to run out of x

[Terra]

I imagine that this phrase ("to run out of x") doesn't translate well literally. I recall that Ket uses "the flow of x ends/stops". What do other languages use?

[Astraios]

Hebrew uses 'X is finished to me':

nigmár, nigmerá, nigmerú li ha-X
finish.PASS.PST, ~:3SF, ~:3CP to-me the-X

[linguoboy]

One of the most common expressions in German is alle sein, lit. "to be all [pl.]". This has always puzzled me; Kluge says it's likely an ellipsis for "alle verbraucht", i.e. "all used up".

As I recall, a plethora of other formulations are used regionally. There's a good dialect map of them, but I'm blanking on the link.

ETA: Found it: http://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/runde-5/f07a-c/. The question in the dialect survey is "Es ist keine Milch mehr übrig. Die Milch ist..." ("There is no more milk left. The milk is..."). The most common answers were "leer" ("empty"), "alle" (vide supra), and "aus" ("out"). More peripheral responses included "gar" ("done" in the sense of "cooked through"), "fertig" ("done" in the sense of "finished"; also "ready"), and Luxembourgish "eidel" (cf. StG eitel "vain").

[----]

Navajo uses the same word for run out as it does for 'flee'.

anííchą́ą́' - it fled or ran away from something; it ran out

However, there's a disparity between the parallel terms "It flees X" and "X runs out of it":
shits'ą́ą́' anííchą́ą́' - I ran out of it
sits'ániníchą́ą́' - it escaped from me

[Rui]

Mandarin has the resultative complement -完 (wan3), which basically means "finished". It's frequently used in phrases such as 吃完了 (chi1 wan3 le, finished eating), but also like 卖完了 (mai4 wan3 le, sold out), which is one context in which "to run out of x" is used. I think it works in many other contexts too.

You can also say 告罄 (gao4 qing4), my dictionary app gives the examples 弹药告罄 (dan4 yao4 gao4 qing4, the ammunition has run out) and 库存告罄 (ku4 cun2 gao4 qing4, out of stock).

[Shrdlu]

Swedish, få slut på x - literary get end on x.

[clawgrip]

Japanese uses 無くなる naku naru which translates to something like "become not there". Incidentally, it also means "die" (written as 亡くなる). For things like power you can also say 切れる kireru "cut" (vi.)

塩が無くなった。
Shio ga nakunatta.
We've run out of salt. (LIT. The salt has become not here.)

電源が切れた。
Dengen ga kireta.
It's run out of power/the power's cut out. (LIT. The power cut.)

[din]

Dutch has: x is op (meaning x is up, in the sense of used up).

These, I'd imagine, come from the verbal prefix op-, as in opeten (lit. to eat up, to finish a meal or item), opdrinken (to drink up) and opmaken (lit. to make up, but it means to use up).

So it's very similar to 'verb + up' in English, but used more consistently and in more situations. We can say things like "mom, the toilet paper is up!"

[Qwynegold]

This is one of the concepts I think English doesn't express very well. Swedish uses an adjective, and Finnish an adjective/verb (?), that means "end".

Shrdlu already mentioned Swedish, but I thought I'd expand on it:

Vi fick slut på mjölk.
we got end on milk
We ran out of milk.

Vi har slut på mjölk.
we have end on milk
We have run out of milk.

Mjölken är slut.
milk-DEF is end

This last one also means "we have run out of milk", but is more convenient because it doesn't mention who has run out of milk, instead it makes milk the subject of the sentence.

In Finnish one doesn't usually mention the owner of the object that has run out:

Maito on loppu.
milk is end
The milk has ended.

One would have to use a genitive construction to say "we have run out of milk":

Meidän maito on loppunut.
our milk has ended
We have run out of milk.

[linguoboy]

I didn't know how to say this in either Irish or Welsh, so I had to look it up.

Welsh:
Mae hi'n brin/smit o de arnom ni "We've run out of tea."

Prin is an adjective meaning "scarce" so this could literally be translated as "It's scarce of tea on us." (Smit is a North West Wales dialect term I'm not familiar with.)

Mae'r te wedi dod i ben. "The tea has run out."

Lit. "The tea is after going to head." (Cf. ar ben "finished; over".)

Irish:
Go dtí gur rith an púdar. "Until the powder ran out." (Literally just "ran".)

Tá ár lón rite. "Our supply is exhausted."
Tá ár stór caite. "Our stores are run out."

Rite is the verbal adjective of rith "run". Caite of caith "wear; consume; spend". Like Welsh, Irish can also form an adversativen adjunct with ar, e.g.:

Tá an siúcra rite orainn. "We ran out of sugar." (Lit. "The sugar is run on us.")

[Terra]

電源が切れた。
Dengen ga kireta.
It's run out of power/the power's cut out. (LIT. The power cut.)

What would you say if the power did just cut out, like if the cord got unplugged?

Dutch has: x is op (meaning x is up, in the sense of used up).

