Language desk
< March 16	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	Current desk >

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.

March 17

Translation from Latin

I'm looking for a translation for this sentence which is part of a botanical description written by Ferdinand von Mueller:

Caroli Wilson cujus imprimis auxiliis detectioneum hujus plantae praepulchrae demus.

Thanks, --Melburnian (talk) 00:35, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are you certain that what you posted is a complete sentence, and not a sentence fragment? Are you certain that he wrote "detectioneum" and not "detectionum" or "detectionem"? Are you certain that you have not omitted one or more words?

—Wavelength (talk) 01:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC) and 01:18, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I did not transcribe that quite right:

"Caroli Wilson, cujus imprimis auxiliis detectionem hujus plantae praepulchrae debemus." The original version is here for context. --Melburnian (talk) 06:04, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's still not a complete sentence, but the continuation of the preceding sentence (the dot before it is an abbreviation dot, not a full stop). Rough translation: "I have named [this plant species] after the name of the famous Carl Wilson, to whose initial help we owe the detection of this splendid plant." Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:20, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that gives me the clarification I needed.--Melburnian (talk) 07:45, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Paterissa

1) When was this word first used meaning a crosier? Or who might know?--Christie the puppy lover (talk) 20:04, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2) Also do different designs represent status or rank of some type?--Christie the puppy lover (talk) 15:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

According to Merriam-Webster it means "a crosier surmounted by a small cross from whose base issue two serpents", and comes from "New Greek pateritsa, from Middle Greek pateriza, perhaps diminutive of Greek pater-, patēr father". Other than that, I couldn't find anything. It seems to be peculiar to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Alansplodge (talk) 18:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--Christie the puppy lover (talk) 21:03, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I found a search result (but not a preview) of the The Encyclopedia Americana: The International Reference Work, Volume 8 (1958) which says: "The paterissa did not come into general use by bishops in the East until the 15th century." Alansplodge (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Again thanks.--Christie the puppy lover (talk) 20:36, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Aleksandr Preobrazhensky and Max Vasmer say it came from Greek πατερικόν (βάκτρον) plus Slavic suffix -ica /-t͡sa/.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:47, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

German for mint-flavored stomache-pain elixir

I occasionally take a prescription elixir for abdominal cramps. My co-worker used to accuse me teasingly of drinking on the job. I told him, Es ist nur mintzeschmeckedes Magenschmertzwasser mit ja ein Bisschen Alkohol. (I.e, "It's only mint-flavored tummy-ache water with, yes, a little bit of alcohol.") I am curious if a native speaker can say whether the compound words I made up are well-formed, and if the whole sentence is cromulent. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~Isn't the German word for 'cherry' Kirsch, and not Mintze?~~ Sorry, I didn't read your translation.

KägeTorä - (影 虎) (もしもし！)

