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January 28

February 2

Spanish newspaper article title - translation request

In a Wikipedia article that I am writing about the Geology of the Canary Islands, I mention the existence of old stone quarries. I have cited a Spanish newspaper article (https://diariodeavisos.elespanol.com/2017/09/museo-quedarse-piedra/ ) which confirms the existence of such quarries on the Canary Islands. I am not fluent in Spanish, so I used Google Translate to give me an English translation of the Spanish newspaper article, which has the Spanish title "Un museo para quedarse de piedra". Google Translate translates this into English as "A museum to be stunned by". I am surprised by Google's translation because I would expect the word "stone" (from "piedra") to be somewhere in the English translation. Therefore, I doubt the accuracy of the translation. What is an accurate/correct English translation of "Un museo para quedarse de piedra"? GeoWriter (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I typed it into Google Translate, which for some reason defaulted the source language to 'German', and gave the translation 'A museum for the treasures of the piedra'. Selecting Portuguese (Portugal) gave 'A museum to remain made of stone'. The translation from Spanish matched yours.

Playing about with the words 'quedarse de piedra', it looks as if that phrase means literally 'turns to stone', but figuratively 'stunning'. Sounds llike a clever title for an article about a museum of stone working. But I do not know Spanish. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 19:18, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A pun-preserving free translation: "A museum that will rock you". ‑‑Lambiam 06:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered if you could do some passable pun with stun and stone, "A museum to be stoned by" doesn't exactly carry the right connotations... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:15, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

de piedra

shocked; frozen; stock-still

Pity that "stone" and "stunned" are not related so that you can preserve the pun. Lambiam's idea is not bad. The original is hyperbolic to force the pun in. The museum will not stun or shock visitors. Preserving the hyperbole without the pun will sound strange.

--Error (talk) 16:19, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Coming up with this sort of translation that preserves the intent of an original double-entendre is an interesting exercise. But I think it's a bad idea to do it in a Wikipedia article.

I don't know why it should be necessary to translate the title of a newspaper article, but if it really is, then please just give a literal translation, possibly with an explanation of the pun. --Trovatore (talk) 19:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a usable translation would be "An astonishing museum" (although, etymologically, astonishing is probably unrelated to stone). Deor (talk) 20:51, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But best not to call it "petrifyingly good". -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 21:00, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, not sure if y'all are being serious, but my point is that Wikipedia articles should not strain to use clever translations. If it is really necessary to translate the title, I would go with "a museum to turn one to stone", and then explain the idiom in an explanatory footnote (or possibly even inline).

However it's not clear to me that GeoWriter intended to translate the article title in the Wikipedia article. GeoWriter, care to comment? I'm having trouble imagining a good reason to do that. --Trovatore (talk) 21:05, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I looked up geology of the Canary Islands and found that the translation had been added inside the footnote. My opinion is that this is unnecessary. I think the standard is to leave the titles of foreign sources untranslated in the footnote. I could be wrong but I think that's what I've seen. I don't have a handy MOS link for this but it probably exists somewhere. --Trovatore (talk) 21:15, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can't recall whether the MOS has anything, but {{cite news}} has a |trans-title= parameter for "English translation of the title if the source cited is in a foreign language". Deor (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies. I wanted to include English translations of Spanish source reference citation titles because I think it is helpful to readers who do not speak Spanish, to give them a quick indication of what the source is. I've done this with some sources which translate easily e.g. "Gobierno de Canarias [Government of the Canary Islands] (26 July 2023) "Energía renovable geotérmica" [Geothermal renewable energy]". It seems, however, that the Spanish text "Un museo para quedarse de piedra" is too non-literal/idiomatic/humorous/witty/double entendre/pun-intended to risk an English translation for this source. Therefore, I'll remove the English translation from the source reference citation and let readers do their own English translation. GeoWriter (talk) 21:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

February 4

Is there a name for the style of writing that creates clickbait?

Every day now my Internet feed contains several articles written in such a way that the gist of the article is not revealed until many paragraphs in. The purpose is obvious. It's so I will have to scroll past a multitude of ads or links to other clickbait articles to get to the useful content.

An example this morning had a link saying "a prominent radio personality has opened up about a frightening medical diagnosis". It took me here, where the actual news is in the fifth paragraph, past lots of ads and other links.

