is used as a euphemism for "soon" in some cultures, therefore the change is beneficial. Dbfirs 21:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It used to be used that way in America also, but it seems to have fallen out of fashion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

No. "Presently" with a future verb means "soon" in the UK, but with a present continuous (or participle) it cannot have that meaning, so the original phrase is not ambiguous. --ColinFine (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

This is what I was specifically thinking of: A Rodgers and Hart number from the Crosby/Fields film Mississippi, whose signature number is "Soon", and which contains this lyric: "For presently and pleasantly our hearts will be in tune / So soon, maybe not tomorrow, but soon." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

"Presently", "momentarily" and a bunch of other words with disputed meanings are discussed here. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I hadn't realised that the meiotic usage (popularised by Shakespeare) has taken over to such an extent that some believe the original meaning to be wrong! The following is an extract from the Yorkshire Post of 1902: "A lady..in the South of England married a man who was born on Tyneside, and I have noticed that they used the common word ‘presently’ in exactly opposite senses. Neither of them was in any doubt as to the meaning of the word, but he said ‘presently’ when he meant ‘now, at once, immediately’...". Dbfirs 08:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Unclear Hanzi on a 19th century Chinese hell scroll

A while ago, I uploaded a picture from a 19th century Chinese hell scroll showing a headless Yue Fei accusing the recently deceased Qin Hui. I cannot make out all of the characters on the plaque the attendant is holding off to the left. I know the first two say Qin Hui (秦檜), the third is shi （十), but I'm lost after that. The fourth character looks like it could be yao (要). --Ghostexorcist (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It is 秦檜十悪罪状 and it means Qin Hui's ten bad crimes. Oda Mari (talk) 05:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Passé simple

Why do they call it that? It's a lot less simple than the passé composé. --75.28.52.27 (talk) 23:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the articles, Passé simple means "simple past" and Passé composé means "compound past". It appears that the "simple" form uses only the verb by itself, whereas the "compound" form connects with an auxiliary verb. That would seem to be the explanation. Perhaps a Frenchy could elaborate here. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Simple doesn't necessarily mean "easy". The preterite is simpler in the sense that it uses one verb instead of two. LANTZY^TALK 00:09, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The passé composé always involves an irregular verb! —Tamfang (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

In this case the meaning of simple is the same in French and in English. From the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: "(of a verb tense) consisting of a main verb with no auxiliaries, as takes (simple present) or stood (simple past) (opposed to compound)." — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on Simple past (English). In Romanian too it is called "simple perfect", in Italian it is called "remote past". For a limited overview, see also the article on preterite (a term for this kind of tense used in several languages). ---Sluzzelin talk 09:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

What they all said: "simple" doesn't mean it's easier for us to use, it means it uses a single wordform instead of an auxiliary verb plus a participale (which the passe compose does). rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup. It would be more accurate to call them passé synthétique and passé analytique (or périphrastique), but those aren't the usual terms. —Angr (talk) 10:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Compare with the musical terms simple time and compound time, which makes the same contrast between simple and compound. 86.163.0.221 (talk) 22:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)