20:50, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, you were correct to catch that; I was sloppy, and have fixed the header. The original formulation was cherry-flavored, but they have changed it to mint for some reason. μηδείς (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, some of your words are nearly correctly formed, but unidiomatic. Others are less correct ;-). Magenschmerzwasser would be a correct word (Schmertz with 't' went out a long time ago), but the idiomatic word is "Magenwasser". "Es ist nur ein Magenwasser mit Pefferminzgeschmack und einem Hauch von Alkohol" is my suggestion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:09, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pfefferminzgeschmack, right? Lesgles (talk) 22:31, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's just mint-, not peppermint-flavored, and Pfefferminzgeschmack means peppermint flavoring, the noun. I wanted to say something like minzausschmeckend if that's possible. In any case, I did shorten the term to Magenwasser, which seems to be a happy coincidence or guess on my part. When in the world did Schmertz become Schmerz? Was that with the recent spelling reform? μηδείς (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, "Schmertz" went out before any of the books I own was printed. And I do have an early copy of Dominik's Das stählerne Geheimnis. Looking at Google Ngram, it seems to have been quite out by 1800. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 02:43, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ach, mein Hertz! How about ausschmeckend? any good? μηδείς (talk) 02:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Duden doesn't know "ausschmecken" which doesn't mean you can't form it, and it can be found, but here the verb is transitive and you wouldn't apply it to the elixir, but to the person doing the tasting/sampling. When you schmeck something aus, you keep it between your tongue and palate for a long time, absorbing all aspects of the taste until it tastes no more. Similar to the way auskosten is used. ---Sluzzelin talk 08:45, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Medeis, the native speakers can correct me, but compounds ending in present participles of stative verbs usually start with adverbs, not nouns, so minzschmeckend* sounds really awkward. More typical is a compound like übelriechend. You can write "nach Minze schmeckend", but that is a bit stilted. Mit Minzgeschmack is more idiomatic. Marco polo (talk) 14:58, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to form ausshmecken by analogy with aussehen, which doesn't mean to look at intently, but to appear. I wonder if schmecken has an English cognate. μηδείς (talk) 18:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Medeis, the English cognate of schmecken is "to smack", as in "that smacks of cowardice". Originally, it had the same meaning as in German, "to taste (intransitive)". Schmecken can be (and probably most often is) used intransitively, unlike sehen, so no form analogous to aussehen has been needed. By the way, Geschmack usually means "flavor" or "taste" rather than "flavoring". Marco polo (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So, to sum up, "Magenwasser mit Minzgeschmack?" μηδείς (talk) 17:34, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ja, natürlich auch mit einem Hauch von Alkohol. 100.0.109.246 (talk) 00:10, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ja, aber es ist nicht nur ein Hauch, aber ziemlich viel, 23%. My thanks to all. μηδείς (talk) 05:51, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Laboursome?

Is laboursome a proper word in English? I have used it sometimes, but now I am confused as I cannot find it in my printed dictionaries (two of them, one English—Finnish, one English-only). --Pxos (talk) 22:46, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's in the Oxford English Dictionary, which sits behind a paywall. It's absence from the free http://www.oxforddictionaries.com indicates to me that it's not a common word. —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 23:46, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)It does exist, but not used very often.

KägeTorä - (影 虎) (もしもし！)

23:47, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The term "worrisome" means "causing worry". So does "laboursome" mean "causing labour"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:48, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(Yes, if gruesome, handsome, and lonesome mean causing grue, hand, and lone, respectively.) ―Mandruss ☎ 00:12, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Handsome originally meant easy to handle or ready at hand.[1] Gruesome includes a non-English root and means to cause fear or shuddering.[2] Lonesome means alone to a considerable degree.[3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:14, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have used it in the sense "requiring hard work". If it really is that rare, can you English-men still understand it without effort, or can there be a person who doesn't understand it easily? What word should I use instead? --Pxos (talk) 23:58, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard it in my life, and would have to guess its meaning from context. The OED says that meaning is "rare or dialectical". The only current def they give (though perhaps at least archaic) is with a ship, being subject to labour. (Labour here meaning pitching or rolling violently in heavy seas.)

Oh, the word you're looking for is probably laborious. A less common one is toilsome. — kwami (talk) 00:09, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I guess that I have picked up an unhealthy number of English words from watching too many films like this. --Pxos (talk) 00:35, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another word to consider is arduous. Marco polo (talk) 14:49, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. I heard that word used last night on a TV news report about an AFL football team from Western Australia that played a game in Melbourne and was unable to get a flight back to Perth when they wanted it, so they had to stay overnight in a hotel in Melbourne. No cost to the players, nice clean sheets etc. Please meet the new "arduous". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:46, 19 March 2015 (UTC) [reply]

So does a laboursome ship make the voyage arduous while throwing up repeatedly can be toilsome in front of the laborious seamen? (This is not a stupid attempt at a pun, I am trying to find out the nuances of the several words that have been suggested to me.) --Pxos (talk) 21:00, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]