Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)

[Drydic]

It's just outside of my own usage generationally, and is probably moribund, but crick [kɹɪk] still exists out here, and is vehemently distinguished from creek by those who still use it. Speaking from my own generation, though, for local features (theoretically there are streams up in the mountains but I couldn't name one) I've never used stream, creek, or crick, the term always having been ditch; a couple of years back I was rather startled to learn that the neighborhood water feature of my childhood, which I had always referred to as the ditch and been readily understood, is officially named Five Mile Creek (which is pretty ludicrous, since it really was nothing more than an irrigation ditch until construction on a store nearby mysteriously managed to physically upgrade it into a stereotypically meandering (eastern) american stream o_O). We don't have a lot of moving water features out here that aren't large enough to be unquestioningly referred to as rivers.

[Qwynegold]

@linguoboy: Isn't a sound the water between two islands, or between an island and the mainland?

[Radius Solis]

"Dry creeks" are the equivalent of "arroyos", "wadis", or "billabongs" elsewhere.['/quote]In Arizona these are called washes.

"Sound". incidentally, isn't part of my active vocabulary outside of proper names like "Puget Sound". Larger inlets are "bays", smaller ones are "inlets" (particularly if they embrace a stream mouth) or (if not) occasionally "coves".

I don't have "sound" in my active vocabulary either. One might think it would be since I grew up and live near Puget Sound, but it goes the other way: the word is so closely linked in my head to our sound that its use for any other body of water just feels wrong, as though it were cultural appropriation.

Also, we certainly have the distinction you mention where "the ocean" is restricted to open ocean bounded on no more than one side by land. Small or shallow embayments along the coast can be part of "the ocean", but not large deep embayments. On the other hand, it's not as simple as ocean vs. sound: the Strait of Juan de Fuca is neither. We would only call it "the strait". (Canadian usage on this is likely to differ - they have a different strait more salient to them.)

In parallel, "the coast" means the boundary between land and "the ocean" - shores of inland waters like the sound or the strait cannot be called the coast, they can only be "shores".

[Radius Solis]

@linguoboy: Isn't a sound the water between two islands, or between an island and the mainland?

No, that's a strait (if it's large) or a passage (if it's small). A sound is supposed to mean a bay that has lots of islands in it, so that the body of water consists of multiple, interconnected passages.

[sangi39]

On the note of waterways, around here (Swaledale, North Yorkshire) we've got "beck" between "stream" and "river". The Cumbrian side of my family have it as well and as far as I'm aware it's a generally northern thing. Go Danelaw!

[Astraios]

Some Lakota:

waníyetu óta old (humans); not young, elderly (lit. "of many winters")
káŋ old (animate); not young, aged (also used for humans)
tȟaŋníla old (inanimate); not new, worn out
eháŋni old; not modern, of the old times

waníyetu čónala young (humans); not elderly, youthful (lit. "of few winters")
tȟéča young (animate); not aged, young (also used for humans)
tȟéča new (inanimate); not worn out, new (also lečhála in the southern dialect)
tȟéča new; not of the old times, modern

tȟáŋka big; not small, large
háŋska tall; not short, of great stature
waŋkátuya high; not low, far from the ground

čík'ala small; not big, little (also čísčila id.)
ptéčela short; not tall, of little stature
hukhúčiyela low; not high, close to the ground

háŋska long; not short, of great length
tȟéhaŋ long; not short, taking much time

ptéčela short; not long, of little length
ptebyéla short; not long, taking little time

Háŋska and ptéčela both overlap in the sense of height and physical length, whereas temporal length has its own words. Also 'old' has more distinctions than English while 'young/new' has fewer.


This reminds of another one in Lakota - thick and thin:

šóka thick, heavy, dense (single/flat things: boards, ice, books, cloth, etc.)
šmá thick, dense (collective/separate things: grass, weeds, fingers, trees, hair, etc.), also deep (water, snow)
tkápa thick, gloopy (liquids: soup, blood, mucus, cream, syrup, etc.)
akhíšoka thick, dense (of growth: leaves, feathers, thickets, hair, branches, etc.) (also kahíhiyela id.)
čhépa thick, fat (animate: animals, people)
naót'iŋza fat, strong, healthy (from having eaten well, being healthy; fat in a good way)

zibzípela thin, fine (inanimate: cloth, paper, blade, skin, etc.)
ǧaŋǧáŋla thin, lacy, sheer, full of small holes (cloth); ǧaŋǧáŋyela thin, sharp, fine (blades)
ží thin, small, fine, unnoticeable (sounds, voices, hair, etc.)
glakhéyela thin, sparse (of growth: fur, hair, grass, leaves, growth, etc.) (also zazéča id.)
tȟamáheča thin, skinny, lean, poorly fed (animate: animals, people)
iyóyasaka thin, skin and bones, dry, shrunken (from not eating well, being sickly; skinny in a bad way)