I reckon it must take a fair bit of skill for a writer to so routinely structure an article that way. Has anyone heard of a name for such a writing style? HiLo48 (talk) 02:38, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't, but might suggest 'inverse pyramid'.

In journalism, a 'filler' piece is (or was) often written 'pyramid-style', with the most basic facts in the first para, and successive paras adding more elaborations: this enables the sub-editor to trim its length as necessary to fit the page (depending on what else had to go on it) by simply removing the last (or last and penultimate, etc.) para(s) without losing anything essential.

Conversely, when writing a 'letter to the editor', I have on occasion deliberately structured it to be very difficult to shorten, so as not to lose information I wanted to appear that the letters sub might have otherwise removed. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.7.205.116 (talk) 03:57, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the news-writing style that 94.7 describes—effectively the opposite of what HiLo asked about—is itself called the inverted pyramid style. --142.112.149.206 (talk) 06:19, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I stand (on my head) corrected, though I think I might have been taught my version back in the 1980's (in the UK), which would be a logical reference to the first (top) para being short and those following often successively longer.

In the article 142.112.149.206 links, the style the OP asks about is referred to as "burying the lede". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.7.205.116 (talk) 22:17, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Purple push? Or could someone else come up with a better pun? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a valid description of the material I'm speaking of, but doesn't quite catch the deliberate placing of the key content six or more paragraphs into the article. HiLo48 (talk) 23:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So it is the twice-inverted pyramid. (Why it is referred to as a "pyramid", regardless of its orientation, is a mystery to me; one might as well call it a column:

The Essentials

––––––––––––––

Relevant Details

––––––––––––––

Irrelevant Stuff

) ‑‑Lambiam 07:34, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the mysterious lore of language. My favourite silly saying is "back to back" when referring to consecutive wins by a player or team. One win follows the other, and presumably both are proceeding in the same direction, ie. towards even greater success. So, metaphorically, the front of the new win is facing the back of the old one. "Back to front" wins would be the logical way to express it, but that really won't do because of its connotations of confusion and error. Trouble is, "back to back" is even more inappropriate. Yet, here we are. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:03, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Then three in a row is sometimes expressed as "back to back to back". I don't think I'd ever thought through the geometry of that before. --Trovatore (talk) 22:19, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Three Graces, back to back to back. ‑‑Lambiam 07:45, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Three in a row has become a "threepeat" here in Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 22:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also common Stateside. Not sure where it originated but I would have guessed it was here. Possibly in the LA Lakers' run in the Kobe–Shaq era? --Trovatore (talk) 05:58, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to our three-peat article, it was indeed the Lakers, but I was wrong about the era — it was the earlier Magic Johnson era ("Showtime"). --Trovatore (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What annoys me is those interesting-looking stories you are invited to click on. You follow through maybe thirty frames, then at the end you see this: "The events in this story, which was made up for your entertainment, are fictitious". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23D0:455:3D01:E57A:D4F1:1D20:37C7 (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The articles are almost all written by AI bots. They copy from each other and Wikipedia to fill in two paragraphs, an ad, two paragraphs, an ad, two paragraphs, an ad... The loading of the ads tells the engine how far down the user scrolled. That is used to train the AI to generate articles that lead to more ads being loaded. It isn't in any way about delivering information. A human takes one sentence like "President Trump had hamburgers for lunch." and a headline "You won't believe what Trump had for lunch!" and the AI bot fills in the rest to optimize the advertising revenue. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Heuser German-American pronunciation

how would the Americanized pronunciation of the German name "Heuser" sound? I assume something like /ˈhɔɪzə(ɹ)/ ―Howard • 🌽³³ 09:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That might technically be correct, but the Anheuser Busch company pronounces their name "ANN-hizer". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:16, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On YouTube I find uses of each of /hjuzɚ/ (HUE-ser),^[1] /ˈhaɪzɚ/ (HIGH-ser)^[2] and /ˈhɔɪzɚ)/ (HOY-ser).^[3] ‑‑Lambiam 07:20, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the evidence points towards "HIGH-ser" being the American pronunciation considering Anheuser-Busch and the second video and the fact that the two other videos are from a Pakistan-based company. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 07:53, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only it's a "z" sound, not an "s" sound. As per the second link. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:05, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I put the wrong link for HOY-ser; it should have been https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmPXvtQ16uE, which is about a Colorado-based law firm whose founders are the Colorado natives and brothers Barkley D. Heuser and Gordon J. Heuser. ‑‑Lambiam 21:33, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

February 5

Use of pronouns like adjectives

Personal pronouns are sometimes used to describe nouns in a way similar to how adjectives do. Consider the following examples.