These, I'd imagine, come from the verbal prefix op-, as in opeten (lit. to eat up, to finish a meal or item), opdrinken (to drink up) and opmaken (lit. to make up, but it means to use up).

So it's very similar to 'verb + up' in English, but used more consistently and in more situations. We can say things like "mom, the toilet paper is up!" ;)

In English, you can say "Time is up!", but I can't think of any other nouns that "up" works with. Also, in English you can use "be out of x" for a stative/static meaning, instead of the eventive/dynamic one of "run out of x". You still need a subject though.

Examples:
1) We ran out of gas. (eventive)
2) We're out of gas. (stative)
3) *The gas went out. (eventive)
3) *The gas is out. (stative. I suppose that you could say this if like a pipe broke and that's why the gas isn't working, but I've never heard somebody say such a thing.)

1) We ran out of power. (eventive)
2) We're out of power. (stative)
3) The power went out. (eventive)
4) The power is out. (stative. This doesn't have the meaning of the first two that the power was used up. You say this, well, after the (electrical) power goes out, like during a storm. It's not quite equivalent with "There is no power.". The former implies that there normally is power.)

[clawgrip]

電源が切れた。
Dengen ga kireta.
It's run out of power/the power's cut out. (LIT. The power cut.)

What would you say if the power did just cut out, like if the cord got unplugged?

The same thing. Kireru is ambiguous, so you can use it both for batteries dying and for power cords accidentally being unplugged. It's also used when telephones lose their connection.

[din]

Dutch has: x is op (meaning x is up, in the sense of used up).

These, I'd imagine, come from the verbal prefix op-, as in opeten (lit. to eat up, to finish a meal or item), opdrinken (to drink up) and opmaken (lit. to make up, but it means to use up).

So it's very similar to 'verb + up' in English, but used more consistently and in more situations. We can say things like "mom, the toilet paper is up!"

In English, you can say "Time is up!", but I can't think of any other nouns that "up" works with. Also, in English you can use "be out of x" for a stative/static meaning, instead of the eventive/dynamic one of "run out of x". You still need a subject though.

Examples:
1) We ran out of gas. (eventive)
2) We're out of gas. (stative)
3) *The gas went out. (eventive)
3) *The gas is out. (stative. I suppose that you could say this if like a pipe broke and that's why the gas isn't working, but I've never heard somebody say such a thing.)

1) We ran out of power. (eventive)
2) We're out of power. (stative)
3) The power went out. (eventive)
4) The power is out. (stative. This doesn't have the meaning of the first two that the power was used up. You say this, well, after the (electrical) power goes out, like during a storm. It's not quite equivalent with "There is no power.". The former implies that there normally is power.)

I'm not sure if you're replying to my comment about 'verb + up' in English being similar, but I was thinking of things like: round up, finish up, end up, wind up...; which all have a sense of process --> completion, much like Dutch opeten (etc) in relation to eten (etc).

So, for me, the variable was the verb.

[Thry]

Spanish also goes, "X has finished [itself] to me": se me ha acabado X or "I've stayed [myself] without X" me he quedado sin X.

[linguoboy]

In English, you can say "Time is up!", but I can't think of any other nouns that "up" works with.

"The jig is up!" (Also found with "game".)

Paradoxically, the more common meaning of "up" with nouns is "elevated", e.g. "Crime is up." With food, "ready" (e.g. "Fries are up"), though this may be specific to restaurant jargon.

[Thry]

With (male, usually) genitalia: Cock is up, meaning erect.

[linguoboy]

With (male, usually) genitalia: Cock is up, meaning erect.

1. Never heard that in my life.
2. That comes under the definition of "elevated".

(If that was meant to be a joke, my advice is try harder.)

[Thry]

It's not meant as a joke (but you thinking that is probably related to 1. - check google). And 2. not exactly, it doesn't have to do merely with position but with texture, but sure, you can stretch the category.

[Torco]

Cock is up I parse unambiguously as "its cock time" or "its the turn of the cock". Whereas in spanish the metaphor for an erection is up-related stuff, in english erections are typically concieved and spoken of in terms of hardness [woodie, hardon, boner]. cock is hard is unambiguously erection: cock is up, or elevated, or raised, sounds completely like a description of some clinical procedure [raise penis of patient with the penis crane, hold it in place as infrascrotal incision is performed...]

[linguoboy]

It's not meant as a joke (but you thinking that is probably related to 1. - check google).

¿Crees que acabo de caer del nido?

And 2. not exactly, it doesn't have to do merely with position but with texture, but sure, you can stretch the category.

Disagree. "Erect" doesn't indicate texture either, simply position. It's just a fact of biology that for body parts like penes and tails to be erect, they must also be rigid.

The only thing "cock is up" suggests to me is that a non-native speaker is trying to use the idiomatic expression "cock-up" and getting it slightly wrong.

[Thry]

¿Crees que acabo de caer del nido?