And also - dry:

púza dry; not wet
šéča dry, dead, withered (inanimate: old bones, old wood, dead grass, etc.)
sáka dry, dried stiff, hardened (inanimate: hide, fruit, carcass, etc.)
oyáȟe dry, dried up, evaporated (something that should have liquid in: lake, stream, udder, cup, etc.)
tȟatȟápa partially dry, nearly dry (inanimate: meat, mud, clothes, etc.)


The following are the basic colour terms in Lakota:

sápa black vs. ȟóta grey vs. sáŋ dull white, greyish white vs. ská pure white, white

šá red vs. lúta bright red, scarlet, ceremonial red vs. stáŋ dark red, purplish red

tȟó blue, green (of vegetation)

zí yellow vs. ží tawny vs. ǧí brown (sound symbolism - further back in the mouth equals more intensive)

, and all other colours are combinations of the above: redwhite for pink, blueyellow for non-vegetable greens, bluegrey for bluish grey, etc.

And a couple of random ones because I'm bored:

pȟéta fire vs. oná wildfire

okȟáta dry hot weather vs. olúluta humid hot weather vs. omášte sunny hot weather

[Travis B.]

@linguoboy: Isn't a sound the water between two islands, or between an island and the mainland?

No, that's a strait (if it's large) or a passage (if it's small). A sound is supposed to mean a bay that has lots of islands in it, so that the body of water consists of multiple, interconnected passages.

Note, though, that the strait between Denmark and Sweden is typically referred to as the sound.

[Soren]

A few things that I can think of between Czech and English:

Tlustý and tenký cover thick/thin as a physical dimension: books, slices, paper, etc. For some things, e.g. slices, it is common to use silný "strong" and slabý "weak" to talk about thickness. Tlustý can also be used for people ("fat”), though for "thin", hubený is used rather than tenký.

Hustý and řídký are used for thick/thin to talk about e.g. sauces, soups, and fog. They also cover dense/sparse (e.g. settlement). Hustý also collocates with déšť “rain”, with the meaning “heavy rain”.

Čistý covers both "clean" and "pure", and also "blank" (e.g. paper).

Křehký generally means "brittle, fragile", but when talking about meat it means "tender".

Slaný covers both "salty" and "savoury".

Těžký and lehký cover both heavy/light and difficult/easy.

Dát covers both "give" and "put". There is another word for "put" (položit), but IME dát is overwhelmingly more common.

Cítit covers "smell", "taste" and "feel" when the experiencer is the subject and the stimulus is the object (with a stimulus subject there are different verbs).

Lézt covers both "climb" and "crawl". There is another verb for crawl, plazit, which is also used to describe the movement of snakes ("slither").

Barva covers both "colour" and "paint" (and is sometimes used for ink too, though there is a separate word for that).

Kůže covers both "human/animal skin" and "leather". On the other hand, it can't be used for the skin of fruit (slupka, or for citrus fruit kůra).

Ruka covers both "hand" and "arm". There is another word specifically for the whole arm (paže), but I've rarely heard it used.

Noha covers both "leg" and "foot".

Prst covers both finger and toe.

Vozík covers both "wheelchair" and "shopping trolley/cart".

Salát covers both "salad" and "lettuce".

Houba covers both "mushroom" and "sponge"


And now a few things that Czech distinguishes that English doesn't:

Vlasy is used for hair on the head, while body hair is chlupy (both plurals - one strand would be vlas/chlup).

An inside corner is kout, while an outside corner is roh.

A women's business suit is kostým, while a men's suit is oblek.

There is no neutral word for "smell" - vůně is a pleasant smell/scent/fragrance, while smrad and zápach are unpleasant. There are corresponding verbs with the same distinction: vonět vs. smrdět / zapáchat.

Paměť is the mental faculty of memory, while vzpomínka is a memory (of something).