We Three Kings
”Are we keeping you people from your supper?” (from Nadine Gordimer’s 1956 story Which New Era Would That Be?)
Some Heartbroken Game Over screens in Yandere Simulator involve the player character being called a creep or monster, with such nouns being directly preceded by “you.”
I’m not sure if the title I, Robot fully counts as an example.

What rules, if any, exist for which pronouns can/can’t be used like this and when? Primal Groudon (talk) 02:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that might be determiners rather than adjectives. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:52, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is how Wiktionary classifies this use, giving these examples:

Have you gentlemen come to see the lady who fell backwards off a bus?
You idiot!

Wiktionary also recognizes we as a determiner:

We Canadians like to think of ourselves as different.
We the undersigned wish to express our disapproval.

There is also the nonstandard use of them as a determiner:

Gimme two of them yellow ones.

‑‑Lambiam 06:34, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, I would have thought these were considered subjects with appositives. Nardog (talk) 07:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note that while apposition can generally be applied to third-person subjects, this is problematic when the subject is a pronoun. Take these sentences, which are just fine:

An Arizona man lost his miniature pinscher in Oklahoma eight years ago. On Jan. 15, he received calls and texts saying his dog Damian had been found.^[4]

Dog owner Paul Guilbeault lost his miniature pinscher in Oklahoma eight years ago. On Jan. 15, he received calls and texts saying his dog had been found.

These variations are less acceptable:

^✶Today, an Arizona man is happy. He Paul Guilbeault lost his miniature pinscher in Oklahoma eight years ago. On Jan. 15, he received calls and texts saying his dog had been found.

^✶Paul Guilbeault lost his miniature pinscher in Oklahoma eight years ago. On Jan. 15, Mr. Guilbeault received calls and texts saying he Damian had been found.

‑‑Lambiam 19:28, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with them? They're perfectly fine to me as long as they're interpreted as nonrestrictive (which in orthography is typically represented by commas). Nardog (talk) 09:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As a card-carrying member of the punctuation police, I find a lack of commas to offset nonrestrictive appositions objectionable. But while I have no problem with a commaless "Can I get you folks some drinks?", I must object to "Can I get you, folks, some drinks?" So this is a different phenomenon. ‑‑Lambiam 16:19, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no punctuation in speech. What indicates it's a different phenomenon aside from writing? Nardog (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The presence or absence of an audible pause. In normal speech there is no pause after the pronouns in "we Canadians" or "you gentlemen", and a pause is not needed before the appositions in "his dog Damian" and "dog owner Paul Guilbeault". But, at least to me, "he Paul Guilbeault" and "he Damian" would sound strange and even incomprehensible in the sentences above unless the appositions are set off with pauses. ‑‑Lambiam 07:38, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"We Three Kings" is not an example of what you're talking about if you're referring to the Christmas song. There it's simply anastrophe, where "We three kings of Orient are" is a poetic rearrangement of "We are three kings of Orient", in part so that it will rhyme with the following line. Deor (talk) 03:31, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nicely explained. I was in college before I found out that, yes, there is a comma after the fourth word (not the third) in "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", and it's supposed to be there, and if you don't put it there you're misinterpreting it. Also, it's incorrect to put "Ye" in place of "You", because it's the object of "Rest" and therefore takes the objective case. --Trovatore (talk) 03:42, 5 February 2025 (UTC) [reply]

I recall a cartoon caption in A Certain Magazine which punctuated it "God! Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen!" The picture depicted several men, in evening dress and their cups, and an over-exerted, err, hostess. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.7.205.116 (talk) 03:51, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nice zeugma. Yes, I had to look it up. Someday I'll get used to ChatGPT or what may come thereafter. --Trovatore (talk) 05:52, 5 February 2025 (UTC) [reply]

Cyrillic alphabets

What Cyrillic alphabet has the most kinds of letter-sized shapes?

i.e. Slovak has 46 letters (45ish phonemes) but only 26 unique letter-sized shapes 27 in uppercase (Ch's the only uppercase letter with an h symbol but not the only one with a C glyph). If Slovak had Ç uppercase would have 28 cause the diacritic's part of the shape).

Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)
A	Á	Ä	B	C	Č	D	Ď	DZ	DŽ	E	É	F	G	H	Ch	I	Í	J	K	L	Ĺ	Ľ
M	N	Ň	O	Ó	Ô	P	Q	R	Ŕ	S	Š	T	Ť	U	Ú	V	W	X	Y	Ý	Z	Ž
Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a	á	ä	b	c	č	d	ď	dz	dž	e	é	f	g	h	ch	i	í	j	k	l	ĺ	ľ
m	n	ň	o	ó	ô	p	q	r	ŕ	s	š	t	ť	u	ú	v	w	x	y	ý	z	ž

Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:48, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Cyrillic alphabets and List of Cyrillic letters.

By the way, it's not exactly that the uppercase 'Ch' has 'h'. That glyph can be capitalized as well: for example the word for 'bread' is spelled CHLIEB in uppercase, Chlieb in titlecase, and chlieb in lowercase. Same with the other two digraphs, dz and dž. --Theurgist (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Slovak alphabet is not a Cyrillic alphabet but a Latin-script alphabet. The two types are easy to distinguish. If you see an R, the alphabet is of the Latin type. If you see a Я, the alphabet is of the Cyrillic type (except in

and faux Cyrillic as in TETЯIS). Another give-away pair is N versus И. Alphabets of either type are used for writing Slavic and non-Slavic languages. ‑‑Lambiam 06:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I knew it's Latin they look very different. I put Slovak cause it's the highest on maps that color European countries by letter count but only used diacritics+multigraphs to get to 46 while say Kazakh just added 9 letters to the alphabet they got the Cyrillic from (Russian) so they could write both languages' sounds. Though the longest Cyrillic alphabet I could find has so many phonemic distinctions they also have many multigraphs. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:33, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Early_Cyrillic alphabet has forty-something letters without considering diacritics, depending exactly how you count. --Amble (talk) 21:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

February 6

Which was between ВВС and BBC?

Which was the Cyrillic and Roman text?

Cyrillic

ВВС ➡️ VVS Which translates to English

Roman

BBC ➡️ Би-би-си Which translate to Russian language

Please reply here 2001:44C8:4446:6855:B0EE:C038:4F25:5742 (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, what do you mean? Arguably, Cyrillic lacks a direct counterpart to Roman C (which could be pronounced in a lot of different ways in most languages using it for historical reasons). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:18, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you're asking how to check if a character is Roman or Cyrillic, you can do so by copying and pasting the character into Wiktionary or a database like graphemica.com. --Theurgist (talk) 22:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or use the Wikipedia search box. В redirects to Ve (Cyrillic), while B sends the user to an article on the Latin letter. ‑‑Lambiam 07:19, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure exactly what the question is, but note that the Russian Wikepedia article for the BBC is called Би-би-си. Alansplodge (talk) 14:16, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I.e. "Bi-bi-si", apparently in Russia they chose to emulate the English pronunciation of the acronym, rather than transliterating the letters ББК / ББС or translating it as "Британская вещательная корпорация" (Britanskaya veshchatel'naya korporatsiya). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:59, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's like us saying "Kah Geh Beh" rather than "Kay Jee Bee". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:44, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Russified pronunciation of the initialism needs a Cyrillic rendering. We can map Cyrillic КГБ to Latin KGB, but there is no obvious way to map Latin BBC to Cyrillic. ББК for Бritish Бroadcasting Кorporation? ББС for British Broadcasting Sorporation? ВВС for Vritish Vroadcasting Sorporation? We would have the converse problem with many Russian initialisms: ВСХВ, ОБЖ, РПЦ. An English pronunciation spelling of the Russian initialism ЧК, pronounced /t͡ɕɪˈka/, is Cheka. However, Russians too use a pronunciation spelling, Чека.

For Би-би-си, I suspect the Russian pronunciation /bʲi.bʲiˈsʲi/ preceded the spelling. ‑‑Lambiam 13:11, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

February 7

Latin and/or Ancient Greek translation: "Let's Go Wild" or "Let's Go Minnesota Wild" (as in the Minnesota Wild hockey team)

I want to translate the chant heard at Minnesota Wild hockey games (many teams use similar chants) "Let's go Wild" basically meaning "Go team!"

