Language desk
< March 15	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 17 >

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 16[edit]

choom[edit]

Is "choom" a word? My family has used it for years to mean what cats do when they get over energized and bounce off the walls of the house -- "chooming." They are prone to do this in the middle of the night. Oy veh! --Halcatalyst (talk) 02:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This link says it's an Australian word for "Englishman." Those wacky cats, getting English all over the walls. It's entirely possible that your family derived the word from another language, though. Do your parents have any non-English language background? If not, my guess would be that it's a made-up onomatopoeic word to describe that particular craziness, sort of like "zoom." --Fullobeans (talk) 07:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That must appear in some very obscure context, because I have never heard an Australian refer to an English person as a "choom". It's usually "pommie" or "pom". I've certainly heard "chum" pronounced that way in certain English dialects (as in, dialects used in England). -- JackofOz (talk) 08:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is also the possibility that sundry herbs and spices, utilised for the atmospheric enrichment of your humble abode, have a blissful nocturnal effect on the feline residents. See pakalolo and "choom gang" (of which a noted politician seems to have been an inhaling member in his class of ´79). --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 09:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The word "choom" (actually, "chooma") may be borrowed from Russian, probably via Yiddish. In Russian "chumnoi", "ochumelyi" means violently crazy; it may indeed be used to describe an "over energized" pet. In standard Russian "chuma" (чума, pronounced "choomah") means plague, as in bubonic plague. Overexcitation is one of the symptoms of plague in humans; that is the origin of the word. --Dr Dima (talk) 10:21, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They used a lot of Russian-based words in A Clockwork Orange (book and film) - could it have had its genesis there, perhaps? -- JackofOz (talk) 18:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to Google Books, 'choom' does not appear in the book, at least with that spelling. Algebraist 19:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure it appears in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (which also has a lot of Russian words) - but with a meaning closer to 'chum'. --ColinFine (talk) 08:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Methinks it comes from the Spanish verb chumar, which can refer to intoxication by everything from alcohol to hallucinogens, and which derives from "achuma," the mescaline-containing San Pedro cactus native to the high, dry areas of South America. Conjugation: chumo, chumas, chuma, chumamos, chumaís, chuman. "Estoy chumando duro" = "I'm tripping hard." Toanke (talk) 06:50, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gaoliang[edit]

From the Peking Duck article: "The oven is preheated by burning Gaoliang wood (Chinese: 秫秸; pinyin: shú jiē) at the base". Does anyone know what the Gaoliang, or Gaoliang wood, is? Is it from a particular tree species? Is it pre-treated in a certain way? Thanks in advance, --Dr Dima (talk) 03:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~I'm not sure but it might be Jujube. See Quanjude#History, [1], and [2].~~ Oda Mari (talk) 05:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oops. Sorry. My mistake. What was I thinking? Oda Mari (talk) 04:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From my Google search for "秫秸 English", the fourth result is

Chinese Dictionary - Words : 秫秸,PinYin,Translate,Definition,Explain,

which says "sorghum stalk". -- Wavelength (talk) 05:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the second page of my Google Image search for the expression, I found a picture of apparently a field of sorghum, and another picture of apparently a bowl of sorghum. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it IS sorghum, we have an article on gaoliang. Well, a redirect. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 06:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, shú refers to sorghum, and jiē means "straw".--K.C. Tang (talk) 07:00, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I really appreciate the rapid responses. Yes, I saw the sorghum article while doing search for Gaoliang; but I thought it was irrelevant as Sorghum sp. are grasses. Probably, sorghum straw is used to preheat the oven, and then hardwood is used for the cooking proper; that way the smoke from the burning straw is not a problem. --Dr Dima (talk) 09:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am curious about the second character in zh:高粱. I recognize the first character as being the Chinese radical for "tall", but I do not know what the second one means. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

according to wikt:粱, it means "the better varieties of millet". —An gr 14:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Angr. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gaoliang (Kaoliang in Taiwan) also is the name of a potent white alcohol. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hebrew: US official language[edit]