In English you can use "put on", "take off" and "change" for both clothes and shoes; in Czech, there is a different set of words for each:

Code: Select all

               clothes              shoes
Put on:    obléknout si/se     obout si/se    
Take off:  svléknout si/se      zout si/se
Change:    převléknout si/se     přezout si/se

Si/se is a reflexive pronoun - I can elaborate on the distinction if it's useful to anyone, but I don't think it's really important here.

There are several words for "slice": krajíc is used for bread, kolečko (which is the diminutive of kolo "wheel", and can also mean "wheelbarrow") is used for rounded slices (e.g. of cucumber or salami), and plátek is used in other cases.

Movement by vehicle vs movement on foot vs flight is distinguished strictly both in verbs and derived nominals. For example:

Příchod (arrival on foot) ← přicházet (arrive on foot)
Příjezd (arrival in a vehicle) ← přijet (arrive by vehicle)
Přílet (arrival by air) ← přiletět (arrive by air)

Východ (exit for people walking)
Výjezd (exit for vehicles)

[linguoboy]

@linguoboy: Isn't a sound the water between two islands, or between an island and the mainland?

No, that's a strait (if it's large) or a passage (if it's small). A sound is supposed to mean a bay that has lots of islands in it, so that the body of water consists of multiple, interconnected passages.

As I said, these distinctions are all academic to me. I grew up in a completely landlocked state and never did any boating (only canoeing/tubing), so I don't have a rich vocabulary for seascapes.

Note, though, that the strait between Denmark and Sweden is typically referred to as the sound.

By whom? If I had to refer to it, I'd use it's proper (Swedish) name, "Öresund". "The Sound" looks like a proper name to me, a calque of popular Sundet.

[Travis B.]

Note, though, that the strait between Denmark and Sweden is typically referred to as the sound.

By whom? If I had to refer to it, I'd use it's proper (Swedish) name, "Öresund". "The Sound" looks like a proper name to me, a calque of popular Sundet.

Well, while the URL for it in English Wikipedia uses its Danish name, Øresund*, in the text of the article itself, it refers to it in English as The Sound before providing its names in Danish and Swedish (including the name Sundet)...

(I have seen it in various other places be referred to in English as The Sound, and have read the historical toll for ships passing through it being referred to as just the sound toll, not the "Øresund toll".)

* I had to replace the original "Ø" in the URL with "O", which Wikipedia also accepted therefor, as the board choked on it in the URL tag.

[Terra]

while humans are completely separate, and are definitely not considered to be a type of saru in the popular mind.

Heck, people don't even like to think/be reminded that they're animals. Hence "animalistic" (and "monkey" and "ape") being used an insult, and all the resistance against the idea of evolution.

Barva covers both "colour" and "paint" (and is sometimes used for ink too, though there is a separate word for that).

Isn't it a common (almost stereotypical) for Germans to use "paint" instead of "dye" or "color" in a sentence like "I'm going to paint my hair green!"?

* I had to replace the original "Ø" in the URL with "O", which Wikipedia also accepted therefor, as the board choked on it in the URL tag.

I am so eager for 1) UTF-8 to become ubiquitous and 2) for PHPBB to disappear so shit like that doesn't happen anymore. Seriously, it's 2013; you'd think that people would've figured out how to make software user-friendly by now.

[Chuma]

sound 4 |saʊnd|
noun
• a narrow stretch of water forming an inlet or connecting two wider areas of water such as two seas or a sea and a lake.
• ( the Sound ) another name for Øresund.

so it does make sense, since this particular sound is indeed connecting two wider areas of water.

[Terra]

Here's another semantic area that I bet differs even between different dialects of English: cords, ropes, and strings. English has many words these things: cable, rope, cord, yarn, string, thread, wire. And to top things off, they're often related to the words for line, fiber, sinew, guts, entrails, intestines.

1) I've given them in the order of their width (widest to narrowest).
2) I'm not sure how yarn and string differ (if at all).
3) Yarn, string, and thread are fabric.
4) Wire is metal.
5) Cables and cords are wires covered with a rubber coating.

[Astraios]

Yarn is wool, string is whatever string is made of.

[clawgrip]

Yarn is wool, string is whatever string is made of.

String is made of string? Was this a typo?

[linguoboy]

I don't know why I didn't think of this one earlier, but there is no good Irish translation for "family". There are three common candidates, but they all cover either too much or not enough.