For Ancient Greek it doesn't matter to me if it's Attic or Koine Greek, really any variety is fine.

Thanks! I have a reference question (talk) 19:02, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Let's go" in Latin appears to be abeamus or Eamus. That's akin to the Spanish vamos or vamonos. The Greek seems to be Πάμε (i.e. Páme). One of the neighbors of the Chicago Cubs' ballpark has a sign reading Eamus Catuli, which means "Go Cubs". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:19, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I once attended a Chicago Cubs game with a guy I worked with, who saw that banner and asked me what it meant. I said that it was clearly intended to mean "Let's go Cubs" but that it could easily be translated "Let's leave, puppies". (Catulus is a generic term for the young of any animal, but it was especially used of dogs.) Deor (talk) 19:29, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which begs the question, is catulus the same word as Catullus? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:39, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The etymology of Catullus is unknown. The Latin cognomen Catulus is most likely from the common noun, but it cannot be excluded on a priori grounds that it arose as a variant of Catullus. Both cognomina are rare. The two terms are not only distinguished orthographically, but also in their Latin pronunciations, the double ⟨ll⟩ being geminated. ‑‑Lambiam 09:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Πάμε is Modern Greek; moreover, its meaning is a factual "we are going" or "we'll go", not imperative or hortative. Like Latin eamus, Ancient Greek uses the subjunctive to express a hortative. For the verb go in the sense of moving to a destination, εἶμι (eîmĭ) is used, whose first-person plural subjunctive is ἴοιμεν (íoimen). ‑‑Lambiam 08:30, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wild is part of a proper noun. There is no obvious approach to translating the name "Minnesota Wild" into a Latin or Greek vocative noun. Straightforward transliteration of Wild is problematic for Latin and Greek because the plural sense is lost; pluralized transliterations would be be Latin Vildi and Ancient Greek Οὐίλδοι (Ouíldoi). Semantic translations would give Feroces and Ἄγριοι (Agrioi). All together, Eamus Feroces and Ἴοιμεν Ἄγριοι. ‑‑Lambiam 09:11, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At least some team names don't tend to be translated. For example, "Los Dodgers". Complicating matters is that "Let's Go Wild" is kind of a pun. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The issue with Greek and Latin though is that nouns have to be declined and Wild is a proper noun in this context and that's what's tripping me up. I have a reference question (talk) 22:29, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In this case the appropriate grammatical case is the vocative. Both in Latin and Ancient Greek, the vocative is identical in form to the nominative (the usual dictionary form) for plural nouns, including plural proper nouns. ‑‑Lambiam 18:36, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How would I add "Minnesota" to Eamus Feroces in the right form? I have a reference question (talk) 22:30, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt the average citizen knows what the word "Minnesota" actually means in the native peoples' language, so it would probably have to be left untranslated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the question is how to inflect and place it correctly, syntaxically. As if it was a plural genitive adjective, or something. A guess is 'Minnesotānōrum', but I wouldn't place any large bets on it. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd use Minnesotae Feroces. If you want to say "the Wild of the Minnesotans", it would indeed be Minnesotanorum Feroces (or Feroces Minnesotanorum). The order is not fixed, although putting M last faintly suggests that the attribution serves as a disambiguation because there are also Feroces of other regions. ‑‑Lambiam 12:52, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps render "of Minnesota" as an adjective: Feroces Minnesotenses? Deor (talk) 19:42, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds verily Latin. Esne indigenus locutor? ‑‑Lambiam 08:59, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nequaquam. I studied it in high school and expanded my familiarity in college and grad school, when I focused on medieval studies. Deor (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And I still think that eamus is a poor choice for the verb, since eo is mostly used in Latin for physical movement, whereas Go! in an exhortation to a team has more of a "Strive!" meaning. Maybe Certemus Feroces Minnesotenses. Deor (talk) 17:50, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Double entendres by their nature almost never have a single correct translation: one reading must be chosen over the other. My Latin has been rusting unused since the 90s, so I won't attempt even one, but it might be noted that you're requesting a translation simultaneously of "let us become crazed with fervour" and "Minnesota Wild hockey team, we encourage you to succeed". I'm not sure if these two could even be engineered to use the same verb form. Folly Mox (talk) 12:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Au contraire, ma vieille. Ronnie Barker said the marvellous thing about a double entendre is that it only has one meaning. And he should know. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:06, 10 February 2025 (UTC) [reply]

For more ideas on multi-syllable wording, see "Fight Fiercely, Harvard". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:17, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Fiercely" would be Latin ferociter. ‑‑Lambiam 08:13, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

February 11

Proper term for "heraldic key"

Hello,

I'm trying to translate the Norwegian phrase heraldisk nøkkel (from a book title) into English. I know what it means, but haven't so far managed to come up with anything better than the literal translation "heraldic key". It refers to a directory of symbols used in heraldry, with information aimed at using them to identify the family a particular coat of arms belongs to.