Hi! In this essay (first non-italicised paragraph) there is a claim that the first ever American dissertation was a Harvard one on Hebrew. It also suggests that the first Congress wanted to make Hebrew the official US language. Is this actually true? :-) ╟─Treasury Tag►contribs─╢ 09:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edenics seems to suggest that Hebrew is the "original" human language. As such, the site can be assumed to have some vested interests in such claims. BTW, the USA has never declared English to be the official language, though quite a few individual states have passed such legislation. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:14, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like a variant of the Muhlenberg legend. —An gr 11:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is perfectly true that Hebrew played an extremely prominent role in higher education in New England during the 17th and 18th centuries... AnonMoos (talk) 11:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The essay linked to in the article Angr linked to has this sentence: "In the 18th century there were rumors that a few Brit-bashing superpatriots campaigned to have the new nation drop English in favor of Hebrew, French, or Greek, considered in the late 18th century to be the languages of God, rationality, and democracy, respectively." TomorrowTime (talk) 13:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In his book "The Jewish Connection", M.Hirsch Goldberg writes (pp.151-52) that "When Harvard was founded, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were taught there, and Hebrew was given the most attention. All students were required to spend one day each week for three years on it, and those preparing for the ministry had to learn to read the Jewish scriptures in the original Hebrew." He continues that Yale, Columbia, Brown, Princeton, John Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania also gave courses in Hebrew, and that the university seals of Yale, Columbia and Dartmouth incorporate Hebrew. "So prevalent was the study of Hebrew that a new textbook 'The Hebrew Sun Dial' was introduced to make it easier .... a Hebrew correspondance course was taught by a Yale professor." Simonschaim (talk) 14:48, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are these words German?[edit]

Oi pinakes anakoinwsewn stolismenoi --Christie the puppy lover (talk) 15:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. Looks like a transliteration of Greek. —An gr 15:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to Google Translate, it means 'Bulletin boards decorated'. Algebraist 15:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the w=omega equivalence is informal "net Greek" and/or inspired by the Symbol font... AnonMoos (talk) 16:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me to be one of those joke phrases that when read fast sound like a different language. Here's a German one: "Mähen Äbte Heu? Nee, Äbte mähen nie Heu. Äbte beten. (Do abbots make hay? Nope, abbots never make hay. Abbots pray.) Many Germans will swear this couldn't be German and would usually bet it's some Asian dialect on the first take. It's obvious when they get to read the text themselves, but when it's read out loud the sounds are misleading. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 14:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mairzy-doats and dozy-doats and little lamzy-divey... —An gr 15:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Pas d'elle yeux Rhône que nous." Edison (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Får får får? Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm." --Pykk (talk) 19:41, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames (marvelous, if you can get it!) -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

À l'eau, c'est l'heure. 79.66.127.79 (talk) 23:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Habermas and Anglo-Saxon[edit]

Has anyone heard an interpretation of Habermas's work as a completion of the merging of anglo and saxon cultures? —F^red ¹1⁴ 20:12, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What does that mean? The Angles and Saxons were two of the three traditional components of the Germanic conquest of Britain (the third being the Jutes), but neither group was unified (in terms of the Heptarchy, the Angle kingdoms were Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia; the Saxon kingdoms were Wessex, Sussex, and Essex; while the Jutish kindom was Kent), and I'm not sure there was really any very great cultural differences between the two (as opposed to certain linguistic differences in their spoken dialects). AnonMoos (talk) 00:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking if Jürgen Habermas may be seen as a philospher who, in his thinking, unites the conflicting German and Anglo-Saxon schools of philosophy (as in: Immanuel Kant, GWF Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche versus Roger Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Bertrand Russell)?

We have got a somewhat related article here. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the concept was also explored by a few of the lecturers at University of Woolloomooloo. Habermas was not, however, mentioned. --Fullobeans (talk) 11:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]