I didn't answer before properly, but I don't think this is especially funny. It was not meant as a joke. Your comment was a bit mean - you both dismiss and deem my contribution boring at once, with the sole clue it is sex-related, and now this comment in my L1 seems a bit patronizing. I don't get why sex is such a big deal.

On to the matter at hand, you're commiting the genetic fallacy. Just because "erect" comes from Latin "erigo" doesn't mean in English it doesn't convey as much "hardness" as it does "pointing up". Even if by spatial chance your penis is semi-hard and up, or your tail is coiled up, it's not "erect" unless it is stiff (blood in the corpora bla bla and whatever tails do for being erect - I didn't know you could use that collocation, but I guess it has to do with muscles). More notably, it can be erect and pointing horizontally or down if that's the resulting angle.

Okay, you didn't know the expression, but if you do a google search you can see people actually using the expression. Do you really want to dismiss 800k ghits as non-native speaker failures [some are part of other constructions, but some aren't]?

Cock is up I parse unambiguously as "its cock time" or "its the turn of the cock". Whereas in spanish the metaphor for an erection is up-related stuff, in english erections are typically concieved and spoken of in terms of hardness [woodie, hardon, boner]. cock is hard is unambiguously erection: cock is up, or elevated, or raised, sounds completely like a description of some clinical procedure [raise penis of patient with the penis crane, hold it in place as infrascrotal incision is performed...]

"la tengo más dura que una piedra"

[linguoboy]

¿Crees que acabo de caer del nido?

I didn't answer before properly, but I don't think this is especially funny. It was not meant as a joke. Your comment was a bit mean - you both dismiss and deem my contribution boring at once, with the sole clue it is sex-related, and now this comment in my L1 seems a bit patronizing. I don't get why sex is such a big deal.

Who said anything about sex being a big deal? I've done enough Googling in my day to have some idea what kind of pages "cock is up" is going to pull up, and I'm not about to do that kind of search while I'm at work. Moreover, there is a lot of non-native English on those sorts of sites, many of which are hosted in Eastern Europe and Russia. Find me a citation from a novel, say, and you'll get a more sympathetic hearing.

On to the matter at hand, you're commiting the genetic fallacy. Just because "erect" comes from Latin "erigo" doesn't mean in English it doesn't convey as much "hardness" as it does "pointing up". Even if by spatial chance your penis is semi-hard and up, or your tail is coiled up, it's not "erect" unless it is stiff (blood in the corpora bla bla and whatever tails do for being erect - I didn't know you could use that collocation, but I guess it has to do with muscles). More notably, it can be erect and pointing horizontally or down if that's the resulting angle.

You're simply not making a convincing case that this has to be considered a special extension of the meaning of "up" and can't be subsumed into the general definition of "not down". (Speaking of which, are you prepared to argue that "down" has the specific meaning of "flaccid"?)

[Torco]

Funny: I google cock is up and get half a million hits for "cockup". when i google "Cock is up" with the quotes <meaning i want hits with that exact string> i get mostly porn: my cock is up for you and cock is up [possessive pronoun] ass, for the most part.

I'm gonna go with linguoboy on this one, even though his tone is a bit mean: "cock is up" gets way more hits in porn <much of it being "my greek cock is up for you", which looks to be a particularly popular video, which is surprising, since its a pretty unremarkable, badly cinematographed depiction of a really thin lady performing fellatio> and the aforementioned "up her ass/up my pussy/up his bum" formula. I get the 800k hits as well, but not in the sense of 'erection', except in that vid. at least for the first pages.

I agree, though, that hardness is central to the spanish conception of erections as well... its just that elevation doesn't much seem to be in english.

[Thry]

My case is simply "people use it". A particular video from xvideos is by a guy from Canada, and it is titled by him, so where it is hosted is irrelevant. Other than that, you're not being reasonable. A novel is not the optimal place for sex slang - porn websites are, or fanfictions written by natives which depict pornography, which is probably where I've read it before. As for it being "down", that's a logical extension, yes, but I haven't come across that one.

Torco, I know some are part of a spatial adverbial sequence, I didn't claim the 800k hits are on this particular usage. But some are in the sense of erection=horny, so what is your point? We obliterate those? You also get more of every kind of you switch verbal tenses ("was up").

Also, linguoboy, nobody says it's a big deal, nobody should behave like it is either. Don't jump at the assumption everything sex-related is a joke, that's infantile. And most certainly don't go on with that assumption when specified the contrary. You may offer a more or less sympathetic hearing when you feel certain criteria are met (which can be misled - your asking for a novel here... well); but what you offered here to me was hostility to begin with.

[Torco]

actually googling "penis is up" yields much clearer, cleaner results that indicate Thry's hypotheses, namely that it is used by people, is true. are the people using it natives, i wonder?
however, it only yields 28k results, whereas "penis is hard" yields 10 times as many. so i guess its not as common at all.

also, apparently shakespeare uses cock is up, but he probably means the hammer in a pistol.