Is there a standard name for this kind of book? Musiconeologist (talk) 01:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps armorial or roll of arms?--216.15.56.15 (talk) 04:05, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, 'armorial' and 'roll of arms' refer to collections of actual 'coats of arms' (technically 'heraldic achievements') either depicted or described (or both). From my shelf of Heraldry books [Disclosure: former member of the Heraldry Society], there is no particular term for such a key of symbols alone, and books about heraldry are often divided into chapters, each illustrating and explaining the appearance, meaning and use of a particular class of symbol (such as 'The Cross', for example). One book I have is arranged alphabetically as an illustrated encyclopedia, and is called A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry (by James Parker, 1894); other books may use other general English terms, like 'Dictionary'. 'Heraldic key' would be an appropriate name for such a list of symbols.

Many early armorials had no particular order, and were often compiled by touring a particular area and adding arms as they were encountered, or adding them as they were granted by the relevant authority. However, an Ordinary of arms is an armorial or roll of arms specifically arranged in some logical order, the earliest English example dating to about 1340. One such influential compilation is Papworth's Ordinary (1874) which re-arranged the contents of an 1847 edition of Burke's General Armory in a logical analytical order (devised by Papworth) according to the field, division and charges of a coat of arms, so that on seeing an unknown coat, one could (with practice) quickly look it up and identify the bearers of it.

From Musiconeologist's description, what he has corresponds to an Ordinary of arms, so "Heraldic ordinary" would probably be a good translation. Hope this helps. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 05:19, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our article Ordinary (heraldry) identifies this as a charge, so heraldic ordinary will be confusing. Perhaps one or more of the following terms are usable: list, index, register.

Books for identifying plants (floras) or animals are sometimes called "key guides"; see e.g. the book title Cronin's Key Guide to Australian Mammals. Occasionally just "key" is used, as seen in the book title Key to the Families of North American Insects. The sense of key is presumably "identification key"; perhaps that of nøkkel in the phrase heraldisk nøkkel is likewise that of bestemmelsesnøkkel. ‑‑Lambiam 07:57, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As a Swede with a Norwegian father, I agree that nøkkel in this case should be interpreted figuratively, similar to an answer key. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:53, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That does agree with the NAOB definition, which seems to me to confirm that the range of Norwegian meanings of nokkel is very similar to that of English meanings of key. There's a Norwegian Heraldisk nøkkel article, which is where I found out what it is, but I couldn't find a dictionary entry for the phrase. Search results mostly bring up either that article or the book in question (Heraldisk nøkkel by Herman L. Løvenskiold). So I think it's probably pretty specialised in Norwegian too. Musiconeologist (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And I've just noticed that the Heraldisk nøkkel article mentions the Løvenskiold book as an example, saying that it lists the symbols alphabetically by their heraldic names. Musiconeologist (talk) 18:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

remarkable, for many years in the eye of my mind you have been an american otaku 130.74.58.166 (talk) 16:20, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As Lambiam noted in another comment, "key" is a standard English term for a guide like this, so I don't think it needs any further translation. I would suggest that "Key to Heraldry" or "Key to Heraldic Symbols" might be a better phrasing, to avoid confusion with the idea of the heraldic use of the image of a key. Iapetus (talk) 13:03, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given that Heraldisk nøkkel is the entire title, I'm reluctant to introduce too many explanatory words, so I think I'll go with either Key to heraldry or Heraldic key, but add a brief explanation of what it is. It seems there isn't a more standard term, and it is basically an identification key for symbols used in heraldry—so as you say, key seems entirely appropriate.

What I'm doing is adding English translations of titles to a bibliography that lists Norwegian sources. Several of them are followed by a comment about how they're relevant—so I can just include the explanation in the same way, without affecting the format at all. Musiconeologist (talk) 18:13, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

February 13