Clann means literally "offspring". So if you say mo chlann, you are technically excluding your spouse.

Muintir indicates an extended family or even an entire community (e.g. muintir na háite "the locals"). Mo mhuintir corresponds to "my folks" (or even more closely to "my people" in Southern American English usage) and can also mean simply "my parents".

Teaghlach is probably the term most frequently pressed into service for official purposes (e.g. dlí teaghlaigh "family law", teaghlach núicléach "nuclear family"), but historically it derives from the same root as teach "house" (i.e. PIE *tegos) and means "household"--that is, everyone living under one roof, whether or not they are related by blood or marriage.

[linguoboy]

Yarn is wool, string is whatever string is made of.

Bollocks. You can make yarn from a wide variety of animal hair, and even from poultry feathers--not to mention plant and synthetic fibers. The main thing that distinguishes it is that it's intended to be knitted (woven, crocheted, etc.) into cloth.

[Astraios]

String is made of string? Was this a typo?

It was physics.

Bollocks. You can make yarn from a wide variety of animal hair, and even from poultry feathers--not to mention plant and synthetic fibers. The main thing that distinguishes it is that it's intended to be knitted (woven, crocheted, etc.) into cloth.

I knew it was something to do with knitting.

[clawgrip]

String is made of string? Was this a typo?

It was physics.

Oh yes, I misread what you said.

[Qwynegold]

"the coast"

"shores".

strait

passage

sound

Huh, I've learned lot's of new things!

[Qwynegold]

Well, while the URL for it in English Wikipedia uses its Danish name, Øresund*, in the text of the article itself, it refers to it in English as The Sound before providing its names in Danish and Swedish (including the name Sundet)...

(I have seen it in various other places be referred to in English as The Sound, and have read the historical toll for ships passing through it being referred to as just the sound toll, not the "Øresund toll".)

* I had to replace the original "Ø" in the URL with "O", which Wikipedia also accepted therefor, as the board choked on it in the URL tag.

Haha, sometimes, in international contexts, they write "Ø̈resund".

[Ser]

Ahora in (Salvadoran) Spanish, which etymologically comes from häc hörä 'at this hour', means both 'today' and 'now' (in the sense that something has changed in relation to the past). Ahora lo vamos a hacer 'we'll do it today' ~ 'now we're gonna do it (we hadn't done it before on purpose or because we weren't able to)'. Ayer nos dijeron una cosa, ahora nos han dicho otra 'yesterday they told us one thing, today they've told us another thing'.

In order to express 'now' in the sense of "just after I stop talking to you" (that is, "right now"), the diminutive ahorita is used.

(In case anybody mentions it, I've also read in some books on Spanish linguistics that some speakers use ahorita as 'when/once I'm able to', 'when/once I feel like it'. I'm personally very unfamiliar with such usage though. If my description can't be applied to most dialects, it's at least true of the dialect of San Salvador.)

[clawgrip]

This reminds me of Japanese kondo, which literally means "this time" but is very frequently also used for "next time." Context usually clarifies.

Also "tomorrow" and "yesterday" in Hindi are the same word ("kal"). I guess verb tenses clarify but maybe someone who knows more about Hindi than I do can clarify.

[Drydic]

Ahora in (Salvadoran) Spanish, which etymologically comes from häc hörä 'at this hour', means both 'today' and 'now' (in the sense that something has changed in relation to the past). Ahora lo vamos a hacer 'we'll do it today' ~ 'now we're gonna do it (we hadn't done it before on purpose or because we weren't able to)'. Ayer nos dijeron una cosa, ahora nos han dicho otra 'yesterday they told us one thing, today they've told us another thing'.

diareses? Might want to consider a different font/font size...

[Ser]

Ahora in (Salvadoran) Spanish, which etymologically comes from häc hörä 'at this hour', means both 'today' and 'now' (in the sense that something has changed in relation to the past). Ahora lo vamos a hacer 'we'll do it today' ~ 'now we're gonna do it (we hadn't done it before on purpose or because we weren't able to)'. Ayer nos dijeron una cosa, ahora nos han dicho otra 'yesterday they told us one thing, today they've told us another thing'.

diareses? Might want to consider a different font/font size...

It's not about the font. Since I'm using a netbook that's not mine, I can't be bothered to add stuff to the keyboard layout like macrons. I'm sure Zompist gets I meant to use macrons by using diereses/cremas.